Cheshire Omnimedia

So today I was updating the studio comp to the Waveshell 6.0 and it came time to pay the piper. The studio WUP license update was about $100. Not too bad, you might think. But there’s a few catch-ya’s.

1) You have to re-up everything. Not just the Waves SSL license, but everything has to be 6.0. According to the info when you go to update, anyway.

2) The studio’s fee was in the ball park of $180 as we also had to move our Renn Suite up to 6.0. My personal fee, as I have my own license, is $180. For the SSL alone. Total pain going to Waves for me to go G-Channel: $210.

I had heard that Waves was going to a $200 flat fee maximum for WUP. I was sadly mistaken. It’s $200 per bundle. Too bad that means my Musicians II is separate from the SSL Suite. (Though I shouldn’t complain, as I bought Musicians II for $40 based on apparent fluke pricing direct from Waves.)

Why the difference for the studio and me on the standalone cost? I was an original adopter for the SSL suite. Literally the first week it was out I had it running on my personal rig.

Ahhhh. . . the burden of being the first kid on the block.

I’m not Anti-WUP like many people. The change in Waves pricing strategy recently is very welcome as you used to have to pay quite a bit more for WUP. And I like (relatively) inexpensive upgrade paths.

But I still like to complain when it comes to hard earned $$$.

Forums are buzzing over the Waves recent dropping of their APA product line. A quick look at their website reveals that all evidence of the thing is gone.

What does this mean? Native processing is here in a big way. People have been running native for quite some time, but I think with quad-core processing and multi-gig ram we’ve gotten to the point where we can’t max out our processors.

Literally, the state of the business is such that processing has far outstripped needs for audio production. Of course we’ll have more elaborate algorithms in our plugin’s (TDM Tubetech is quite a beast, for example) but we’ve fallen behind Moore’s law.

At the house of Digi is where things get interesting. For the uninitiated, their HD line uses proprietary pci/pci-e cards and separate rack interfaces for I/O. There’s low-latency processing on the cards using custom chips (TDM). You can use their usual native RTAS plugins like in their LE series.

Digi’s I/O plan will probably stay the same. Dedicated cards will feed I/O boxes, but I suspect the days of TDM might be numbered. It’ll take a few years, and most likely the next Protools HD line (which we’re waaaaay overdue for and will likely ship in the next nine months) will still have TDM processing.

It’s just that it shouldn’t.

Gearslutz bemoan Waves APA

One of the things that Apple Computer does best isn’t innovation. Read that again to make sure that you grok it. Let me explain: Apple’s claim to fame is taking existing technologies and combining or refining them into a killer app or device. Ipod? Even when it was new, it certainly wasn’t novel. There were other Mp3 players on the market long before. The iPhone? Individually those technologies aren’t even remotely that amazing. Combined it kicks absolute cell phone butt.

But what does this have to do with online marketing? Or the music biz?

One of the best ways to make money in the business of music is to sell your music online- that’s nothing new or groundbreaking. Social networking isn’t new either. The combination of the two, well, that’s what the guys at Griffle are doing with IndieCrawler.

(A moment of full disclosure: I don’t work for Griffle. I just have quite a few friends who do.)

Indiecrawler allow you to set up music stores anywhere you can put an HTML tag, like the embedded videos you see from YouTube. Now they do the usual store thing, where artists can sell their Mp3’s direct with very little overhead, but where it gets really interesting is that if you want you can allow other people to sell your music. You set the cut they get. Everyone makes money. Imagine if all of your Myspace friends had your track on their page for sell. . .

If you’re in the business of selling music, stop on over and Indiecrawler. You’ll be glad you did.

Earlier I posted about the rumor of a new plug-in for the SSL suite offered by Waves.

The G-Channel appears to be available for a paid upgrade of $153 for those that have a lapsed WUP.

This is all speculation, but I imagine if the sales/support people are talking about it over email with customers, it’s probably due in the next few months. I imagine this is Waves ammunition for the next AES in San Fransisco- though they’ve certainly been busy as of late with the JJP line.

Here’s the source:
http://www.gearslutz.com/

And my post at the Gearslutz new product section:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/

Breaking rumor: with waveshell 6.0 SSL users will get a “G” channel!

More details and speculation when I get back from the studio. Whoo hoo!

This Studio Moral of the Day is a handy no-brainer in ProTools that’ll help you manage your session.

Ever struggled at what to name a comped track after you comped it and are ready to consolidate? Or managed to have a playlist labeled .02 when it’s really take 3?

When you queue up a track for a vocal, think of the virgin track as your comp. As soon as you create it, go to a new playlist. Your Lead Vocal will now be labeled Lead Vocal.01, which should be interpreted as Take 1. This will help when your talking to the vocalist and she/he refers to take three. There’s less to think about, as you have take three as Lead Vocal.03. You comp to the Lead Vocal playlist, so there’s no need to make a Lead Vocal Comp playlist like I used to do.

It also makes your consolidation easier to read and manage in the region bin. (You’ll notice a trend in my last few Studio Morals!)