I *love* SoulSeek

[Slothrop]

Sure, a lot of the time piracy protection merely infuriates legitimate users, and someone using your software may at some point decide to pay for it, and (in the monopolistic model) at least they aren't using someone else's software. But at the other end of the spectrum there are plenty of little fish who get screwed over the moment a crack for their application becomes available.

Actually, (thinking particularly about audio software here) small developers get fucked over even harder by warez - without warez you'd have a situation where people who can afford it buy the top end thing (eg Cubase, Logic) while beginners and hobbyists and poor people buy one of the cheaper alternatives. This makes it a lot easier for smaller players to build both their reputation and their product into something that rivals the big boys, which in turns keeps everyone improving their products to stay ahead of the game.

As it is, people tend to start on a cracked version of Cubase and move to a paid for version if and when they can be arsed and can afford it. A lot of people never even bother to try other programs, which perpeptuates the myth that you need cubase or logic in order to sound 'professional.' Meanwhile the small and medium sized developers who tend to be where a lot of innovation comes from get squeezed out of the market. It sucks, really.

 

[noel emits]

That's an interesting perspective.

Slothrop - am I right in saying you are an EXT user? That's a really good (but rare) example of how having a good product at the right price (and an insanely generous upgrade policy it has to be said) can still be a viable business model for an independent developer. It's just such good value that not paying for it would be churlish in the extreme, even if you are a skint musician.

 

[gek-opel]

What is EXT? As one of those terrible people who have that cracked copy of cubase festering on my hard drive, what cheaper products would you recommend?

 

[noel emits]

What is EXT?

energyXT - http://www.xt-hq.com/ (maybe you know this already)

It's a modular music production environment (PC only at the moment) where one of the modules included is a full featured multitrack audio / midi sequencer. You also get a nice sampler and a bag of midi tricks. The midi editing is excellent IMO, and obviously there's full support for VST / VSTi plugins. A great feature is that it can also be used as a plugin and even loaded inside itself (which allows for all kinds of possibilities, a bit like Reason's combinator). Being modular you can do all sorts of mad routing and midi processing stuff.

There's a helpful and friendly (sometimes a little fanatical) user base and the development is very user led via feature requests and bug reports. The Norwegian developer stays in regular contact on the forum.

It's less than £30 for a license I think, and the big news at the moment is that the software is undergoing a total overhaul and rewrite which promises to push it into the big boys league, minus the bloat. It's also being concurrently developed for Linux. Upgrades to the new version 2.0 will be completely free for existing users apparently.

 

[throughsilver]

The try-before-you-buy thing is key. But why isn't it driving up quality, as you might expect it to?

Because most music buyers in this country accept James Blunt and the Kaiser Chiefs.

 

[UFO over easy]

So as long as artists are making music I like enough to want to hear in proper good quality, I'm going to keep buying. The problem for the music bidneth overall is that more and more people are content with the inherent mediocrity of the iPod or PC speakers...

I bet you a kabillion gold medallions that you couldn't tell the difference between a quality rip i.e. 256kbps or above using decent equipment, and a CD, even on your rather expensive sound system.

It's very rare for me to buy a CD these days.. it's an ugly format, and it's only a matter of time before it's replaced. If I want digital I'll go with mp3s, and there's enough music coming out on vinyl for me to blow my cash on 100 times over.

 

[gek-opel]

Because most music buyers in this country accept James Blunt and the Kaiser Chiefs.

I was't actually referring to this when I questioned why quality wasn't going up. It ws more the killer/filler ratio on albums (outside of any taste based criteria there are still too many albums wth only a handful of essential tracks). Surely filesharing as try-befoe-you-buy was supposed to eliminate this practice?

 

[throughsilver]

I bet you a kabillion gold medallions that you couldn't tell the difference between a quality rip i.e. 256kbps or above using decent equipment, and a CD, even on your rather expensive sound system.

Can and do, brother. I was taken aback by the difference between my burned RTX download and the real deal.

 

[UFO over easy]

Can and do, brother. I was taken aback by the difference between my burned RTX download and the real deal.

That's pretty impressive, I'm not sure I could do that. I don't have a sound system like yours but I've tried it a few times on my hd25s and I can't tell. At 192 or below I can tell fairly easily but anything higher than that and I find it difficult.

Still internet connections are getting faster and its becoming more and more common to find websites selling flacs and wavs

ps: I don't have any gold hope that's cool.

 

[bassnation]

It's very rare for me to buy a CD these days.. it's an ugly format, and it's only a matter of time before it's replaced. If I want digital I'll go with mp3s, and there's enough music coming out on vinyl for me to blow my cash on 100 times over.

exactly - as soon as you bring vinyl into the equation, the audiophile nonsense goes out the window. it has its pros (warm and heavy bass) but overall its a noisy analog format.

i don't need my music to sound pristine and sparkly clean. playing mp3s out may be a different business but for home use, its more than adequate. the audiophile stuff is basically irrelevant to most music listeners. its the equivalent of the campaign for real ale in the audio world.