[ardour-users] To and from Ardour

[Jan Depner]

On Fri, 2005-06-03 at 13:07, Josh Karnes wrote:
> OK all seriousness now...
> 
> I really wanted to use Linux
> I really wanted to use Ardour
> I really wanted to run open-source software
> I really wanted to explore the virtues of LADSPA
> I really wanted to experience the system stability and efficiency of Linux 
> in Audio
> I really wanted to be able to abandon Windows forever
> 
> But unfortunately there are too many holes to fill and we have a studio to run.
> 
> It all came crashing down with a one-two punch starting with my studio 
> partner's computer dying from a lightning hit and the need to immediately 
> get Nuendo+Win98 running post haste on SOME computer, so the available one 
> was my Linux+Ardour box.  So I decided to wait for 1.0 Ardour and rebuild it 
> at a later date and perhaps on different hardware, and give the machine up.
> 
> Then the #2 punch, Paul's email regarding his life changes with respect to 
> Ardour.  That makes the liklihood of 1.0 in the nearish future look a little 
> shaky.
> 
> So the other things that piled up:
> 
> 1.  Reputation. This is meaningless to me, I use what works, but now we are 
> running a not-just-for-Josh studio.  "Nuendo" by now is a known name and 
> "Ardour" is not, so "Nuendo" gets clients and "Ardour" scares them off.
> 
> 2.  Portability.  While Ardour seems to be (potentially) good at importing 
> and exporting some universal project file format, Nuendo is not good at 
> importing and exporting the same thing, so moving projects to and from 
> Nuendo was not likely to be possible.
> 
> 3.  MOTU.  Got gobs of MOTU hardware, not so gobs of support in Linux.
> 
> 4.  VST.  Yeah I know there's some way some day of making it work some.  But 
> at the moment, the hill is just too tricky to climb for the limited use of 
> VST, which work obviously natively in Windows 98 and Nuendo.
> 
> So those four road blocks were precariously counterbalanced by the imminent 
> 1.0 and more stable version of Ardour with promise of being able to run as 
> many copies on as many machines dongle-free as we wanted, and all the 
> windfall of merit from using open-source, etc.  So now, we're back to Win98 
> and Nuendo albeit 1.61 and I'm still remotely successfully staving off an 
> "upgrade" to XP and Nuendo 3.0.
> 
> We have managed to end up with a complete extra machine and we may end up 
> using it for a backup to the main machine, and dual-boot it, still use 
> Ardour but it makes little sense if we own a license of Nuendo (and we do).
> 
> You know Ardour has great potential but is impeded by some things that can 
> be overcome (1.0 stability) and some that may not be overcome (reputation, 
> hardware lack-of-support, easy and functional VST).  I hope to be back in 
> the Ardour camp but for a while at least, I'm going back to familiar Nuendo.

Josh,

    Too bad about the system.  I'm a major supporter of Ardour but I
don't have a studio to run (except my home studio ;-)  Truthfully, if I
were you, I'd look into getting a Mac.  Every serious studio I've been
in has been using them.  They're sure a hell of a lot more stable than
Windoze of any kind.  Hope to see you back here at some point in the
future.

Jan