Can MOTU 3 trick pony added sorely NEEDED 4th trick?

[James Steele]

But let me surrender to you finally as I hate getting you mad. OK, there is no viable incentive for MOTU to make a hardware controller.

There's no need to project. I'm not mad... or even angry for that matter. I'm exhausted after going round about this. I'm reminded of a scene from John Carpenter's "They Live." Anyway, we just aren't going to agree. MOTU is a business with people depending on management making the right decision in order for them to pay their mortgages and put food on the table, and by most measures they are not a big business. They probably can't afford to make many mistakes, so they may be hesitant to put a product on the market when there are third party products that satisfy a good number of users already. They have to have a pretty good inkling that if they make something like what you'd like, they'll sell a bunch. That's what makes them a business and not a charity or some sort of advocacy group, etc. Anyway, if it will happen, it will happen.

[toodamnhip]

But let me surrender to you finally as I hate getting you mad. OK, there is no viable incentive for MOTU to make a hardware controller.

There's no need to project. I'm not mad... or even angry for that matter. I'm exhausted after going round about this. I'm reminded of a scene from John Carpenter's "They Live." Anyway, we just aren't going to agree. MOTU is a business with people depending on management making the right decision in order for them to pay their mortgages and put food on the table, and by most measures they are not a big business. They probably can't afford to make many mistakes, so they may be hesitant to put a product on the market when there are third party products that satisfy a good number of users already. They have to have a pretty good inkling that if they make something like what you'd like, they'll sell a bunch. That's what makes them a business and not a charity or some sort of advocacy group, etc. Anyway, if it will happen, it will happen.

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?
There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different? Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

[Michael Canavan]

There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different?

That's easy, they started making audio interfaces before 99% of the companies out there making them did. Mackie dominated the control surface market with Logic Control and DP was the second DAW that could use it when it came out as Mackie Control. Now it's a flooded niche market. Kids don't want to pay $1k +/- for motorized faders so most controllers are not, this doesn't exactly make for dollar signs lighting up etc.

[James Steele]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?
There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different? Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

I think you answered your own questions. Audio interfaces aren't really seen as "optional" whereas control surfaces most definitely are.

[Shooshie]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?
There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different? Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

I'm not going to re-debate this thread, but let's put this particular quote into perspective. First, MOTU and Opcode pretty much invented the MIDI DAW. Yes, there were others who were concurrently developing it, but if you wanted to run audio and MIDI, you bought Digital Performer or StudioVision, along with an audio card by AudioMedia II, the hardware precursor to ProTools. ProTools didn't do MIDI, and it off-loaded the work of audio recording to other hardware which made it possible to record about four tracks of audio and to edit and mix them. In fact, it started off as SoundDesigner (later SoundDesigner II), which was a very basic little software interface to allow you to get audio into your computer from the AudioMedia II card. I'm not sure of the exact order of that evolution, but I think it was SoundDesigner, SoundDesigner II, SoundTools, and ProTools. That's how I remember it, anyway. It's hard to get the information I'm writing here, because everyone still has a stake in it, and "history" is really public relations, so they have a tendency to leave out everything not critical to getting you to buy their products. I'm telling you stuff from memory, with no stake in the story.

DP's main contribution was that it enabled precision control of MIDI along with that audio from the AudioMedia card. When Macs became powerful enough to do their own audio work, MOTU saw an opportunity that would eventually put their DAW on the same level with ProTools, while giving everyone the opportunity to do professional quality audio on their computers. They made the 2408, and people could now record, edit, mix, and play back audio from their Macs without spending a year's salary on ProTools hardware installations.

MOTU and Opcode both did this, but MOTU survived. Other companies like Steinberg followed. If you read about it, you learn that opinions on the factual history of the DAW are so polarized that many such dissertations leave out all mention of MOTU. But if you were there, you know that the players were Digidesign, MOTU, and Opcode, along with Steinberg (on PC), and Soundscape (PC, and I don't remember who made it. Some say that it was made by a subsidiary of Radio Shack.). The rest were up and coming, but these were the companies who started it all, and most people at the time only considered the Mac side as the real players.

The 2408, however, like the MIDI Time Piece, changed the industry. It was a revolutionary product which filled a gaping hole between tape recorders and $50,000 ProTools installations. These interfaces changed Digital Performer from a piggy-back DAW on top of ProTools hardware to a first-class independent DAW capable of virtually anything PT can do. This would not have been possible without a reasonably priced interface. Digidesign had set the bar in the other direction, such that other manufacturers believed they could charge any amount for a multi-channel audio interface. The MIDI and Audio interfaces made by MOTU are essential and integral to Digital Performer, such that they form a basic trio. Throw in Mach5, and you've got the power to do pretty much anything in music or audio. And when you use a MOTU interface, as opposed to one by another company, you are benefiting from one of the original players in this business.

To clarify: MOTU hasn't just decided to take on that market; they co-created it and developed it. It is essential to their business, or had you noticed that the pure MIDI sequencer has been dead for about 15 years? MOTU has something in common with Ford, Edison, Standard Oil, Steinway, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. They each created entire markets for products that weren't necessarily the first of their type, but each one developed the market and the product to the point that you could say without too much argument that they co-invented them.

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Now, a controller surface for DP is a specialized combination of computer keyboard, mouse, and MIDI keyboard. It is an accessory for apps like Digital Performer.

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Are we clear on the difference between MOTU's audio interfaces and a potential workstation controller surface?

Good.

Shooshie

[Michael Canavan]

MOTU and Opcode both did this, but MOTU survived. Other companies like Steinberg followed. If you read about it, you learn that opinions on the factual history of the DAW are so polarized that many such dissertations leave out all mention of MOTU. But if you were there, you know that the players were Digidesign, MOTU, and Opcode, along with Steinberg (on PC), and Soundscape (PC, and I don't remember who made it. Some say that it was made by a subsidiary of Radio Shack.). The rest were up and coming, but these were the companies who started it all, and most people at the time only considered the Mac side as the real players.

Just to geek out a bit with you on this, because I love this stuff too.
Performer and Studio Vision were far ahead of Cubase with audio, they started I believe years before Steinberg had Cubase do audio. (three years earlier according to wiki!) Certainly if you include DP being able to use the Audiomedia cards etc. Conversely though Emagic and MOTU were probably the first two real contenders in the MIDI workstation as we know it. Steinberg started on Atari then moved to Mac, then to PC/Windows. <--- That's why I think it's unfair that a lot of people think Cubase was the DAW that survived GUI MID sequencer days, they along with Emagic/Logic switched from Atari to Mac/PC. and MOTU are the ones that were early in both MIDI and audio sequencing abilities.

Another thing, Steinberg are claiming that the graphic timeline is their baby, which I don't think is 100% true?

[James Steele]

MOTU and Opcode both did this, but MOTU survived. Other companies like Steinberg followed. If you read about it, you learn that opinions on the factual history of the DAW are so polarized that many such dissertations leave out all mention of MOTU. But if you were there, you know that the players were Digidesign, MOTU, and Opcode, along with Steinberg (on PC), and Soundscape (PC, and I don't remember who made it. Some say that it was made by a subsidiary of Radio Shack.). The rest were up and coming, but these were the companies who started it all, and most people at the time only considered the Mac side as the real players.

Just to geek out a bit with you on this, because I love this stuff too.
Performer and Studio Vision were far ahead of Cubase with audio, they started I believe years before Steinberg had Cubase do audio. (three years earlier according to wiki!) Certainly if you include DP being able to use the Audiomedia cards etc. Conversely though Emagic and MOTU were probably the first two real contenders in the MIDI workstation as we know it. Steinberg started on Atari then moved to Mac, then to PC/Windows. <--- That's why I think it's unfair that a lot of people think Cubase was the DAW that survived GUI MID sequencer days, they along with Emagic/Logic switched from Atari to Mac/PC. and MOTU are the ones that were early in both MIDI and audio sequencing abilities.

Another thing, Steinberg are claiming that the graphic timeline is their baby, which I don't think is 100% true?

I love this historical stuff too. I'm glad to have been right there as it unfolded too... back when it was big news that Roland had MPS that could do EIGHT tracks of MIDI!! LOL I started out on a PC running DOS. First sequencer app I had was Robert Keller's 48-Track PC. I later started using Cakewalk 1.0 which had a "graphical MIDI editor" if you counted approximating graphics using ASCII graphic symbols.

As far as Steinberg claiming they had the graphic timeline, which is what made me jump into this thread, didn't Passport Master Tracks Pro beat them to it (and others as well)? At least on the Mac side of things? I had friends who swore by that app.

I switched to the Mac for sequencing with a very early version of Performer after being exposed to it in a junior college class. We had a Mac 512K I think. My first Mac was an SE with 20MB hard drive. I was briefly tempted by Studio Vision and Studio Vision Pro and owned those and Performer at the same time and Opcode, to their credit, wrote much more efficient code at the time. I can remember watching Performer start to choke and playback stutter on my SE all because I opened a Event List edit window while it was playing back slaved to SMPTE. LOL

But Shooshie makes a very good point. MOTU helped create the market and having been there and remembering Digidesign selling intentionally crippled systems to keep prices high (I had a one of their systems that was dumbed down... I want to say Project 8?), the 2408 just basically blew up Digi's business model. They finally had to be more competitive on price because they now had some competition. I think this created some major friction between MOTU and Digi (Digi resenting MOTU for playing in their sandbox and forcing them to lower prices), and although it's pure speculation, I don't think Digi had any interest from then on in helping MOTU with issues DP had with DAE later on.

[toodamnhip]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?
There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different? Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

Are we clear on the difference between MOTU's audio interfaces and a potential workstation controller surface?

Good.

Shooshie

Could you repeat that? I wasn't clear....

[Michael Canavan]

Yeah that's cool James.

Me and my band in SF used a Mac + and Opcode at first in about 1986, but we switched to Performer after I got a legit copy with the memorymoog I have to this day. At that point Performer had meter changes while Opcode did not. This was needed after I wrote a song in 13/4 etc. The combination of the Mirage Sampler, TX81Z and the Moog, even with all the cool stuff out now is pretty formidable, especially mixed with live drums and guitar.

Also we all felt that Performer was more stable etc., but this just proves the whole thing about stable versions and unstable versions of software, that a few years later the Opcode version was more stable.

After that band broke up and I moved to Seattle I played in a 'regular' band for years, and didn't get back into computers and sequencing for a while. In 96 or so I bought DP2 and a Powerbase 180. It wasn't until about 2000 that I ever got into audio and audio cards etc.

To tie this in, I ran into a few bugs in 2.7, what I at the time considered show stoppers, parts of audio being dropped when bouncing looped audio… plus it was frustrating for me that a lot of cheap cool VSTs had to be wrapped in Pluggo or the Audio Ease Wrapper. I decided a small bug or two was enough. Cubase 5 was buggy, Logic 4.7 was solid as a rock and I switched. This whole idea that Logic was impenetrable was completely crushed with Logic 7, and subsequently owning Live, Logic, and DP for years now seeing all the upgrades, it's just a DAW thing, every once in a while a version isn't as stable on your particular system. For most people, or a good amount anyway, Logic 7 and 9, Live 8 and 9 and DP 6 were all buggy, or at least buggy for the first half of their life cycles. Some people here are reporting that about DP8, for me it's been solid.

I think that's been the single best part of switching to Logic for 5 years or so, that I realized that all software has bugs at times. Also that not always is it the software. the other night in DP I was trying to draw out some automation curves for Machfive, and inadvertently drew in some random cc numbers. What happened was all of a sudden that track started getting stuck notes. Not just stuck notes, but only ones on certain notes. I had no clue that bad random cc curves could do this? even with the transport stopped??! ! Because of that it took me forever to figure out what the hell had happened? I opened the same Machfive sample set in Live and no issues, then in a fresh DP sequence no issues, then realized after looking at the Event list that it might be the random ccs…. still that was a weird one, and it would have been pretty normal for a user to show up here and blame Machfive for having stuck notes.

As a random side note. My old keyboard player still has that old copy of Performer I had. We discussed him switching from Cubase, and Magic Dave confirmed that if he could find the serial numbers he could switch from Performer to DP for the upgrade price. That's some serious customer service there.

[toodamnhip]

Yeah that's cool James.
Magic Dave confirmed that if he could find the serial numbers he could switch from Performer to DP for the upgrade price. That's some serious customer service there.

He can be a pretty cool guy...that is great customer service.

[Timeline]

Why should MOTU develop its own dedicated control surface when they've done such good implementations of the ones that are already out there? What comparative advantage would they have in that market? Especially now in the iPad age...the low end of the market has been eaten up by TouchOSC.

For one example, the Mackie Control works very well with both Digital Performer and CueMix FX. MOTU implemented support of these well beyond the call of duty: I never really appreciated CueMix until I started controlling it from an MC. Now, during tracking sessions, I have the MC at my side and it follows whatever app is in front, so I can go back and forth between controlling DP and the headphone mixes in the studio. It takes some time and tweaking to get this to work right, but it's worth the effort.

This isn't the MOTU Hardware forum, but I wish they would make it possible to control CueMix from a controller without having a computer in-between (that is, to run Cue Mix inside the interface, instead of on the Mac). This would turn these interfaces into stand-alone digital mixers.

I can see some justification for MOTU making an interface with faders like a Digi 002, but even Avid has downplayed that product.

At the high end (Icon), different story, perhaps. Can DP be controlled by an Icon?

Your fresh opinion on this point is indeed refreshing as if from the mouth of Motu themselves. I think what TDH is referring to is a control surface dedicated to DP only and with similar controls. It may be unprofitable but if it was done exactly like the DP-GUI so no learning curve existed, I would likely save my shekels and buy one too. I have a MC and use it mainly to fader update automation only as it's twice the ease and accuracy of the GUI as the short length faders are basically touchy to use for true accurate updates IMHO.

Again, I join Toodamhip and would love to have one like this with nice moving faders. Just my .02c.

[Shooshie]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?
There are other companies making audio interfaces too, yet MOTU has decided to take on that market. How do you think control surfaces are different? Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

Are we clear on the difference between MOTU's audio interfaces and a potential workstation controller surface?

Good.

Shooshie

Could you repeat that? I wasn't clear....

You're clear as Pyrex! Just as flameproof, too!

Shooshie

[billf]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?

You seem to already know, at least based on this response:

Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

Now you're starting to get what many have been trying to get across in this thread. Audio interfaces are an essential component. Controllers are optional because it is possible to do that work with a mouse and keyboard.

[toodamnhip]

I wonder what the biggest difference is between the audio interfaces they make and this potential controller we’ve debated?

You seem to already know, at least based on this response:

Maybe just because it is a luxury item compared to nuts and bolts audio interfaces that one MUST have?

Now you're starting to get what many have been trying to get across in this thread. Audio interfaces are an essential component. Controllers are optional because it is possible to do that work with a mouse and keyboard.

I think fader based hardware controllers are "optional" to the degree one doesn't know what they're missing when limited using a mouse. As with any business, it is up to any given manufacturer to show the need and create a want for it's products. So hand in hand with developing a product is creating awareness of it's need. So just because the demand seems low doesn't mean no one can not try to change that demand. I'd be surprised to learn mouse mixers knew what they were missing.
Hey, mankind got around before there were cars, trains and airplanes, never even thought of a better way right?
Fader based hardware controllers sure aren't "optional" for me.

[billf]

Faders sure aren't "optional" for me.

Faders != Hardware Controllers.