I can see the use of Surface for a touch controller but not more than that. I like to see several pieces of virtual equipment (in their entirety) at once on a large screen.

That's one way of working when you have a lot of real estate but it doesn't preclude using the app on a mobile device when you want to capture ideas or do tasks that are not heavily editing related. I see no good reason why it wouldn't be perfectly feasible to use a surface pro with SONAR in a live situation or when you need to record live. You could also do some level of mixing with that resolution.
I mixed an entire set of live recordings once on a long plane ride with just a laptop. How different is that from using something like the surface which is even more portable. We need to make some more tweaks to SONARs UI to allow it to work better on a smaller display, but its not that far off.

>> I think consumers are getting more used to the notion that they can run things on multiple devices and multiple OS.   
That applies to certain classes of apps but its not that common in general. You get apps that work with one vendors ecosystem more often. Apple, Google, Microsoft.. I'm not arguing against it but the resources and testing to build an app that works on every mobile device imaginable AND Mac and PC desktops is prohibitive for most companies.

but when I see some of the leading hardware synth workstations now being built on derivatives of the Linux OS, I do ask myself why is this viable for hardware audio solutions but not for our desktop, which is what it was initially designed for?

That goes back to your problem about who supports Linux. If you are loading your own version of Linux into the firmware of your synth, you can be pretty sure that it will be what you expect. Linux is part of the firmware here, and you can control the code completely. It just saves a lot of coding to use an extant OS, and saves a lot of money to put generic computer parts that are known to work with that OS in the box.


Given enough incentive, a pro audio developer could do something pretty similar: i.e. ship a DVD that would install their own tested version of Linux as a dual boot on a windows machine to run their workstation. But then every plugin developer would have to decide that they needed to recode for linux and so on. 


A consortium of audio developers supporting a linux distro makes a lot of sense, but the up front costs for all of the developers, and the upgrade (crossgrade) costs for all of the users would be immense.


Still if windows becomes so consumer device oriented that it fails as an audio host, linux makes a lot of sense. Linux is already eating Windows lunch in network serving, and is moving up as a platform for desktop use in business. Nonetheless, I expect we will see MS Office ported to Linux sometime during the third ice age in hell.

Years ago, VoIP (Voice Over IP), or even digital audio was an incredibly academic optimism at best. Today, these have essentially become the Norm, amazingly enough. If the technology gets fast enough for us, it's possible our PCs will all be cloud-based. That's not too far-fetched. Here's how it would probably work:

- Your OS (Windows 9 or later) would be loaded in the "cloud" and you would be able to access it over an Internet connection via a new ASUS box, for example. It would do all your CPU, RAM, storage, etc. as much as it can for most users. 
- For hardware, such as interfaces, input devices (keyboard/mouse/touch-screen), Audio interfaces, and requirements of absolute high-speed data needs, these would merely be kept local to you and could simply be thin-OS modules--they would run an "extension" of the OS. Who says Windows can't be modular and portable? This could make it easier to move sessions between studios around the globe...

In the future, bandwidth may become fast enough or wide enough that you could accomplish all audio work in the cloud. 20 years ago, you'd never consider using a device like firewire MOTU units, right? Now, they work quite well. Fiber is now here, too. When we get into parallel spectral lightstreams (DWDM used this technology heavily) you can transfer gobs and gobs of data from one place to another--and FAST!

Who would have ever thought we'd see 100Mbps from Comcast? It's here. 

Over time, the molecular technology will improve to the point where we can achieve less than 3-4ms latency around the globe. That's significant! But in short distances, it's here! 

Until we can get latency and jitter to near non-existence at home or in studios, along with affordable bandwidth to transfer 24Bit/192Khz audio across 24-96 channels of uncompressed bandwidth, I would rest assure you that the desktop isn't going away so soon. Even if it does, we can still use Windows 7/8 for years to come until Microsoft finally cuts them off. People still use XP. It was released 12 years ago.  

 

Noel Borthwick:  
I mixed an entire set of live recordings once on a long plane ride with just a laptop. How different is that from using something like the surface which is even more portable. We need to make some more tweaks to SONARs UI to allow it to work better on a smaller display, but its not that far off.

Very much looking forward to working more that way!  I see my home studio, complete with its big screen and powerful specs as being my mainstay, but there are so many times when I am away that I'd like to use my spare time to continue working on a more portable device that I have at hand.

A cloud-based interface for seamlessly syncing the audio data and project files would be ideal in this scenario, but we're probably some time away from that reality (and practicality).

Over time, the molecular technology will improve to the point where we can achieve less than 3-4ms latency around the globe.


This assumes an unbroken transmission or transducers and repeaters that do not take any time at all to operate.  

circumference of the earth ~40,000 km =4 E+07 m  

4 E+07 / 2 =2 E+ 07 m:  longest distance between two earth surface points 

speed of light in glass (fiber optic) ~2 E +08 m/sec = 2 E +11 m/ms 

2 E+ 07 m / 2 E +08 m/sec = 0.1 seconds = 100 ms: shortest trip to the ends of the earth 

4 E-03 ms x 2 E+8 m/s = 8 E+05 m in 4 ms = 800km or ~500 miles: distance to connect two points via light in 4 ms 

I am afraid you will need more than molecular technology--you will need warp drive. 

Jim Roseberry

I just posted a link on another thread just yesterday about benchmark tests done using sonar and widows 8 the tests don't lie, sonar x2 uses less resources on windows 8.

I like Win8x64 just fine...   
And this isn't intended to be argumentative...
But I can tell you from much experience (and numerous other well-respected DAW builders agree), that X2 doesn't see major performance gains under Win8 vs. Win7.
We've compared side-by-side.
Across numerous current-generation builds, X2 performance is nearly identical under both Win7 and Win8.

I've always respected your opinion Jim, will continue too as well.  :)
sometimes people don't always agree, that's okay, ive learned a lot from your posts.
that's all that really matters.
 
peace man  :)

slartabartfast


Over time, the molecular technology will improve to the point where we can achieve less than 3-4ms latency around the globe.


This assumes an unbroken transmission or transducers and repeaters that do not take any time at all to operate.  

circumference of the earth ~40,000 km =4 E+07 m  

4 E+07 / 2 =2 E+ 07 m:  longest distance between two earth surface points 

speed of light in glass (fiber optic) ~2 E +08 m/sec = 2 E +11 m/ms 

2 E+ 07 m / 2 E +08 m/sec = 0.1 seconds = 100 ms: shortest trip to the ends of the earth 

4 E-03 ms x 2 E+8 m/s = 8 E+05 m in 4 ms = 800km or ~500 miles: distance to connect two points via light in 4 ms 

I am afraid you will need more than molecular technology--you will need warp drive. 

Well, scientifically speaking maybe 100ms is the best we can ask for for light, but the good news is, your local Cloud will be within 200-300 miles from where you're at or the latency-sensitive part of your setup will stay local to you.   

Well, scientifically speaking maybe 100ms is the best we can ask for for light, but the good news is, your local Cloud will be within 200-300 miles from where you're at or the latency-sensitive part of your setup will stay local to you.

And the bad news is that communication must be 2-way (double the latency) and the handshaking protocols, and inevitable transmission/repeater delays will introduce much more latency than the absolute limit imposed by the speed of light. In the box only has to communicate between memory and CPU in the box.

Noel Borthwick : "I mixed an entire set of live recordings once on a long plane ride with just a laptop. How different is that from using something like the surface which is even more portable. We need to make some more tweaks to SONARs UI to allow it to work better on a smaller display, but its not that far off. "

You certainly seem to be going down the phone app path and I can't fathom why. Your product is a high class daw, not Angry Birds.

Sure you can make something that'll work on a tiny device, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I get the feeling your plan is just to cash in on the portable device app craze, not offer a high end product that is a joy to use in a high end environment.

I'd much prefer your company spend its efforts in getting your powerful daw into a bug free and user friendly state instead of squeezing it to run on a tablet or phone.

It really seems that marketing has overtaken common sense.

Is your market really the youngster, always-on-the-run crowd ?
Do you really think you can achieve a quality mix on a street corner or in any airplane seat ?

Please don't forget the stay-in-one-place users with real studios.

... windows 8 is indeed faster than windows 8, I think anyone here how has used it successfully will agree.

 
I'm not so sure... I think Windows 8 is faster. Just my opinion, though.