Dave Lebolt leaves Digidesign for Apple?

[Dan Phillips]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

Fine with me, I think Avid is a much stronger brand name than Digidesign anyway.
Digidesign, to me sounds like something thought up by a non native english speaker.

I like the name just fine, but I think it's interesting that it's an evolution from the company's original name, Digidrums (from when their business was making replacement sound ROMs for drum machines).

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

Fine with me, I think Avid is a much stronger brand name than Digidesign anyway.
Digidesign, to me sounds like something thought up by a non native english speaker.

Digidesign has been around since about 1984. They are twice as old as AVID actually.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by oceantracks

I said they had priorities, and Logic is not one of them. One update in nearly two years should tell you something, especially when they update didn't even fix some of the major complaints people were griping about, like the track comp stuff and folder bugs.

Digi updates their software constantly, and their tech support is second to none. Apple will bar you from their forum for even speculating about what new features might be coming or when they may arrive (well to be fair, you will receive an email warning first).

I want the DAW I spend hours a day in front of to be the main focus of the company who makes it. If you believe that to be the case with Apple and Logic Pro, more power to you.

TH

If you were remodeling ...would you paint a wall that due to be knocked down?

I would think that a 15 year vet like Lebolt wouldn't bolt from the defacto standard to a company that had audio as a low priority but who knows stranger things have happened.

[oceantracks]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

If you were remodeling ...would you paint a wall that due to be knocked down?

I would think that a 15 year vet like Lebolt wouldn't bolt from the defacto standard to a company that had audio as a low priority but who knows stranger things have happened.

In this economy, and with some things that have been happening lately at Digi regarding the true creative people there, you might want to consider that Dave left for other reasons than a possible wild revamping of Logic by Apple

TH

[kk@jamsync.com]

Originally Posted by Jules

People move jobs all the time. Perhaps Dave hit a glass ceiling at Digi and there is more upward movement possible for him at Apple?

A little bird recently told me "Digidesign" will get re branded to be "Avid" over the next year or so. The film and audio devisions wont have two separate corporate ID's any longer - just the one - "Avid".

That was obvious from the announcement this spring. There was a thread about it in the post forum on the DUC weeks ago. Branding will not make any difference if Avid doesn't follow Apple and Adobe and make all the branded apps work closely together.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by oceantracks

It's not a bitch fest, more a reality check. Lebolt is going to a company whose priorities are iPhones and iPods, not pro audio.

And by hiring Dave it would appear that Apple might be looking to set a higher priority for pro audio.

[putte]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Yes but attempts to make the connection between iPods and Apple not caring about Pro users is a logical fallacy.

got any proof, regarding Logic?

[postprosound]

These threads always make me laugh. Somehow, they always turn into a 'bash Digidesign' free for all. Despite the level of professional reliance on, and prevalence of both AVID and Digidesgn products, this forum, as a generality, is very biased against both of them.
Perhaps we should have a little perspective in this matter:
First, while i've been enjoying the reading of this forum, it seems that the many who bash AVID and Digi do so because of the price of the product, the lack of ADC, and thus not wanting to spend the cash to upgrade to HD. Notice i say many, not all. YET, many will lush over a Brauner, or a Neumann (or preamp or mixer.... whatever) costing MANY thousands of dollars, the turn around and bash AVID/Digi's price, even though an upgrade might cost LESS that one of those mics! How often have he heard someone say, 'Neumann really sucks, their business model sucks, everything about them sucks, i'm going with ______(insert lower price brand here).' ? Many will stand in line to spend their hard earned money for these very expensive, all be it very excellent, microphones, the turn around and complain about AVID/Digidesign. The point i'm trying to make is that the logic/sets of standards applied to AVID/Digi are many times not applied elsewhere, and vice versa.
Second, lets get real; These are huge, publicly traded companies. I'm sure that Dave Lebolt is a very wonderful, passionate person. But he's just one bee in a very large hive. Sure, he's was a VP, but gaining or loosing a single person is not going to alter a companies profile that much. As an example, Andrea Jung is on the board of Apple. She's the CEO of Avon. Yes, that Avon. Has Apple sold that many cosmetics lately? Mark Papermaster is the Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering. He joined apple in 2008, from IBM. Did you notice any change in apple when he came on board? These are giant companies. And although the the Ladies and Gentlemen who serve as VP's and Presidents make things happen, in the end large committees always have the final say.

[ORGANIK]

There was an interesting article recently regarding apples secrecy and some weird things they do to keep stuff secret there even to own their employees.
check it out below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/te...pple.html?_r=1

[DaydreamInSound]

Originally Posted by Jules

People move jobs all the time. Perhaps Dave hit a glass ceiling at Digi and there is more upward movement possible for him at Apple?

A little bird recently told me "Digidesign" will get re branded to be "Avid" over the next year or so. The film and audio devisions wont have two separate corporate ID's any longer - just the one - "Avid".

I agree, if there are talks of merging the companies maybe he simply donned his lifejacket, jumped ship and swan to a desert island in the sun for security.

But on the other hand, and regarding digidesign's next hardware move; wasnt it leaked at the last digidesign conference that HD would go native in the future??

Adds another twist to the tale...

dfegad

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by Tony Shepperd

Charles and KK, do you know of anyone running PCIx in a chassis and switching to a new PCIe Mac? Then running a adapter PCIe to PCIx card? I understand it saves you from having to upgrade all the HD cards. I believe the adapter card is $1100.

I'm doing that. Works fine, but I hate the extra latency.

-R

[Football]

Originally Posted by RKrizman

I'm doing that. Works fine, but I hate the extra latency.

-R

Extra latency??? WTF? My buddy is about to do that exact "upgrade" and hasn't heard a peep about extra latency. Do you mean when tracking there is added latency?

[RKrizman]

The problem I've encountered is in using RTAS instruments. From their site:


<<Important Information Related to RTAS Real-Time Monitoring Latency
Systems using the Digidesign Expansion|HD chassis will incur slightly increased RTAS® real-time monitoring latency compared with systems in which HD cards are installed in the host computer. This monitoring latency will be most noticeable when playing RTAS instrument plug-ins in real time. RTAS monitoring latency can be reduced by decreasing the hardware buffer setting in the Pro Tools Playback Engine dialog box. Note that the Pro Tools delay compensation engine will compensate for latency during session playback.>>

-R

[C Heat]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Dave L is walking into an Apple that has never existed before. An Apple that has top not talent from the CEO down throughout the C-Levels and Directors. An Apple that understands technology, marketing and operations.

I'd want to ride that wave, look for that next challenge. If Apple want to take a chunk out of Digidesign/Avid they will. It's as simple as that.

Well said.

Originally Posted by oceantracks

In this economy, and with some things that have been happening lately at Digi regarding the true creative people there, you might want to consider that Dave left for other reasons than a possible wild revamping of Logic by Apple

TH

Echo.

[Goliath|Audio]

Originally Posted by Tony Shepperd

Charles and KK, do you know of anyone running PCIx in a chassis and switching to a new PCIe Mac? Then running a adapter PCIe to PCIx card? I understand it saves you from having to upgrade all the HD cards. I believe the adapter card is $1100.

Depending on what you are exchanging, it may actually be cheaper and easier to swap the cards than buy the chassis.

[Tony Shepperd]

Originally Posted by Goliath|Audio

Depending on what you are exchanging, it may actually be cheaper and easier to swap the cards than buy the chassis.

6 cards plus a new chassis?

[RKrizman]

What's the swap price per card?

-R

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by postprosound

These threads always make me laugh. Somehow, they always turn into a 'bash Digidesign' free for all. Despite the level of professional reliance on, and prevalence of both AVID and Digidesgn products, this forum, as a generality, is very biased against both of them.
Perhaps we should have a little perspective in this matter:
First, while i've been enjoying the reading of this forum, it seems that the many who bash AVID and Digi do so because of the price of the product, the lack of ADC, and thus not wanting to spend the cash to upgrade to HD. Notice i say many, not all. YET, many will lush over a Brauner, or a Neumann (or preamp or mixer.... whatever) costing MANY thousands of dollars, the turn around and bash AVID/Digi's price, even though an upgrade might cost LESS that one of those mics! How often have he heard someone say, 'Neumann really sucks, their business model sucks, everything about them sucks, i'm going with ______(insert lower price brand here).' ? Many will stand in line to spend their hard earned money for these very expensive, all be it very excellent, microphones, the turn around and complain about AVID/Digidesign. The point i'm trying to make is that the logic/sets of standards applied to AVID/Digi are many times not applied elsewhere, and vice versa.
Second, lets get real; These are huge, publicly traded companies. I'm sure that Dave Lebolt is a very wonderful, passionate person. But he's just one bee in a very large hive. Sure, he's was a VP, but gaining or loosing a single person is not going to alter a companies profile that much. As an example, Andrea Jung is on the board of Apple. She's the CEO of Avon. Yes, that Avon. Has Apple sold that many cosmetics lately? Mark Papermaster is the Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering. He joined apple in 2008, from IBM. Did you notice any change in apple when he came on board? These are giant companies. And although the the Ladies and Gentlemen who serve as VP's and Presidents make things happen, in the end large committees always have the final say.

Being on the board of directors is a very different thing from upper management however. The executive board is usually not involved in product planning or engineering strategies. Something Dave was indeed involved in.

Does anybody know what Dave's business card says?

[Tony Shepperd]

Originally Posted by RKrizman

What's the swap price per card?

-R

Not sure what it is now. When I first checked, Digidesign wanted $1500 per card.
If that's the case: 6 card trade-in $9000. Plus a new PCIe chassis. $2,000.

[kk@jamsync.com]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

Being on the board of directors is a very different thing from upper management however. The executive board is usually not involved in product planning or engineering strategies. Something Dave was indeed involved in.

Does anybody know what Dave's business card says?

No, but Bob Moog's used to say "grand poobah".

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by kk@jamsync.com

No, but Bob Moog's used to say "grand poobah".

well at least it was an appropriate title....

[bexarametric]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

Fine with me, I think Avid is a much stronger brand name than Digidesign anyway.
Digidesign, to me sounds like something thought up by a non native english speaker.

speaking of the word avid

av⋅id  [av-id]
–adjective
1. enthusiastic; ardent; dedicated; keen: an avid moviegoer.
2. keenly desirous; eager; greedy (often fol. by for or of): avid for pleasure; avid of power.

All in good fun of course

I think of the word more as eager, but thought it was funny to see the word greed come up.

[Sonic Nomad]

I have two questions;

Firstly, is there any other industry on this planet where in forums an individuals career moves are so dissected, speculated upon and judged?

Secondly, why can't we just get along with one another. How come there's no elegant solution for users to simply rewire Logic to Pro Tools or vice versa?

[Sascha Franck]

Originally Posted by escape

It only needs one shortsighted CEO who thinks "never change a winning team" and why spend all that money on research when it only cuts into my bonus to make digidesign gradually join the ranks with NED Synclavier, Akai samplers etc.

Pretty much exactly. As said, just ten years ago everybody laughed about native processing. Then there came Gigasampler, usually still requiring a separate machine to make good use of it, but that started a revolution in terms of sampling. These days, apart from probably seeing some live useage, all hardware samplers are more or less gathering dust (unless they're occasionally used for some more or less esoteric and unique features that can't be found in software land).

I'm not very familiar with PT, but from what I gather, just two HD acceleration cards will set you short the same amount of money you could as well get an Octo Mac Pro for. And I'm absolutely positve that the latter will offer more computing juice.
Now let's assume that one day the node concept that is already existing for Logic will be a little easier to deal with (there should be some automatic switching, so all "non-live" tracks would automatically be "noded", and there should be no need to install your 3rd party plugins on the node machine, either, the latter should simply just add to the computing power via some ultra-fast data transfer protocol), then you could as well just work with a "farm" of computers. And with some proper freezing implemented, you could as well just take huge projects with you on your laptop.
IMO that's pretty much the direction things will take.
Also, it's not exactly as if us audio folks would really need more than the processing power of, say, 2 octo core machines. And that very same power will be available in a single box more sooner than later. Look at something such as IR reverbs. Not even 10 years ago only the folks owning the most sophisticated machines could run one instance of Sonic Foundrys Acoustic Mirror in realtime. Usually you simply had to make it an offline process. Today I can run several instances of Logics Space Designer on a mere Macbook. I can as well run over 1000 sampler voices on it. Or good sounding EQs and comps on each and every track. Etc. Native processing has really come a long way and once certain issues are weeded out (such as stable low latency operation at high CPU loads, something Logic is already fairly good at), I fail to see why anybody would really want to deal with all that extra stuff (and money) external DSP solutions require. Assuming there's the same set of plugins, you can give me *any* Logic project and I will run it on my Macbook. Yeah, I will have to do some freezing or bouncing, but in the end the session will run for sure. My entire studio (ok, minus proper monitors, minus a bigger MIDI keyboard and minus an option to record more than stereo signals simultaneously) fits in a single backpack. I just *love* that.
As said, I have already been recording guitar tracks (that I've been paid for) in whatever hotel rooms late at night. People were even asking me which amps I was using because they liked the sound a lot. I have also been mixing, monitoring and recording live gigs with a single laptop and an RME Hammerfall only (not even the drummers (good drummers that is) complained about monitoring latency, I could run the session at 64 samples, resulting in something a little less than 5ms of overall system latency), using Logic and a hooked up Behringer BCR (to quickly control some levels and FX) for everything. Mind you, that was back with a 1.86 GHz Centrino Samsung and with Logic 5.5.1. My Macbook has around 5-6 times the CPU juice (in some areas even a lot more).
Native processing is the way things will go, IMO there's absolutely no way around it.

- Sascha

[charles maynes]

I think those are all fine points, but the thing not said is there is a lot of, "turning off tracks" and such in all the native discussions.

People have said that hardware based systems were the way of the dinosaur, but at the end of the day, the hardware systems simply get the job done today, (or as far back as 5 years ago) without having to compromise with tracks being frozen, etc.

PTHD might be the Studer 824 of 1995, but the work is getting done with it. Most of those systems have been paid for many times over as well. This was the case back in 1994 with the Synclavier and Fairlight as well- those who needed the capability paid for it, and then benefitted from it. One cant benefit from promised future capacity. And we all know too well the syndrome of "buying the dream, living the nightmare...."

As to times changing, yes- they are- more and more things are possibie. And technology's one truism is its built in obsolesance. So whatever is cool on day x will be woefully inadequate on day y.

[Sascha Franck]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

People have said that hardware based systems were the way of the dinosaur, but at the end of the day, the hardware systems simply get the job done today, (or as far back as 5 years ago) without having to compromise with tracks being frozen, etc.

You know, I'm getting most of my work done without freezing/bouncing these days already, too.
Admittedly, I'm not a producer and/or mixer, but I only have a mere Macbook, too. In case I owned a Mac Pro, I probably wouldn't even know on what to spend all that extra CPU juice.
And while you're correct that hardware systems get the job done, that doesn't change much with the fact that they're not exactly needed anymore already. And it's not as if the situation was stagnating, native processing is still improving a lot - there's true 64bit systems to be ready for prime time use any day soon, there's more CPU cores to be utilized and there's probably even some proper "multiple machine CPU load distributing" scenario being developed right now.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against folks going the PT route. Whenever I worked in some PT equipped studios, it has been quite unproblematic. Things usually "just worked".
But that doesn't change much with the fact that native solutions will catch up in serious ways.

Take me as an example. I'm a guitar player. I have a fine amount of guitars and amps (plus some mics to record them). All quality stuff.
And while I love my amps to bits, the last paid "studio" jobs I did (it's a little different for live gigs, which is what I mainly make my living of) were started and finished in an entirely native setup.
To be more precise: When I've been on tour last winter (a shitty Abba cover show, better don't ask for details - at least it pays rather well) I received a call. "Could you record some guitars for me?". I said "yes, but you will probably have to wait for the final takes until I'm back home" - simply because I didn't even believe it myself that the results I could get out of my Macbook, a FW interface and several amp simulations would get the job done as good as possible. After being done with those takes (that I really thought would not be the final versions) I received comments such as "kickass, and the sound is just great!". And it's not as if those folks were rather unexperienced with guitar sounds, more to the opposite.
As said, I was absolutely unsure myself, whether these takes (which I always thought of as "previews") would really cut it. But all too apparently, they did. So the native system actually got the job done.

Well, just my personal experience.

- Sascha

[charles maynes]

If the system one has does get the task accomplished, that is the principal objective. (I would think)

some folks require what PT does, some folks dont. It is silly to make it a religious issue though.

[Sascha Franck]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

If the system one has does get the task accomplished, that is the principal objective. (I would think)

Exactly

some folks require what PT does, some folks dont. It is silly to make it a religious issue though.

I'm not making a religious issue out of it at all (no idea whether my previous comments read like that). Thing is, those things that PT IMO excels at have not much to do with DSP processing but more with audio handling and such. Multiple take tracking and sorting things out (or editing those very takes) is what it really shines at. But for all that a DSP solution isn't required at all. Audio processing is a piece of cake for any modern machine.
In a nutshell: I sometimes wish there was a native version of PT available without all those artificial limitations. It might become a true contender for me - as is, it defenitely is a no-go.

- Sascha

[Uncle Joe]

Originally Posted by BrianT

Joe, CPU power has elevated faster than anyone had a right to expect 5 years ago. We will be looking at 16 actual/32 virtual cores in off-the-shelf desktop machines in 12-18 months. An order of magnitude increase in CPU power over just a few years. The economy of scale for x86 CPUs is simply unassailable by more specialized hardware.

No hard feelings, but the one statement of yours quoted above does not give a lot of weight to the rest of your comments. Can you clarify a little, please? Thanks.

G'day,

No worries ... Clarification of my statement is "in order" ... I'm not sure that this is the proper "Thread" to express this mate ... nonetheless ... here goes "a bit" ... And it may be relative to how our industry is currently changing. Technology in general .... and here is some current feedback from companies like Intel or AMD.

"The economy of scale for x86 CPUs is simply unassailable by more specialized hardware."

Sorry ..

There is a clear and understandable opinion here that silicon-level integration of the CPU and other workload-specific accelerators is inevitable, that multiple homogeneous cores will become subservient to chips based on heterogeneous accelerators.

It has been clearly stated by gentlemen such as Phil Hester - AMD CTO (Chief Technology Officer) as the following:

"He reckons that a CPU-only architecture makes little or no sense any more when additional transistor and space budget can be allocated to accelerators that provide more performance for the typical user's intended workload."

Work Load ... In Audio Post these days .... because of HD and surround formats, we have to deal with extremely high track/channel counts, heavy Audio Processing, and integrated HD video. Seamlessly and quick --> as Post houses should & need to charge big dollars ! How do the current "cores" that you refer to hold up to this type of heavy processing environment ? At Fairlight, we heavily benchmark this ... they simply choke and gag mate !

132 Tracks of 32 bit Audio ... running maybe 3 to 6 Audio processing effects per channel + HD integrated Video. Question ... What system do you run mate ?

Companies like AMD clearly sees multiple processing cores on one die.

By their very nature, CPUs are excellent at processing code that has to be put through sequentially. The low-latency x86 architecture is fast but nonetheless narrow, as even the latest processors run with 'only' four execution units in parallel. And so what if it is 8 or 16 ? This is simply and indication why a CPU-only architecture is dead, because why wouldn't you integrate into everything all that's needed?

Damn ... I could go on for hours ! tutt

One last "food for thought" ... Here's a quote from: Mr. Allan Cantle, president of Nallatech, an FPGA development company :

“In an ideal world, multiple processors would achieve linear performance increase with no additional overhead, and no performance would be lost due to inter-device communication. Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different. This is because there is overhead introduced by the need for physical communication, and additional cycles are lost trying to coordinate the application partitioned among multiple processors. Although it’s the job of the programmers to work that out when implementing the application, the reality is that no matter how good a job they do, the result will most likely be less than optimal. Due to the physical communications overhead and difficulty of getting multiple devices to work well together, we don’t see a linear performance increase."

Mate ... The bad news is that the more "traditional" processors you add, the worse the problem gets.

All the best,

Uncle Joe

.

[Tristan Hackney]

Originally Posted by radiospace

GarageBand|HD?

Kill me now!