Recommend a USB MIDI controller for me?

[TweakHead]

I agree with what you just said. But on the other hand: if you consider such things as the Adobe's Creative Suite, how many people do you think have really explored the possibilities of the third version, let alone the latest? More often then not, we already have the tools we need at our disposal and marketing gets us excited about the latest advances. But we tend not to think it through, the really hard question, which is: do I really need this new features? So if there's someone out there still relying on their Amiga for Midi orchestration of instruments, that system is rock solid and stable for doing so.

I read an interview with Fat Boy Slim in some magazine (it's a few months old, might have been Future Music or something like that, can search for it if you guys want) where he stated that he was used to his good old Akai MPC and couldn't get his head around Ableton Live that he now owns. The simple change in the interface and the way of working made one of the most successful players on the EDM scene of the 90's feeling like he's got to catch the pace and start from 0. My opinion about that: if it works for you, keep it! Specially when it comes to hardware, there's no such thing as out of fashion. Who would imagine in the 90's that analogue would make such a return? Back then people were simply considering digital to be the obvious evolution, adding more polyphony, more complex waves and types of synthesis into the mix.

You're a software developer. So you can shed some light into this, I'm sure. I'm the kind of person who think that the system requirements for such things as an Office Suite are simply mad. It's been doing just the same thing for as long as I can remember and one of this days it will take a 4 year old top notch gaming computer to run the new version of Microsoft Word that I'm sure will be great but will still be focused on "word processing". I came to such conclusions after setting up a machine (a laptop) with a Linux operating system (mint 14 cinnamon) that comes packed with an Office Suite and tons of tools that work exactly like those we usually pay big bucks for. I'm not going for value for the money here, I'm going for performance and the feeling I get that companies push the limits in order for people to keep buying new hardware to run it - while having the exact approximate performance they had before, just with more fancy looks and color schemes.

In music software this isn't exactly true, because all it takes is to launch Diva and you get the feeling that evolution is actually happening here. But I'm sure there's much more love involved and honest hard work as well, compared to big greedy as hell companies such as Microsoft. Many times we're buying what we already have and worked just fine over and over and if there's a brand new processor that's like a million times faster then our first computer, the coders surely will find a way to make it slow again by using redundant code, by wasting system resources on needless stuff that sits next to the clock and stuff like that.

One of the advantages of music hardware to me is that it's out of this equation. 2 cents.

[namnibor]

THAT is exactly why my dedicated DAW PC build is indeed *just* for efficiently doing audio and some video editing and with Reaper, I am guaranteed a few years at least in future of absolutely free upgrades and features that even to this day the so called industry standard, AVID Pro Tools users, still do not have the flexibility and even some cool features that an open source DAW in which the dedicated developers *actively and fervently* listen to their huge user base in order to implement or even improve/tweak things; at $60. for a non-commercial license, this pleases me because even on the Cockos Reaper Forum, you get support from people that do not have pretentious snarky attitudes. You would be surprised at how many Pro Tools users have switched and AVID being asses, they have gone out of their way to ensure that REWIRE is a mess if a Reaper user tries to integrate within AVID products to include the video editing products AVID owns.
I am not trying to "sell" Reaper to anyone but their philosophy is very much akin to how LINUX is to Microsoft/Apple, giving people freedom to say even remain working perfectly fine on a 3.0 version of Reaper while a 4.7 newest edition is out.
Consumerism and marketing irks the hell out of me and some people really are slaves to it to point on another forum someone was actually trying to tell me that I was a "dinosaur musician" for preferring hardware synths and I did not feed into the argument when they started down the path that the Virus is surpassed by software/vsti and how the Virus sounds "thin" and how effects are only way it sounds beyond thin! All I replied with is, "...and this is coming from someone that utilizes vsti's solely and has no issues oxymoronically stating/boasting about how they had plethora of vsti effects at their disposal for much better sound design than hardware?!!!"

As far as midi controllers go, Novation's announcement few days ago of new Automap upgrade ALSO added Automap to ALL their LEGACY controllers as well! That is very smart and progressive thinking. Am liking Novation/Focusrite more and more as I see a company that ALSO listens to their customers and has excellent customer support.
Early morning coffee rant over!!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by namnibor

THAT is exactly why my dedicated DAW PC build is indeed *just* for efficiently doing audio and some video editing and with Reaper, I am guaranteed a few years at least in future of absolutely free upgrades and features that even to this day the so called industry standard, AVID Pro Tools users, still do not have the flexibility and even some cool features that an open source DAW in which the dedicated developers *actively and fervently* listen to their huge user base in order to implement or even improve/tweak things; at $60. for a non-commercial license, this pleases me because even on the Cockos Reaper Forum, you get support from people that do not have pretentious snarky attitudes. You would be surprised at how many Pro Tools users have switched and AVID being asses, they have gone out of their way to ensure that REWIRE is a mess if a Reaper user tries to integrate within AVID products to include the video editing products AVID owns.
I am not trying to "sell" Reaper to anyone but their philosophy is very much akin to how LINUX is to Microsoft/Apple, giving people freedom to say even remain working perfectly fine on a 3.0 version of Reaper while a 4.7 newest edition is out.
Consumerism and marketing irks the hell out of me and some people really are slaves to it to point on another forum someone was actually trying to tell me that I was a "dinosaur musician" for preferring hardware synths and I did not feed into the argument when they started down the path that the Virus is surpassed by software/vsti and how the Virus sounds "thin" and how effects are only way it sounds beyond thin! All I replied with is, "...and this is coming from someone that utilizes vsti's solely and has no issues oxymoronically stating/boasting about how they had plethora of vsti effects at their disposal for much better sound design than hardware?!!!"

As far as midi controllers go, Novation's announcement few days ago of new Automap upgrade ALSO added Automap to ALL their LEGACY controllers as well! That is very smart and progressive thinking. Am liking Novation/Focusrite more and more as I see a company that ALSO listens to their customers and has excellent customer support.
Early morning coffee rant over!!

If you like the idea of all future upgrades for free, you might try FLStudio, it is "purchase once and all upgrades free for life". Their revenue model depends soley on new signups and sales of new plugins... sometimes their plugin offerings are pretty good and they may get some more of your money that way But it is nice to get the primary DAW, all new features for free etc.

About Linux, there is no comparison to Windows/OSX there, and that's one reason it has almost zero marketshare as a desktop OS, why developing for it is a fragmented clusterfuck, and why nobody goes with Linux as a audio production environment.

About software vs. hardware sound.... in the very few attempts at somewhat scientific tests I've seen, where all things are equal and in a blind test, most people cannot tell whether a given sound is coming from a soft-synth or hardware. That's not to say it is the final word, in fact I'm surprised there have not been more properly conducted scientific studies around this. But one that I have heard universal agreement on, even from the hardware vendors themselves, is that by the time the sound ends up on the final mix, nobody, even the engineers at Moog, can tell the difference between the sound of hard vs. software synths. Does anyone here really listen to EDM and believe they can correctly identify when they are hearing a HW board or soft synth? If so I could recommend a show I recently saw on TV where these self-proclaimed vampires were looking for blood donors on Craigslist... they swore that drinking human blood energized them... lol

If anyone has links to scientific tests that show hardware can be conclusively distinguishable from software in a final mix, I would be glad to read them with an open mind. Just haven't seen them to date.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by TweakHead

I agree with what you just said. But on the other hand: if you consider such things as the Adobe's Creative Suite, how many people do you think have really explored the possibilities of the third version, let alone the latest? More often then not, we already have the tools we need at our disposal and marketing gets us excited about the latest advances. But we tend not to think it through, the really hard question, which is: do I really need this new features? So if there's someone out there still relying on their Amiga for Midi orchestration of instruments, that system is rock solid and stable for doing so.

Adobe CS is one of those apps that I have to own, as a course of work, but it's really a side tool that's not essential to the primary type of work I do, soI tend to not always keep it upgraded to the latest and greatest and when I do upgrade, I just pass the cost along to clients.

But keep in mind Adobe CS is geared toward guys that develop graphics for web, desktop apps and mobile devices. That landscape is always changing (particularly mobile) and new features emerge to cover different scenarios. They may be features that don't matter to you or me if we are not professional graphics designers (I'm certainly not), but they might matter to alarge portion of the community.

The question then becomes, if you don't need professional-grade software, could you get by with something like Photoshop Elements or whatever their low-end offering is? Or maybe you could use something much less expensive altogether like Pixelmator for Mac, or the completely free-of-charge Paint.Net for Windows?

The scenario is just like the difference in buying a $300 home grade lawnmower versus a $3000 professional grade mower. Buy what you need and the maintenance costwill fall in line with your needs.

With software, the maintenance cost is not only to cover new features, but to cover the cost of the labor *just to keep what you have going*. Most of the time, software will not just continue working without maintenance attention, because of the evolving landscape of updates around it.

Originally Posted by TweakHead

I readan interview with Fat Boy Slim in some magazine (it's a few months old, mighthave been Future Music or something like that, can search for it if you guyswant) where he stated that he was used to his good old Akai MPC and couldn'tget his head around Ableton Live that he now owns. The simple change in theinterface and the way of working made one of the most successful players on theEDM scene of the 90's feeling like he's got to catch the pace and start from 0. My opinion about that: if it works for you, keep it! Specially when it comes tohardware, there's no such thing as out of fashion. Who would imagine in the90's that analogue would make such a return? Back then people were simplyconsidering digital to be the obvious evolution, adding more polyphony, morecomplex waves and types of synthesis into the mix.

The example with Fat Boy Slim presents an interesting dilemma in EDM and maybe music in general..... should a musician keep using the same methods to create music or should they let their musical style evolve with the times? Now consider that in EDM, the music tends tobe highly technology dependent and appeals to people excited about technology. Technology must remain innovative to remain exciting. Somefolks will respect an artist or band for not betraying their original musicalstyle if they decide to stay the course with their musical style. Some will chastize them for not moving past it. If they do move past it, a certain percentage of folks will say their old stuff is better, without realizing theold stuff was innovative and creative at the time but would not seem ascreative if it were released in modern times. It's just a dilemma every artist faces... But for many folks in EDM,which is so tech-based, we are partially driven by the love of music but alsofor the gadget geek inside us, and that geek side of us does better wheninspired or excited by technology. This is why sometimes adding a new soft-synth to my already oversized collection sometimes inspires me to make music. Just a different UI and a different typeof sound can inspire me to explore new sound possibilities.

Originally Posted by TweakHead

You're a software developer. So you can shedsome light into this, I'm sure. I'm the kind of person who think that the system requirements for such things as an Office Suite are simply mad. It'sbeen doing just the same thing for as long as I can remember and one of thisdays it will take a 4 year old top notch gaming computer to run the new versionof Microsoft Word that I'm sure will be great but will still be focused on"word processing". I came to such conclusions after setting up amachine (a laptop) with a Linux operating system (mint 14 cinnamon) that comes packed with an Office Suite and tons of tools that work exactly like those weusually pay big bucks for. I'm not going for value for the money here, I'mgoing for performance and the feeling I get that companies push the limits inorder for people to keep buying new hardware to run it - while having the approximate performance they had before, just with more fancy looks and colorschemes.

Originally Posted by TweakHead

In music software this isn't exactly true, because all it takes is to launch Diva and you get the feeling that evolution is actually happening here. But I'msure there's much more love involved and honest hard work as well, compared tobig greedy as hell companies such as Microsoft. Many times we're buying what wealready have and worked just fine over and over and if there's a brand new processor that's like a million times faster then our first computer, thecoders surely will find a way to make it slow again by using redundant code, by wasting system resources on needless stuff that sits next to the clock andstuff like that.

Well as I said, the dilemma with software is that when a single retail priceis charged for it, some buyers have this expectation that they have justpurchased the last word processor they will ever need. They believe they have purchased something like a tangible piece of furniture that should last a lifetime with little or no maintenance.

The truth is, software is much more like a car... it is an ongoing expenseno matter what. If you don't maintain it, it will eventually fails. Maintaining it costs money. Software is similar even though our minds seem to fail to accept it as requiring constant maintenance. Accepting maintenance cost for something tangible and hard like an automobile or home is somehow easier for the human brain to accept.

Microsoft Office needs to constantly maintained by a large team ofdevelopers. Developer labor is very expensive. If nobody upgrades or ever buys the new offered feature, the product must be discontinued. At some point it would just stop working,because the operating system it works on would always be evolving. Why does the OS need to evolve? Can't they just write Windows or OSX once,call it done, then that's the last operating system version anyone would ever need? After all, doesn't it do the samething it did 30 years ago?

Well first of all, you have very real security issues to deal with in OS development. Hackers, terrorists, and general miscreants are constantly trying to chip away at the OS, sometimes forcomplex motive and sometimes just to prove they can do it.

Without constant OS updates, some hacker will eventually be able to write a trojan horse that runs on your computer and mines bitcoins whenever your computer is powered up, depositing bitcoins into his account and making sure your computer is barely usable for music and that your electricity bill quadruples from its monthly average. If nobody is constantly safeguarding the OS against that sort of thing, you are eventually toast. Changes to the OS mean eventual changes to anyor all of the software that runs atop it. That's just the way software works.

You do have the option of just disconnecting yourself from the Internet, but that's a little like protecting yourself from the germs of the world by never leaving the house, IMO. I have heard some people say they disconnect their music computer from the Internet in orderto have a more stable environment for music production, but I'm not sure that'sany better than just keeping generally good security practices.

And, at the end of the day, if you really did disconnect from the Internet with all your computers and hardware, you would at some point be dealing with failing hardware that is no longer repairable because it's no longer supportedby the company that made it (they cannot afford to keep paying the support staff for years or decades if there is no income stream to pay their salary).

Originally Posted by TweakHead

One of the advantages of music hardware to meis that it's out of this equation. 2 cents.

Sort of, but in some ways I see it as the same because hardware has a finite lifecycle, and without inbound revenue it must be discontinued and it will eventually fail and need repair, thus costing you money. What's worse, it could reach a point where itis not repairable to original spec or original parts are simply not available.