Upgrade Panic...

[Dronecatcher]

When I occasionally feel stranded by running (allegedly) obsolete hardware, I like to keep things in perspective by looking back on things like this....
Cubase VST 4, note the specs - 64 tracks of audio, unlimited MIDI tracks, 4 effects per channel.....and then note the system requirements:
Minimum 120Mhz processor but a G3 at 300 Mhz "would be very cool"

 

[Altemose]

I love the wording on those requirements. It is almost comical how a 300 MHz G3 "would be very cool" and could do so much audio but is considered useless today.

 

[iModFrenzy]

The screenshots look similar to FL Studio

Love the requirements

 

[Dronecatcher]

What's funny is on modern hardware you'll be advised 64 track audio requires Intel Core, 4Gb RAM etc etc. I'm pretty sure cutting edge musicians weren't held back in 1999 by their G3s

 

[BigRed1]

4 was OK, but as I recall 4.1 was a fantastic release. I'm pretty sure 4.1 was the one where they introduced virtual instruments. I think you could even use auto tune on that release as an add on effect. Not much has gotten a whole lot better since then, honestly.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Not much has gotten a whole lot better since then, honestly.

I think people tend to get trapped in the upgrade cycle and convince themselves they could make better music...if only they had the latest software and hardware...

 

[eyoungren]

I think people tend to get trapped in the upgrade cycle and convince themselves they could make better music...if only they had the latest software and hardware...

I'm not in the music industry but your viewpoint I think is applicable to a lot of things.

I used to hold this view when it came to design software and OS. During the OS9 era (at work) that was pretty much doable as releases came fairly quickly and the company I worked for was frequent enough in upgrades.

But eventually I got so far out on the bleeding edge that there were a few times I was unsure if any work would make deadline because the Mac was non-functional. I learned a big lesson in that being that far out ahead of the curve wasn't so good.

When I first got the job I have now we were on PC using Pagemaker. Technically, I could have left everything alone and still functioned. I didn't, but neither did I get that far out ahead either. The economics of the business prevents that in any case so I've also learned to make do with what I do have.

A PDF is a PDF and as long as it's generated correctly it doesn't MATTER which app made it, nor which version.

 

[Dronecatcher]

A PDF is a PDF and as long as it's generated correctly it doesn't MATTER which app made it, nor which version.

Agreed. I've been 'stuck' in Adobe CS3 for years - for print media I see absolutely no reason to go higher.
But now that so much of a designer's work is beginning to focus on digital content, the upgrade path will ever continue onwards as the online world becomes more and more thirsty for newer hardware.