[Stiff]

Originally Posted by Sascha Franck

Maybe he's seen the light, too? So he want's to get away from the old hardware paradigm?

If by "light" you mean "native", then maybe. I don't see a reason to apply religious terms to any of these tools myself

Fact is, you can already do fullblown productions on an entirely native system, including latencies as low as PT offers. For native systems, compatibility is less of an issue, either. So why would one want to spend all that extra money at all?

Indeed. So why do people continue to spend the extra money on PT, because AFAIK, they are. Because of ease of use? Industry standard reputation? Because the neighbors and the school has it? Plug-ins? Non-native processing? I don't know. A fair assumption would be a mixture of a lot of things.

IMO, unless Digidesign comes up with some extraordinary features noone else offers, or some plugins that simply won't run in a native environment, their days will be over more or less soon-ish. Yes, I know, so far they are still enjoying some sort of industry standard praise, but that might as well change quite soon.

Regarding features, have you used elastic audio? There's nothing in Logic or any other DAW I've used that comes even remotely close to it. I've always felt Pro Tools was better at handling audio than the rest, and despite the VI revolution, a lot of people still work with audio.

I think the exchange of features we're seeing in DAWs today are interesting in one way, boring in another, but even if they are getting closer and closer to each other most of them still have some features the rest don't.

I agree with you that the "industry standard praise" might change. Also keep in mind that features doesn't determine the winner of a battle as long as the battle is over consumers. The C64 didn't become the best selling computer at the time because it was the best for instance. Maybe Reaper will shake the world, have all the brilliant features all the rest have and completely take over (in my book that would be pretty awesome to be honest, if they just could make a decent Mac release). Or maybe Reaper will have all the brilliant features all the rest have and NOT take over.

Native solutions are just incredibly much more convenient. People want to be mobile and compatible. And even a little bit of inbetween bouncing (or freezing) is something most folks will happily deal with, in case they can even work on their songs on top of the Kilimandjaro. You simply don't want to carry your HD rig there.
Further, native processing has even outruled some hardware solutions already.

Mountaintop recordings are intriguing, but definitely not something the majority of the engineers and musicians are doing. I'm torn here. I REALLY like the idea of a completely portable system, and it is doable if you're doing a certain kind of jobs but:

1) A lot of engineers will want their high-end preamps to record through, maybe a couple of compressors or an EQ, a microphone collection etc. etc. A lot of musicians will want to have their Fenders, Marshalls, Moogs and so on. Sure you can do location recording with that, but there's a lot of things that take up more space than an HD system. ITB productions - from start to finish - is definitely not for everyone.

2) The whole "record where you want" idea, with flashy ads showing a MacBook and a Duet or Mbox in the jungle or whatever looks good on picture, even in thought, but to be completely honest, how many do you think actually do that stuff often? Again, I LIKE the portable idea and I'm going out TODAY with LOGIC - not PT - to write some stuff, but don't you feel this entire idea is incredibly hyped? Most people I know work in studios all the time, I do it almost all the time myself.

Just look at the virtual synth development. There's nothing like a hardware counterpart for something such as Zebra 2.

Yep, pretty awesome. I'm definitely not an advocate against working ITB. I'll be the first one to say "stop emulating, start innovate".

In 10 years (at best), nobody but the most traditional folks will use hardware for audio processing anymore. There's absolutely no way around it, especially in times of a rather critical situation for both world finances and the recording industry.

Wow! Easy there! The world change, economical crises comes to an end (at least historically) and trends change - but the future isn't certain! Maybe the next big thing is an Mbox/Duet-type of device with the processing power of a HD7? Be careful when predicting the future.

Either way, nice chatting to you