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Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

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Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#61

Post by majkinetor »

derefr wrote: post #15
neotek wrote: post #11

Man I would kill for an ultra-simple, ultra-lightweight, robust music player for macOS that was just like Winamp 2.81, the last good version. No, not foobar.

"Ultra-lightweight" can mean two very different (and nearly opposite) things: some people want a player that has no external dependencies (and thus must do everything itself, like VLC); while others want a player with minimal binary size (which thus will then rely on the OS's AV frameworks as much as possible for media support.) Personally, I prefer the second definition, but it's the harder of the two to satisfy. I…

VLC is great, but UI sux tbh. Also, SMplayer is great, but UI sux even more for audio.

The level of 'it just works' for those 2 products is just not comparable to anything else. Plus they are cross platform, works on pretty much anything in existence.

That is the reason I tollerate UI and use them every day. Also, while it lacks audio management, SMPlayer is the best video player, period.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#62

Post by csydas »

mdpopescu wrote: post #56
csydas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the criticism lobbied against AirBnB and Uber is for a reason, and the reason isn't the same "up-yours" attitude of past maverick tech companies. It's a little easier to buy the maverick attitude of something like gnutella when the author isn't getting close to billion dollar revenue yearly. It may seem a little strange, but the ethos is a bit easier to believe when you stay outside the system and benefit eve…

Making a billion dollars a year revenue is pretty much the definition of "benefiting everyone", except when you're a part of regulatory capture (which AirBnB and Uber are not... yet).

I'm not sure I follow.

I didn't explain my point well now that I've re-read it but the idea is more than the early maverick hacker projects felt more like just a project, something that was made to make sure everyone's lives got better. Uber, AirBnB, et. al., were business from the beginning. Their interests look to be making money, not providing a service or making it better. The focus isn't on making transportation or hospitality better, it's about controlling a market with their system and earning a profit. Motive matters, and it just doesn't strike that they are really benefitting anyone but themselves.

This isn't saying their services can't be useful - heck, I have an AirBnB reservation for my holiday the next 3 weeks. But I also don't doubt that if AirBnB would change their service in an instant if it suited them. They're only doing hospitality because there's money in it. That's not really the same spirit and it's not really with our benefit in mind, it's with our wallets in mind.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#63

Post by joering2 »

riffraff wrote: post #52
joering2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audiogalaxy. Was always impressed how easy it was to find 320kbit versions or even some extremely rare songs...

Audiogalaxy was insanely effective at finding related music, due to, basically, human curation. I will always be grateful of having discovered lamb and goldfrapp through it.

(OT) I discovered goldfrapp by watching Hard Candy. Awesome movie.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#64

Post by mastazi »

SwellJoe wrote: post #50
mastazi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, REAPER is very highly regarded in music production circles. Anecdotically, I have been producing electronic music as a hobby for many years now, and while I own much more expensive programs (e.g. Ableton Live Suite which cost a staggering AU $999) I find REAPER to be an extremely enjoyable piece of software and I have found myself using it often.

I wouldn't really consider it a competitor to Ableton Live, though there's some overlap. But, as a competitor to Pro Tools, it's hard for me to think of anything even in the same ball park as REAPER (and REAPER costs a fraction of what Pro Tools costs, as well). I use FL Studio or Renoise for the stuff that people use Ableton for; but, REAPER blows them all away for recording live musicians and then mixing the result…

Yes, I agree that REAPER and Ableton are very different types of DAWs. In fact, that's the very reason why I use REAPER (it complements Live) while at the same time I don't use, for example, Bitwig (although I would like to give it a shot in the future).

I was just stating that REAPER's software quality, as I perceive it, is as high as much more expensive DAWs; I mentioned Live Suite as a comparison, purely because is the most expensive piece of music software that I own.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#65

Post by hardwaresofton »

gknoy wrote: post #59
hardwaresofton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Licecap definitely changed how I worked. If you want the rest of your frontend development team to think you're a god, include licecap or other gifs of features/bugfixes on code reviews. It's a thing most developers don't even think of doing (at least most didn't in my experience). Makes it easy for stake holders (if they're allowed near your code reviews/tickets/whatever), devs, qa, to easily see how functionality h…

At one point licecap stopped working for me (MPB, using an external screen). The Giphy capture tool is also a good one. I wholeheartedly agree that including screenshots are a great way to show things :)

Yeah, I had a periodic issue with new installs (or would see colleagues have this problem): you'd record something but the gif would be all black. I think there was a fix but I've long forgotten :)

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#67

Post by yoz »

neotek wrote: post #11

Man I would kill for an ultra-simple, ultra-lightweight, robust music player for macOS that was just like Winamp 2.81, the last good version. No, not foobar.

Check out Cog: http://mamburu.net/cog/

While development has slowed to a couple of commits a year, it's a lovely, lightweight, open source MP3 player that has much of the simplicity that I miss from Winamp. Drag files in to the main playlist window, reorder them, click on them, easy.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#68

Post by modzu »

neotek wrote: post #11

Man I would kill for an ultra-simple, ultra-lightweight, robust music player for macOS that was just like Winamp 2.81, the last good version. No, not foobar.

me too! thus i started to write a cross platform winamp clone (well, a simple one, mainly for its wonderful library management). also banging in a few audiophile goodies (better eqing, visualization)

i think the kids these days just stream everything...

its not on github yet but if anyone is interested in helping out shoot me a line! (stack is js/web audio/electron) -- perhaps not super "lightweight", but its not bad, and its what i know ;$

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#69

Post by SwellJoe »

jdietrich wrote: post #57
SwellJoe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't really consider it a competitor to Ableton Live, though there's some overlap. But, as a competitor to Pro Tools, it's hard for me to think of anything even in the same ball park as REAPER (and REAPER costs a fraction of what Pro Tools costs, as well). I use FL Studio or Renoise for the stuff that people use Ableton for; but, REAPER blows them all away for recording live musicians and then mixing the result…

I'd argue that REAPER is the Vim or Emacs of DAWs. There's a steep learning curve, getting the best out of it requires a lot of memorisation and customisation, but nothing matches its speed and power in the hands of an expert.

I disagree with that assessment, as well. It's extremely easy to use, if you've worked in a physical recording studio, or if you've used Pro Tools (or any other traditional multitrack recording DAWs). You don't need to know the hotkeys, but if you do, you'll work faster. You don't need to customize it, but it's very customizable.

But, it isn't obscure. The GUI is clear and simple and well-documented. And, I didn't find the learning curve steep at all; it was almost instant. I mean, I literally don't remember a period of "learning to use REAPER", I only remember starting to use it, and having it Just Work. I went to school for audio recording, and have worked off and on professionally as an engineer, so I suppose that may have shortened the learning process. Which is why I say it's a tool for engineers who want to work with a traditional recording studio environment. REAPER is exactly that. If REAPER has a learning curve, it is merely the process of learning how to record in a multitrack studio workflow.

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