Rant - software industry

Anyone else been working with digital for ages and just got to the point of being pissed off with it, pissed off with computers and yearning for the days when stuff just worked, just switched it on and just got on with with it?

No flakey drivers, no plugins randomly causing your computer to go into meltdown, no buggy DAWs doing the same, no blue screens, bomb icons or whatever, no USB conflicts, no FW interface having a bad day and refusing to record anything relaiably, or play back reliably. No latency, no computer deciding it wants to does someone thing else and yet showing no evidence of WTF it is spending its time on. No hours of messing about trying to understand why a machine that was fine the day before feel likes it been downgraded to an old 8088.

No company stopping driver support on next to no notice when a new OS came out (whether mac or pc) leaving you high and dry with a load of expensive but now worthless gear? And WTF is with some companies change *more* for a plugin that simulates a still-being-sold analog bit of gear than the original bit of analog gear costs? FFS - I expect a discount for the lack of knobbage at least!!!

Friggin 'pro audio' software industry should be utterly ashamd of itself - in fact the whole damn sofware industry should be. Sadly I work in it and lost count of the number of times Ive gone home in despair because some manager says ship it anyway knowing there are some critical problems and yet not giving a {censored} about the groups of users it will impact... so much for the triage process...

This isnt about my rig - mostly its fairly reliable, but one day a week something hideous will go wrong, or out of the blue drivers need to be re-installed. Maybe once a month perfomance slumps to unusable for several days etc while I loose valuable and limited time trying to uderstand wtf has happened and why etc.

Nor is this just about computers - all the vendors shipping buggy firmware inside their digital hardware, no need to mention the best known {censored}ups here, but we all know who they are.

We all live with it, just a natural consequence of software development? Were told its too complex to get right etc. Ive just absolutely had enough.

If it was a car - can you imaging the deaths, law suits etc - crash has a whole different meaning there. I wonder why the hell we continue to tolerate it. I want companies to have to specify exactly what works and what doesnt and be legally liable to compensate for the stuff that doesnt work under the conditions they claim it will - and they must claim those conditions. Im tired of all this best effort bull{censored}, paying to be a beta tester, legal gets outs that leave us as paying end users screwed time and time again.

This doesnt nescessarily mean zero bugs (it may take years to sort that out), it just means that testing programs have to be better, and vendors way more open and accountable for what they ship and what they have tested, uner what conditions so that each new purchase isnt a huge unknown risk of you becoming a paying beta tester rather than a user.

Why the hell should users have to effectively test everything they could possibly use before 30days (or whatever return period tehre is) is up - they have to right to expect stuff to work.

How often do we defend companies in these forums for bugs and reiterate the complexity, blah blah? Why??? Were end users too and if we aint getting shafted by one set of bugs, then one day its another...

If any company employee is reading this - sort it out!!! I try inside my own - usually just get into trouble for it - for taking a users view rather than a shareholders view.

*applauds*

I work in software, too. Frankly, it amazes me that these incredibly complex systems in our PCs even work at all. I rather miss the days of the relative simplicity of my old C64. Increased complexity means increased chances of defects.

nice rant. It's the updates that drive me crazy.

I do have a reel-to-reel for back up

I guess that's why my main instruments these days are Hammond organ and acoustic piano.

I am however at the mercy of my Nord Stage when playing live - so far so good.

The only software in my system is my MIDI sequencer running on circa-1993 Windows For Workgroups. It ain't broke so I don't fix it.

I am a software developer and have known for years that Windows is the last platform I would design audio processing software. It's optimized for offices, not studios.

all the software/OS problems in the world don't cause as much stress or take as much time and money as hunting down a bad cable or finding/stopping a ground loop in a hardware setup- I went all software in 99 and now spend about a tenth of the time I used to dealing with problems- software and compatibility issues are childs play- there are always free fixes on the interwebz- or free alternatives to stuff that isn't working-

+1

I went from a relatively weak PC, to a hardware setup, then when the weak PC died to a monster PC that could actually run all the software I had.

Much, much more productive on the new machine, stability hasnt been an issue.

I can fix a software hiccup myself, but a broken synth or bad cable is going to cost me a lot more time and money.

It is a valid rant though Khazul, but for me any consequences of working in the digital realm are more then made up for by cost-effectiveness and efficency of workflow.

A77

You have to remember that software is the most complex invention of mankind. You also have to remember that there are a bunch of yahoo's that couldn't program their way out of a paperbag in the industry and the same thing with the QA staff and the management staff and....

Then you go joe blow building litteral crap for free and you pile it all togeather and guess what happens.

Anyway, not sure why you have so many issues with your DAW, mine's perfectly stable. But then again I wont go with a USB or firewire audio interface, PCI only, and I don't use cheapo usb controllers and ....

excellent point- I never understood why some feel like if their software/OS/drivers get an update they immediately have to upgrade- just like hardware you don't have to change your configuration if it works for you! if version 1.6 works for you then stick with it even if version 3.0 just came out- try the new one out- sure- but roll-back if it is causing you grief-

Yeah......imagine getting in your car, turning the ignition key, and getting a blue screen display stating: "unable to start at this time, due to driver conflict."

Don't worry we are getting there fast enough.

Already we have some simple drive by wire systems (gas pedal electronically connected to throttle), systems that monitor tire pressure, cruise controls that disengage if you get too close to the car in front of you, sensors in the seats that only arm the air bags if someone is seated, GPS based nav systems, etc. Things will be really fun once drive by wire gets to control the steering, too In a few years we're going to move from 12V wiring in cars to 42v because of the huge power needs for the onboard electronics (more here).

BTW ever wonder why planes aren't falling out of the sky every day despite all the computerized systems on board? Answer: the FAA has very strict rules about software testing, way beyond what the PC industry would be able to tolerate.

The FAA also has very strict rules about pilot training unfortunately PC's don't have strict rules or any rules regarding users.

MV8800+Triton Extreme+Prophet 08 SE.

Nuff said.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!!

Passengers passively use airplanes to get to their destinations. Pilots fly planes.

Are you suggesting that only a select few 'pilots' should use computers?

well, then what are you waitin for? ditch the computer and buy yourself a used reel to reel deck..

if its that much a bitch, why bother?

Tony: it's hard to tell who you're talking to when you don't quote someone, or address your comment to someone.

LOL! as someone who has had to replace over ten starter motors in beater-cars back in my college/pizza delivery days- I would rather face a legion of burly armoured BSODs than have to rip the flesh off my knuckles again!

Now tho, I bet you'd have to bring in your car to have someone else do it.

Nice thread Khazul- couldn't agree with you more.

2 years ago I sent something similar to keyboard magazine which triggered an unprecedented debate in their letter forum that spanned over several issues.

The way I see it is, its a lot cheaper to develop software than hardware- at least from a manufacturing standpoint.But the problem is that even though computers have become faster and memory cheaper- they are still not powerful enough to run multiple virtuals in concert with a DAW or even in some cases-alone. This forces you to buy multiple computers, drives, added ram, audio interfaces, MIDI interfaces, monitors, etc. This IS the natural course of things, I mean it's not like all of a sudden one day we'd wake up and all of us using computers running everything- it's a slow, tedious, transitional period we must endure for at least 10 more years.

I personally don't like virtual synths- haven't heard any I like,(maybe the Nord Modular) their CPU draining, time consuming and really more expensive when you factor in all of the other {censored} you need to really make them work WELL AND how much time you lose installing, authorizing and booting up. I recall seeing a guy (who was both musically and sofware saavy) with 10 computers and every plug-in, virtual synth, libraries imaginable- took him about 8 hours what I could have done in about 30-45 minutes- no really!

It pissed me off to buy EW Pro XP to learn I could only load about two presets in a 4.5 gig/RAM at a time. Thats a lot of {censored}ing expense for very minimal payback.

I also hate all of these new hardware synths that have addtional hook up to the computer- Ive never got any of them to work for me. If your going to implement it- make it work easily.

Most of the guy I see with virtual synths are the ones doing remixes or dance or some form of electronica sounding music, which I am not involved with.And if this works well for you- thats great! I need pristine fidelity, high voice count and multiple dozens of sounds sets to work on complicated arrangements, orchestrations and layering- and the Mac aint there yet.

But I'm stuck to do so, why? because PROFESSIONAL level hardware got abandoned and cheesy workstations and boutiqee' synths became prominent. Gone are the day of high-end systems like FairlightIII or Synclaviers, or Wave Frames. Roland was on the right track in the early 90 but sold-out and went semi-pro.Until then I will have to wait and waste time with the computer.

Tony: it's hard to tell who you're talking to when you don't quote someone, or address your comment to someone.

I was speaking to the entire forum...

Correction:

But the problem is that even though computers have become faster and memory cheaper- no Microsoft operating system is designed to allow multiple virtuals in concert with a DAW or even in some cases-alone.

It is an engineering issue.

A playable musical instrument requires a real-time operating system, similar to those used in nuclear power plants.

Such systems are designed from the ground up to respond quickly and reliably to external inputs.

This is in direct conflict with the design goals of any multi-tasking O/S, such as windows.

Plus, Intel CPU's are horrible for use in real-time applications.

Features like branch prediction and virtualized interrupts in protected mode become hindrances in real time applications.

Yup.

And those processors ran at less than 4 MHZ IIRC.

The difference is the engineers created their own O/S's which were tightly coded and efficient.

I mean think about it - all digital keyboards have some type of CPU under the hood; my old ESQ IIRC had a 16 bit 6809 and a 6502 for display processing.

We're talking stone age, dog slow CPU's by today's standards.

Yet, no noticeable latency from key on to audible sound.....

The industry is blaming lack of RAM, better this, better that.

It's all bull{censored}.

Until someone can get windows out of the picture entirely and come up with a type of real-time kernel for music apps, it will always be this way.

Or put it this way, you will never have any idea of the true power of the hardware in that box.

Again, isn't it sad that 4 Mhz cpu's could do what our multi-core maxed out PC's can't?

And let's not forget the steaming layer of bull{censored} that is the HAL (hardware access layer). Just one more way that MS gets themselves between the programmer and the hardware.

Unfortunately protected mode on Intel chips does just that - it prevents low level fast access directly to hardware.

This is done in the name of stability and reliability in a home/business environment,....

WADESKeys

I appreciate your input but I dont use a PC for music, never will.

As far as the older mega systems go- they all went out of business before they had the chance to used current tech.

I CAN run several MOTU virtuals,Big Friggin drums and Stylus RMX while running DP5.1 all at the same time. But it has severe latency problems and crashes.