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Creative tools. Everyone is so obsessed with content consumption tools and making TV out of internet, with deprecating desktop in favor of handhelds where you t

by ungzd 10y ago

Creative tools. Everyone is so obsessed with content consumption tools and making TV out of internet, with deprecating desktop in favor of handhelds where you tap ads and take selfies with dog faces. For graphics, everyone still use Adobe products which are not that bad but still few had changed in Photoshop and Illustrator from 1991. For music, DAWs are not that bad and there's no single monopolist like Adobe, but VST system is stinky and stuck in times of Windows 95. People are buying hardware synths (which are just computers running software) only because software on these embedded computers runs reliably, but VSTs crash, freeze every time and require hardware license keys plugged into parallel port. Also, everything inside is complete black magic and every supplier of software pretends that there are super secret algorithms everywhere. Every oscillator and filter is super-secret and super-unique and there's no articles in the open how to design "decent" oscillator and filter. Medival times everywhere. And these tools should be designed for users, not Entertainment Content Production Corporations.

laurentdc 10y ago
> For graphics, everyone still use Adobe products which are not that bad but still few had changed in Photoshop and Illustrator from 1991. As a designer I can tell you Serif is doing great things already. Affinity Designer is a solid Illustrator replacement, most of my printed work for clients comes out of that. People are excited about Affinity Photo and Publisher, which are Photoshop and InDesign replacements. Not to mention UI/UX which is pretty much dominated by Sketch, with very few people using the Adobe equivalent (Xperience Design or whatever it's called). The biggest issue is compatibility though: the vast majority of teams exchange files in .psd, .ai, .indd which are proprietary formats, so there's lots of reluctance to change and difficulties collaborating if someone uses a different thing. It's a bit like Microsoft Office versus all the other formats, open or not.
mattmanser 10y ago
My illustrator friend uses manga studios, he loves it: http://my.smithmicro.com/manga-studio-comic-illustration-software.html http://my.smithmicro.com/manga-studio-comic-illustration-sof...
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  Manga Studio is quite awesome, one of my favorite pieces of creative software ever. I wish it could be used to make vector art too - then I'd never need anything else.
Dragonai 10y ago
A friend and I are actively working on innovating in the context of DAWs and music production, we're specifically trying to modernize the discovery and accessibility of plugins. Nice to see DAWs mentioned here - there's a lot that could be improved in the field and we're hoping to tackle several outstanding issues in the near future. (If anyone's interested, hit the second link in my profile.)
- IAmGraydon 10y ago
  Don't you think it's a bit unethical to collect email addresses with the promise of a download, only to tell the user that the download isn't even available. But hey - thanks for giving us your email!
  - Dragonai 10y ago
    That's on us, our bad - we intended to put the download up right around when we were finishing the site design but encountered a few last-minute bugs. This fell to the wayside, I'll fix it ASAP!
- edraferi 10y ago
  Random question since you're elbow deep in VST land... Have you seen any plugins taking advantage of GPUs? Seems like they should open up sonic complexity that you can't replicate on current hardware synths.
  - joshuaduffy 10y ago
    The audio processing loop wouldn't benefit from using the GPU because we can already hit above audible sample rates. Beefy GPU's are usually noisy too so you don't want one in your rig.
- jason_slack 10y ago
  Can you elaborate more? As an Ableton and Push 2 user, I find plugins very easily accessible.
hamtr 10y ago
There's a lot of cool things happening in the creative tools space. Along with the tools mentioned above, Figma is a good take on how design teams can work together (plus, it's web-based, which is just cool).
IAmGraydon 10y ago
Your reply is pretty far off base, IMO. Creative Suite has evolved leaps and bounds since 1991. It has even evolved leaps and bounds in the last 10 years alone. It's strange to me that someone who really uses Adobe's products would say such a thing. Creative Suite is the only one in the game because it's SO good that there isn't a chance for a competitor to step in. They are also constantly adding new tools to the suite at no additional cost. As for DAWs, I happen to produce music and have used most of the major DAWs over the last 15 years, though I've settled on Ableton Live. I have zero problems with VSTs crashing, and I often run projects with 50+ VSTs running simultaneously. Stolen VSTs can have stability issues, of course. Hardware dongles are also fairly rare. Only a handful of companies use them, and they aren't really a problem at all as long as you aren't in the habit of stealing software. They typically install in the USB port, not the parallel port. Parallel port dongles were used by Steinberg and were phased out long ago. I'm curious - what DAWs in particular have you used, and which VSTs are you having problems with?
tnecniv 10y ago
> People are buying hardware synths (which are just computers running software) only because software on these embedded computers runs reliably, but VSTs crash, freeze every time and require hardware license keys plugged into parallel port. I only know about guitar pedals, but aren't a good portion of these analog through and through?
- ben174 10y ago
  Not really. Real true analog gear is pretty rare these days. Even Roland's recreation of their famous TB-303 is using what they call Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) which emulates the original components in software: http://www.rolandus.com/blog/2014/02/14/analog-circuit-behavior-acb/ http://www.rolandus.com/blog/2014/02/14/analog-circuit-behav... A fun true-analog synth which is pretty fun for a reasonable price is the MicroBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/microbrute https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/microbrute

by ungzd 10y ago

laurentdc 10y ago

> For graphics, everyone still use Adobe products which are not that bad but still few had changed in Photoshop and Illustrator from 1991. As a designer I can tell you Serif is doing great things already. Affinity Designer is a solid Illustrator replacement, most of my printed work for clients comes out of that. People are excited about Affinity Photo and Publisher, which are Photoshop and InDesign replacements. Not to mention UI/UX which is pretty much dominated by Sketch, with very few people using the Adobe equivalent (Xperience Design or whatever it's called). The biggest issue is compatibility though: the vast majority of teams exchange files in .psd, .ai, .indd which are proprietary formats, so there's lots of reluctance to change and difficulties collaborating if someone uses a different thing. It's a bit like Microsoft Office versus all the other formats, open or not.

mattmanser 10y ago

My illustrator friend uses manga studios, he loves it: http://my.smithmicro.com/manga-studio-comic-illustration-software.html http://my.smithmicro.com/manga-studio-comic-illustration-sof...

RUG3Y 10y ago
Manga Studio is quite awesome, one of my favorite pieces of creative software ever. I wish it could be used to make vector art too - then I'd never need anything else.

Dragonai 10y ago

A friend and I are actively working on innovating in the context of DAWs and music production, we're specifically trying to modernize the discovery and accessibility of plugins. Nice to see DAWs mentioned here - there's a lot that could be improved in the field and we're hoping to tackle several outstanding issues in the near future. (If anyone's interested, hit the second link in my profile.)

IAmGraydon 10y ago
Don't you think it's a bit unethical to collect email addresses with the promise of a download, only to tell the user that the download isn't even available. But hey - thanks for giving us your email!
- Dragonai 10y ago
  That's on us, our bad - we intended to put the download up right around when we were finishing the site design but encountered a few last-minute bugs. This fell to the wayside, I'll fix it ASAP!
edraferi 10y ago
Random question since you're elbow deep in VST land... Have you seen any plugins taking advantage of GPUs? Seems like they should open up sonic complexity that you can't replicate on current hardware synths.
- joshuaduffy 10y ago
  The audio processing loop wouldn't benefit from using the GPU because we can already hit above audible sample rates. Beefy GPU's are usually noisy too so you don't want one in your rig.
jason_slack 10y ago
Can you elaborate more? As an Ableton and Push 2 user, I find plugins very easily accessible.

hamtr 10y ago

There's a lot of cool things happening in the creative tools space. Along with the tools mentioned above, Figma is a good take on how design teams can work together (plus, it's web-based, which is just cool).

IAmGraydon 10y ago

Your reply is pretty far off base, IMO. Creative Suite has evolved leaps and bounds since 1991. It has even evolved leaps and bounds in the last 10 years alone. It's strange to me that someone who really uses Adobe's products would say such a thing. Creative Suite is the only one in the game because it's SO good that there isn't a chance for a competitor to step in. They are also constantly adding new tools to the suite at no additional cost. As for DAWs, I happen to produce music and have used most of the major DAWs over the last 15 years, though I've settled on Ableton Live. I have zero problems with VSTs crashing, and I often run projects with 50+ VSTs running simultaneously. Stolen VSTs can have stability issues, of course. Hardware dongles are also fairly rare. Only a handful of companies use them, and they aren't really a problem at all as long as you aren't in the habit of stealing software. They typically install in the USB port, not the parallel port. Parallel port dongles were used by Steinberg and were phased out long ago. I'm curious - what DAWs in particular have you used, and which VSTs are you having problems with?

tnecniv 10y ago

> People are buying hardware synths (which are just computers running software) only because software on these embedded computers runs reliably, but VSTs crash, freeze every time and require hardware license keys plugged into parallel port. I only know about guitar pedals, but aren't a good portion of these analog through and through?

ben174 10y ago
Not really. Real true analog gear is pretty rare these days. Even Roland's recreation of their famous TB-303 is using what they call Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) which emulates the original components in software: http://www.rolandus.com/blog/2014/02/14/analog-circuit-behavior-acb/ http://www.rolandus.com/blog/2014/02/14/analog-circuit-behav... A fun true-analog synth which is pretty fun for a reasonable price is the MicroBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/microbrute https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/microbrute