to see if a switch to Linux will accomplish what I want. After 10+ years doing various types of weird music (from traditional acoustic, to noise, to synthpop, to ambient and Celtic Techno, with stops at everything in between), I've recently begun to focus on film scores, with the hopes of eventually having that be my day job (particularly after having lost a long-standing day job last summer). More than anything, I drastically need to replace my computer, but can't afford to right now. I used to run *nix back in the late 90s (SuSE was my weapon of choice, but later FreeBSD), but I haven't since around 2004 (glad to see how much has REALLY changed since then). I remember getting a significant performance boost back then, and hopefully I can now.
I'm running a laptop that was cheap when I bought it 4 years ago. It's an AMD Turion 64 chip at 1.6 ghz with 1.5 GB of RAM. I switched to a laptop with the thought that I might want to perform and/or record in a more portable situation, as that I was phasing out a Roland digital 8-track in favor of computer recording. Since then, I've done each exactly once (recording a 3-hour ambient piece live in December 2007, and triggering sound effects and sequences for a haunted house/live performance last October), and plan on shifting back to a desktop as soon as I can afford to (I also need to replace my audio/MIDI interface when I do, since I have an E-mu CardBus 1616, which is pretty awesome, but all PCMCIA-like). I'm getting some paying scoring gigs (not bad 1 year into my career), but not enough, and it's mostly portfolio building now.
The thing that is making me hesitate is the fact that I do own all of the software that I use. In some cases, it doesn't make a big difference; the copy of Sonar I do most of my sequencing in can be (mostly) replaced by RoseGarden. I prefer hardware synths and live instruments to soft-synths 90% of the time...though for orchestral sounds, I'm using GPO (which was affordable and WAY better than any freeware or hardware that I have), which I see isn't too much of a problem now that VST synths can run (via Wine? Am I understanding that right?). Other things, particularly some of the synth patch editors I use, I may have to live without. Particularly the software for my Korg Karma, which is wonderfully complex (and I don't even have one of the new synths that support the new new version of Karma!) and I expect mixed results at best with an emulated version.
The only other major need (and why I switched to Sonar from Cubase) is decent video playback/sync. Can this be done in any of the linux DAWs out there, or does time-code need to be sent to a playback device, particularly something bare-bones with minimal cpu/ram footprint? Anyone have any experience with that?
Anyway, thanks for reading, and any and all feedback! You can hear some of my recent filmscore work at http://www.reverbnation/joshloughrey Let me know what you think! And, because all music geeks love gearlists:
Synths: VirusB, Korg Karma, EMX-1, ER1mkII, ES-1, MicroKorg, Alesis Micron, E-mu XL-7 (with added Beat Garden and Protean Drums ROMs)
Electric Guitars: Epiphone G-400 custom, Danelectro DC-10, Jay Turser 12-string, Oscar Schmidt Delta Queen (semi-hollow)
Acoustic Guitars: SX DC-25 (6 and 12 strings), a handful of old acoustics with and without names (including a pre-war Aria)
Basses: Rogue Acoustic-Electric, Dean short scale, an old Aria and a longhorn WishBass
Misc. Acoustic Instruments: lap dulcimer, 19 string harp, hammered dulcimer, cheap fiddle (that I've reworked into a pretty decent instrument...though my girlfriend plays a Wood Electric that puts it to shame), banjo, mandolin and an accordion in a state of disrepair! Except the last, I've used them all live and/or in the studio!
