words: THE TECXECUTIONER
TECH
The Tecxecutioner takes on crap software...
DON’T MAKE ME GET
OLD SKOOL!
Software bugs get under the skin of our resident tech gimp. Unleash the fury…
“M
odern technology, what And if that wasn’t bad enough, I have some Terminator-style judgement day, so
is it good for? I’m an old serious issues with loading updates and drivers I’m perfectly justifi ed hunting
skool studio head and DJ, that are supposedly installed, then having down the developers and going
so I’ve seen studios and to root around folders and fi les, dropping on a homicidal rampage the
the entire process of making music and DJing and replacing them into other folders. What next time my DAW crashes —
go from an entirely analogue hardware domain happened to plug and play? I am a musician, for the good of mankind, of
to digital hardware setups. Then software and not a blooming computer programmer. I course…”
computers were added into the mix, and now fucking hate it!
we are at the point when most of the work is Whilst I was DJing in front of a demanding
done using computers. crowd, my newest software install decided to
At every single stage in the evolution, the give up the ghost. So, to fi x the problem, I had
promised benefi ts of digital and computer to go back to an older version of said software
mixing has not lived up to the hype and worse just so I could play Live again. Not good.
still it has introduced its own set of problems The current crop of software and hardware
and pitfalls. Analogue synths were a pain in controllers have a nasty habit of not working
the arse, they were expensive, needed repairs, properly, and need hours invested in installing
went out of tune, and were bulky and heavy them so they don’t glitch or crash at the exact
to move around. But not once in the history wrong time. This simply isn’t good enough. If
of the world has a Moog ever crashed in the you are selling a product aimed at professionals
middle of a gig. I’ve seen the pitch go wonky — who need their kit to work because they are
on a SL1200, but it’s never started glitching or performing in front of thousands of people — it
popping in the middle of a set. has to work, rock solid.
We currently have a situation where the
hardware and software manufacturers are OK, so sometimes things go wrong, sod’s law.
pushing the technology envelope with But could you imagine a CD player or a mixer
software. The biggest problems of the crashing in the middle of a set every time you
new software age are bugs, crashes, copy played? Of course not, no-one would buy that
protection and “advanced features” that just brand and no club in the world would have
don’t work properly. The most frustrating thing them in the booth. But somehow it seems that
of all is that most, if not all, of the problems when it comes to software it has become
being introduced into our lives can be avoided acceptable to let the users do a lot of the
by careful testing before units are released testing, with bugs only being fi xed if
into the wild. If you are sitting in a studio and enough people are affected.
a piece of software crashes, it’s a pain, but it’s Then there is the contentious issue of
not the end of the world; however, if you are in copy protection. While I can understand
a live performance, it’s a whole different story. companies wishing to protect the
considerable investment in time and
Online support offers no support, like a badly- money spent during development,
fi tted bra. If things go wonky, I can’t wait unfortunately, for the most part, the
a week before someone gets back to me to current methods used are painful,
tell me it’s fucked. They whet my appetite by buggy and in the end penalise the
instantly confi rming my cries for help — then legitimate user. Arguably a dedicated
silence. No good if I am on a deadline to deliver studio DAW shouldn’t have an
a chart-topping remix! internet connection, so why is it that
I spend so much time running from
My next rant: whilst recently installing a major computer to computer with dongles or
hardware manufacturer’s newest piece of kit, serial numbers and response codes?
it launched my computer into allsorts of “oh, In short, I beg, plead and demand
I am fucked” malarkey. Not just one machine, that software developers and
but two — both a Mac and a PC. It took two days hardware manufacturers start to test
to get them sorted out. Something to do with more, and release products that are
“incompatible drivers,” and having to upgrade fi t for their purpose from the minute
to the newest version of host software, before they are purchased. It’s a bug in a
the installation of hardware would work . military computer that will lead to a
114
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DJ482.tech_texecutioner.indd 114 7/1/10 16:13:04
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