abacab

cparmerlee
 
And even if there is no "making music" happening, I hope that the process of selecting loops does provide some educational value.  I don't see where it can cause harm.

At any rate I am certain that it is safe to call it "art".  Painting with sound, if you will... 
 
Has anybody noticed that many of the younger beatmakers refer to themselves as "producers" or DJs" these days?  Many not explicitly self-describing as musicians, which would imply the ability to play an instrument.
 
Is that a recognition of a new role in creating sounds or performances of the new sonic "art"?

The term has just been refashioned to include people who do everything themselves. Sound design, tracking, composition, arrangement, mixing and mastering. Modern tools has enabled people to become quite proficient at all of these things simultaneously. 

sharke

abacab

cparmerlee
 
And even if there is no "making music" happening, I hope that the process of selecting loops does provide some educational value.  I don't see where it can cause harm.

At any rate I am certain that it is safe to call it "art".  Painting with sound, if you will... 
 
Has anybody noticed that many of the younger beatmakers refer to themselves as "producers" or DJs" these days?  Many not explicitly self-describing as musicians, which would imply the ability to play an instrument.
 
Is that a recognition of a new role in creating sounds or performances of the new sonic "art"?

The term has just been refashioned to include people who do everything themselves. Sound design, tracking, composition, arrangement, mixing and mastering. Modern tools has enabled people to become quite proficient at all of these things simultaneously. 

I agree with all of that.  We should not insist on applying our old terminology to what a younger generation is doing today.  I am guessing that much of what we did at a younger age could have been considered noise.  I hope we can all recognize that within that "noisescape", one can find some interesting and artistic things.  What we call the process isn't terribly important.
 
But I think the broader point here, to get back on track, is that SONAR (and Cakewalk) had clearly become a niche that was loved by an earlier generation and had little interest to younger people.  The SONAR technology is great, but it is in a crowded field, making it impossible to survive.  And as time passed, we saw a vicious circle where the remaining users pushed the company deeper and deeper into the niche.  It was a death spiral.
But I can see a completely different picture if this tech is integrated with the other things Bandlab is doing.  I could use that a lot.
 
I am more involved in with education than commercial production.  Today I have a planning meeting for a new video that will introduce students to the sound spectrum, overtones, and timbre.  I'm using RX6 heavily for that one.  I can already see some great angles for drawing students into music theory by having them collaborate on a song composition with the Bandlab-type stuff.  And in the future, if there is integration all the way back to the DAW, that's how I can draw students into the world of commercial sound production.
 
In other words, I don't give a damn about "keeping SONAR alive", so to speak.  But I am very interested in seeing the next generation of capability, which should include the familiar DAW capabilities.

cparmerlee
But I think the broader point here, to get back on track, is that SONAR (and Cakewalk) had clearly become a niche that was loved by an earlier generation and had little interest to younger people. The SONAR technology is great, but it is in a crowded field, making it impossible to survive.  And as time passed, we saw a vicious circle where the remaining users pushed the company deeper and deeper into the niche.  It was a death spiral.

I do not agree at all! In my opinion they should have strengthened the niche. This is the only way to survive!
With your theory a lot of car producers have run into trouble. Just coping the ideas of the competitors and building the same car models with a different make name is really a death spiral! But this is very modern!
 
That's why I am convinced Sonar has to go its own way, not as a copy of S1, Reaper, ... or as something completely different. The trick is that they have to SELL its strengths and assets to a new niche target group. There have to be great marketing ideas to make it popular, to make producers and musicians learn about its brilliancy.

Are we just changing the name to SPLAT?  Since it has to change any way?

I always look forward to your posts James, as I always find them insightful and they so often echo my sentiments.  On the issue of 'loop manipulation is music' I have to diverge; the main point of my post being that I fully understand all the various arguments supporting the proposiiton but they fail to convince me, and I certainly don't buy one of the propositions that BOFs just don't get it!  Best wishes,

John
 
PS: I have in fact experimented and written 'pieces' comprising of only loops, e.g. 'Rosebud':
http://johnsongs.com/page107.html
 
 

marled

cparmerlee
But I think the broader point here, to get back on track, is that SONAR (and Cakewalk) had clearly become a niche that was loved by an earlier generation and had little interest to younger people. The SONAR technology is great, but it is in a crowded field, making it impossible to survive.  And as time passed, we saw a vicious circle where the remaining users pushed the company deeper and deeper into the niche.  It was a death spiral.

I do not agree at all! In my opinion they should have strengthened the niche.

That niche was old guys with fading memories of the old studio days.  There is no business there.  That's why it failed -- TWICE (Roland and Gibson.)  During the time that Gibson had it another 5-10 very comparable DAWs came on the market fitting into that same shrinking niche.
 
The only way to make a business here is to find a way to grow the product, and you will not accomplish that selling against entrenched players like PT, Cubase, SO and Reaper, not to mention FL, DP, Logic, Mixbus and on and on.
 
Basically I think Bandlab is a positive thing, but everybody here should understand Bandlab will be appealing to the next generation.  They have to.  That's where the only real business is.  That does not have to be a bad thing, but old-timers should be prepared to open their minds to new ways of doing things that are not just like the "old SONAR".  This should happen gradually, so there is no reason for anybody to get bent out of shape about it.  And the "old SONAR" capabilities will probably mostly remain for a long time.

Here's what Haydn, who composed over 100 symphonies, had for technology: a primitive piano-like instrument that probably sounded terrible; a quill (that is, feather) to write with, plus ink; and some kind of "paper" we would probably find disgusting (especially if you're a vegan).
 
I wonder what he would do if presented with our dazzling music technology. He might just say "I don't need any of that, it would just slow me down."
I fear that the more "technology" advances, the worse the musical result is.

Lifetime updates:
 
Shelf life updates is what it should have been called. 

cparmerlee

marled

cparmerlee
But I think the broader point here, to get back on track, is that SONAR (and Cakewalk) had clearly become a niche that was loved by an earlier generation and had little interest to younger people. The SONAR technology is great, but it is in a crowded field, making it impossible to survive.  And as time passed, we saw a vicious circle where the remaining users pushed the company deeper and deeper into the niche.  It was a death spiral.

I do not agree at all! In my opinion they should have strengthened the niche.

That niche was old guys with fading memories of the old studio days.  There is no business there.  That's why it failed -- TWICE (Roland and Gibson.)  During the time that Gibson had it another 5-10 very comparable DAWs came on the market fitting into that same shrinking niche.
 
The only way to make a business here is to find a way to grow the product, and you will not accomplish that selling against entrenched players like PT, Cubase, SO and Reaper, not to mention FL, DP, Logic, Mixbus and on and on.
 
Basically I think Bandlab is a positive thing, but everybody here should understand Bandlab will be appealing to the next generation.  They have to.  That's where the only real business is.  That does not have to be a bad thing, but old-timers should be prepared to open their minds to new ways of doing things that are not just like the "old SONAR".  This should happen gradually, so there is no reason for anybody to get bent out of shape about it.  And the "old SONAR" capabilities will probably mostly remain for a long time.

I think you don't get it! First of all I wonder that you cut out some of my comment above where I tried to explain what I mean with the first sentence.

What you are saying about Cakewalk is your free opinion (I don't believe this was the cause of the decline). But I am convinced that nowadays there are much more important things that make a product fly or not. And in those areas they made the biggest mistakes whether under Roland or Gibson (e.g. marketing, pricing, continuity).
Noel told us one point about the LifeTime thing, there was the idea to make money with great additional components instead (like the Adaptive Limiter) and someone (can't remember who) added that they even thought of giving Sonar for free. For whatever reason the idea had been dropped (Gibson?). But IMHO this was the best marketing idea, because it could have spread the use of Sonar immensely. There are a lot of examples in the IT world of poor products with a clever idea/marketing that came out on the top. All the more it should be possible to push such a great product.

Wonderful! Can't wait