[Ardour-Dev] Funding: Build and Sell Hardware

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Hans Baier <hansfbaier at googlemail.com> wrote:
> A stand alone
>> computer with sound cards running a rack of Open Source reverb units,
>> signal processors, Jamin, etc., that could work with a generic studio
>> setup. The user would buy their own hardware and would buy a CD from
>> us for minimal cost.the main signal path.
>
> ...
>
>>
>> I think coming in on the side chain using Ardour and lots of other
>> plugins has a better chance of being accepted into a studio.
>>
>
> Selling a rack is a good idea IMHO,
> Users want plugins and they want to them to work without hassle.
> And the Linux Audio community has a lot of excellent sounding
> (but not always excellent looking) plugins.
> Selecting the very best of them, creating nice GUIs
> would make an attractive product.
>
> Hans
>

My view is sort of like telling them we have a reference platform:

1) A PC of their choice
2) An HDSP 9652 or 9636 - something family specific but then with a
few varieties
3) A/D, D/A of their choice

Then we do up some reference racks. As a group we could come up with
ideas about what those racks might look like:

1) Synth/VST oriented
2) Sound processor oriented
3) Mixing/Mastering oriented - sub buses, bus compressors, Jamin on
the master - whatever

Those reference racks would be something like Ardour templates.
Anyway, we work that out, give then a few on a demo CD - All Open
Source, all freely available. However if we come up with lots of other
racks we could have an inexpensive subscription service that gets them
access to these other racks, and then as other soft synths and
processors come out we add them in and they don't have to do any work.
They just get the rack and start using it, but they don't get the rack
unless they subscribe. sure, the smart ones who don't want to pay the
subscription can go figure it all out themselves, but for $50/month
why bother?

If we offer some sort of auto upload service we can even ssh the stuff
onto their box for them so it's all ready to use, and we could do
simple system maintenance for them

Just an idea how we non-developers could work together to provide some
value to future users.

Cheers,
Mark