Peter, I wasn't talking about Truespec machines, and I actually agree with some of your points. You're right that it's not completely trivial to upgrade a board, and you do have to replace the memory as well.

Understand that Macs are my frame of reference. You can pay several hundred dollars for a third-party upgrade card that still doesn't bring a machine up to the latest specs. That's why I say the expense of upgrading a PC is insignificant in this context.

So even if you have to pay someone to upgrade a Giga computer so it can run an advanced reverb (and I probably would, since I've never built a PC), I don't see the expense as being a deterrent to anyone in this market. I know of people who bought extra Macs just to run Altiverb, and that's a much more expensive proposition.

By the way, the $189 combo I saw at Fry's isn't junk, it's a name brand board (Asus, I think?) with Intel 845 chips and an Intel P4. I was curious to find out how much it would have cost me to build my Giga machine instead of ordering it built, and it turned out to be about $50 less - hardly worth it for your first Windows machine.

Anyway, I don't understand why people bother buying cheap PC components. The difference between mainstream and obscure components (motherboard and processor) seems to be less than $100 in a standard machine.

@KingIdiot said:

Thats BS Peter because I dont think that.

I think people CAN learn this stuff

The study said they were reluctant to buy, not because they COULDN'T learn it, but because the language is intimidating and they DIDN'T want to put their time into learning that aspect of technology. People want a need-to-know approach so they can focus their time on MUSIC, not the box, not physical modeling, not 2000 page Windows books, not programmiing, but making MUSIC.

@Nick Batzdorf said:

That's why I say the expense of upgrading a PC is insignificant in this context.

My original comment, which was just a suggestion, has a realistic sales/R&D imperative behind it.

1. The largest base of GigaStudio users own PIIIs and PIIs, followed by P4s. How many? Unknown. Tascam who through their registration process pulls in this data, hasn't released it. Thus, any new product/R&D development must guess at the size of the Giga install base, unless, however, Tascam chooses to release the data.

2. It is a known fact in the software industry, regardless of the area, that the majority of owners do not always update. Therefore some of the sales/R&D questions are:

a. Will Giga 3.0 operate on both PIIIs and P4s, or P4s only?

b. Will Giga 3.0 operate on Win98SE, Win2K, WinXP?, or XP only?

c. Not knowing how many Giga installs their are with each Windows OS and the number of PIIIs vs. P4s, should MIR be designed to work in a P4 system only, or PIII? How many customers would be eliminated with a P4-only version vs. a PIII/P4 version? Should the P4 be the final selected platform, how many PIII users would upgrade and at what cost for the upgrade PLUS MIR?

d. What would the proposed performance differences be between a PIII and a P4?

e. Now that Kontakt imports the vast majority of VSL, will MIR work with Kontakt? Giga only? How about EXS24?

What you've seemed to miss, for the sake of having a passionate discussion, are the number of REAL factors involved with R&Ding a product that will potentially operate in a limited set environment.

YOu can't base your view for R&D on a few friends and contacts who are at the high end. YOu have to read the entire market from low end to high end, plus consider sales growth rates. That's how you need to approach it, from which you create a base of numbers that determine breakeven, etc. And then, you go from there.

for me it sounds unreasonable wasting breath on PIIs, although i've also still two running, but if one of them will fail someday, it probably would be more expensive to buy a new one instead a new system - similar thing with PIII imho, not to mention EDO-RAMs (they cost you a fortune ourdays).
remember not so many years ago a unit as big as a desk full of electronic was needed for a simple color-correction, ourdays it's done in software or by more or less sophisticated PCI-cards. the hard- and software showed up significant improvements over the years.
every 18 months the number of transistors per square-mm doubles, so does the speed of processors. when the cycletime of a PIII went from 500 to 1000 MHz this has been significant, but you don't need to think about it considering the step from 2 GHz to 4 as we notice now.
you simply can't run specific tasks on outdated hardware, independent how good it worked and still works for other jobs. next year we will discuss 5 and more GHz, multiple processors on a chip and the fairly long neglected crossbar-design - so imho thinking too much on backward-compatibility is honourable, but a handicap for groundbreaking new technologies.
just my two bits, christian

@cm said:

so imho thinking too much on backward-compatibility is honourable, but a handicap for groundbreaking new technologies.
just my two bits, christian

Well, as we say in LA, "You da man!" So here's the R&D gamble (e.g., where opinion + market research confront $$$$$$$).

1. IF the development and implementation DEMONSTRABLY shows that the new technology works best with a P4 x.xxGHz or faster, or it is absolutely HANDICAPPED without it, then you must go P4, with the lowest entry point a P4 2.4GHz

RISK - How many current VSL customers are on a P4? How many are on a P3? How many have P4s fast enough to run the new technology? How much effort is involved to upgrade current systems, even P4 1.8GHz if the new technology requires faster speed? How many VSL owners will do this AND order MIR in light of what they've paid so far for the library? Who would be your competitor if the majority of VSL customers couldn't afford to buy it right now?

2. IF the development and implementation shows that a good amount of use can be had from the PIIIs (Minimum specified requirements) what is the result of running on a PIII vs. a P4, and how big is the sonic difference that would cause the customer to upgrade?

3. Is MIR for the GigaStudio computer or for the sequencing computer (working with the final mix vs real time? If for the Giga, and the customer has 2 or more, how many must be purchased to achieve the desired result? One per system? If one per system, how much (projected) would a customer have to spend to upgrade 2+ systems to have MIR on every machine?

RISK - the price of upgrading isn't just about parts and money. It's about the time to make the upgrade, resetting up the system and testing/checking it out, and a point rarely discussed, changing one's work flow to accommodate the change. For the professional writing music FULL TIME, this is a problem. For the person doing for fun, self-satisfaction, semi-pro, time won't be a factor.

Of course, these are lots of questions for just one press release!

BUT!

At the end of the R&D day, you still have to sell enough to make back R&D costs plus and create enough sustainable sales to show a profit (you know, steady employment....)

Another question.

Will it only work with VSL? How about other libraries that were also recorded in stereo and not panned to position?

Basically, the decision path for DSP in aerospace often goes like this:

Do we use a known chip with a proven performance record or try a newer chip that doesn't have the performance track record.

For example, most communications satellites, pretty advanced technology, use PI chips.

Will it only work with VSL? How about other libraries that were also recorded in stereo and not panned to position?


MIR will work with all samples which don't have too much ambience.
Of course we will optimize the setups for our sounds.
It's a great advantage to "tell" the hall engine how the samples are recorded to get best results. So we won't miss this option.

But as Dietz mentioned, there will be an interface which allows to adjust the parameters.

The important thing for me is, that our customers will get an intuitive and a perfect out of the box sounding solution for VSL sounds:

Composing
selecting your favourite concert hall,
place your instruments in this hall,
select the output format (mono - stereo - surround)
Press the "Do it" button.

Done.

best wishes
Herb

My point is, that if they aren't willing to learn this stuff then they SHOULD come to people like you and stop complaining about money or worry about the " [:)]

And yes they COULD learn it. Most of these people in the study probably haven't taken the time to. Not having hte time to learn it, and not being able to learn it are two different things.

and that study is too "general" anyway.

lastly if they DONT think about all these options and technologies, then what the hell are they doing in computer music making?

You CAN write music without this stuff,

have it performed, or hire someone to make the performance via MIDI.

There will always be "simple" computer options for computer illiterate musicians, and more will always show up, but its IMPOSSIBLE to get extremely advanced technology and to any point where they wont have to think about the options and technology. That is until computers get even faster and more intelligent enabling for one to write even more software that will "do things for you".

So having them focus on Piii's is a waste if its about simplicity.

Also, its not attitudes like this that keep people out of "this industry". You AHVE to be willing to learn some things, and it DOES take time. If you dont learn to use Giga Studio, or your sequencer, what the hell are you going to do?

You even offer classes and books and such for Logic, how are these people finding the time to learn this stuff? It takes time and its not easy. Just like learning about Computers and their properties. You dont have to learn EVERYTHING in either, jsut enough to understand how to do things, or what does what.

@KingIdiot said:

My point is, that if they aren't willing to learn this stuff then they SHOULD come to people like you and stop complaining about money or worry about the " [:)]

Actually, no.

The purchasing expectation is that the customer should be provided enough comprehensible basic training materials to get his start from the OEM, NOT on his own, and NOT from third party. Third party training in music is always the last resort, not the first.

As good examples outside of music: Macromedia University, Adobe Online Training (paid), Truespace online 3D art classes, Adobe Press, Microsoft Press.

I'm sorry, I don't agree with you about the study. It only confirms what those of us who train already know by experience. Creating a program is one art, being able to train people in it is the other art.

Alexander Publishing has been creating training guides in music technology since the DX7. Over the years, we've learned that people want to know enough to be productive and do the most fundamental tasks first. At AP, we believe that technology serves music. So our viewpoint is that the more the customer knows about music, composition and orchestration the more able he/she is to decide and priortize what part of the technology they need to learn for what they're trying to do. Such an approach puts technology training on a procedural, need-to-know basic.

@herb said:

Will it only work with VSL? How about other libraries that were also recorded in stereo and not panned to position?


MIR will work with all samples which don't have too much ambience.
Of course we will optimize the setups for our sounds.
It's a great advantage to "tell" the hall engine how the samples are recorded to get best results. So we won't miss this option.

But as Dietz mentioned, there will be an interface which allows to adjust the parameters.

The important thing for me is, that our customers will get an intuitive and a perfect out of the box sounding solution for VSL sounds:

Composing
selecting your favourite concert hall,
place your instruments in this hall,
select the output format (mono - stereo - surround)
Press the "Do it" button.

Done.

best wishes
Herb

Very cool!

But does your answer mean that MIR is implemented on a Giga system, the sequencing system or an independent system like Altiverb?

With Gigastudio version 2.5 MIR will not be a Gigasystem solution.
All 3.0 issues are pure speculations at the moment.

A independent system solution like Alti Verb is the most likely solution from todays point of view.

best wishes
Herb

Peter, as King implied, I don't think learning our equipment is an all or nothing question. It's really a question of where you draw the line - and the line is very fluid for most people. I wasn't interested enough to bother learning to put together my first Giga machine from parts, for example.

Another point: Altiverb is very simple to use. Sampling halls is tricky, but the actual reverb has about three parameters. It sounds to me like MIR isn't trying to make things complicated if it's going through all the steps to place instruments in just a couple of swell foops.

Herb,

Now that you mentioned Altiverb, what will be different with MIR? Is MIR simply a VSL equivalent, or will there be more/better features?

Just curious....

Colin

@herb said:

With Gigastudio version 2.5 MIR will not be a Gigasystem solution.
All 3.0 issues are pure speculations at the moment.

A independent system solution like Alti Verb is the most likely solution from todays point of view.

best wishes
Herb

To follow up on Chris' comments, as we understand it today. Giga 3.0 development is being done on at least one P4, 2.4GHz, 533FSB using an ASUS board (Joe Bibbo's system).

So part of the R&D question is whether or not Giga 3.0 will work on PIII's or if it's totally a P4/XP approach. FYI, Cubase SX came out as XP only, but compatible for PIIIs (minium performance requirements) but best on P4s, better on dual processers.

It'll be interesting to see if Giga follows a similar development path.

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Peter, as King implied, I don't think learning our equipment is an all or nothing question.

I never once said it was, nor suggested, nor implied that it should be.

Now that you mentioned Altiverb, what will be different with MIR? Is MIR simply a VSL equivalent, or will there be more/better features?

I can't go too much into details, but maybe this helps for better understanding:

In the early days of sampling, an instrument was often sampled at only one key and one dynamic, because of RAM limitations.
Early sampled pianos were massively streched over the whole range, and the programmers made workarounds using filtering and other tools to get a proper sound.

Today it's usual to have multivelocity chromatically sampled pianos.

This is similiar to our MIR project.
Basically we want to organize response samples on different room positions with different directions. So MIR supports for each instrument on each room position an individual impulse.

This was my main concept, the technicians are at the moment going beyond my basic inputs, but here I'm getting lost as a simple "musician".
[:O]ops:

best wishes
Herb

... is it also going to be possible to develop MIR such that it can be fed actual audio from outside VSL too? I ask because a lot of projects involve combining live sound with VSL instruments. The system would also gain a massive potential user base then, including those working entirely with 'live' audio. Just wondering, hoping (and/or hinting [[;)]] )

Thanks,

Simon

... is it also going to be possible to develop MIR such that it can be fed actual audio from outside VSL too? I ask because a lot of projects involve combining live sound with VSL instruments. The system would also gain a massive potential user base then, including those working entirely with 'live' audio.

Simon,

What you've noted above is essential. One can't exclude other instruments from the mix. I often use a single solo live player to play a key element in a recording. He'd have to be put in the "same room"!

Regards - Colin

I have been looking around, and I have found that Windows 2000 will not support four gigs of RAM. I will need to buy a server operating system such as windows server 2003 standard editon.