Explaining Carla to non-technical people

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gingerling
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Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:28 pm

Explaining Carla to non-technical people

Post by gingerling »

Hey, so I am a Kxstudio user and am helping to set up and promote a crowd funding campaign for Carla 2.0 to raise some money to support this wonderful project.

The funding will be feature-by-feature and the features are all already on the "roadmap" already as it were, so for now, it is essentially general fund-raising: and I happen to be being paid to help establish some projects :)

I hope to get donations from a wide range of people, from Carla users of course, but also from those who would like to support cutting edge Free Software music projects... but are not very technical and are Carla users at all. People (like myself) who go to Algorave's and demos/talks about Free Software in local groups would be a good example.

So... I would like to explain what Carla is to non technical people who have only basic knowledge of audio...

how would you explain it to them?
Do you have any links as to music you made using it that are super cool?
How would you show people why Carla is awesome if they don't know what it is?

Thanks :)

Anna
tatch
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Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2012 3:18 pm

Re: Explaining Carla to non-technical people

Post by tatch »

I think the modular workflow that carla fits into is unavoidably technical by nature. Carla is cool because it fits plugins into a modular workflow, so I think you'd have to explain what a modular workflow is to begin with, and then you'd have to explain why it can be really cool to work with. That is to say, 95% of the time a traditional monolithic DAW will do most everything you need (and be considerably less complex/complicated) and the other 5% of the time you can find some really neat things to do with a modular setup. I appreciate what you want to do but I don't think it would necessarily be beneficial to try and represent carla as something it isn't (simple, easier to use than garageband, a full monolothic daw etc) because then people could ask "couldn't I do the same thing more easily with windows/osx (or even ardour)?" and the answer would be a weak, qualified "yes, but..." Kudos to those who do find a way though.
gingerling
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Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:28 pm

Re: Explaining Carla to non-technical people

Post by gingerling »

don't think it would necessarily be beneficial to try and represent carla as something it isn't (simple, easier to use than garageband, a full monolothic daw etc)
I really don't want to do this, but at the same time I belive that even the most complex thing can be explained to people who are non technical :) I am not expecting them all to use it, but just to explain enough to show why its so cool. How much more freedom it gives mucicians.

I remeber when we had the Jack for Non-techs talk at my local LUG, the guy explained that the Carla patchbay lets you plug anything into anything else. We all really understood the value of this creatively, without needing to understand more. Analogys can be usefull here too :)
samtuke
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Re: Explaining Carla to non-technical people

Post by samtuke »

Carla makes hundreds of free software instrunents mamagable. It connects instruments and effects together, plugs them into music composition apps like Ardour, and saves their settings to save you time each time you use them. A 50 instrument project can be saved and loaded all at once, and the path your audio takes from instrument to effect is clear from the colourful drag drop interface.
The power of Linux audio lays in its diversity and modularity. Carla makes those features robust and convenient.

I'm sick, that's all I have for now.
gingerling
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Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:28 pm

Re: Explaining Carla to non-technical people

Post by gingerling »

I am working on a pad here, and am also colleting quotes about the importance of Carla in the wider Free Software audio community.

https://pad.fsfe.org/p/carla_1 is the link, but below is the text as it stands for you to view :)

Carla is a Free Software Audio Plug-in Host: she allows musicians to mix-up and manage hundreds of free software applications, instruments, beats and effects, connecting them together in a visual way with colourful drag drop interface, as if they were hardware boxes connected with wires. Carla can then plug them into your speakers or music composition app like Ardour and to play/record the composition.

"Carla is part of an incredible international movement to free Creativity. By working together using Free Software, Open Standards and Creative Commons licences, artists and computer hackers are building a musical world that we can all share in, whatever our nationality, whether we be rich or poor, listener or composer, student or master. Carla is something we can all share in, even if we don't use it ourselves." - Anna Morris, Free Software Advocate

"The power of Linux audio lies in its diversity and modularity. Carla makes those features robust and convenient." Sam Tuke
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