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Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:53 pm
by Moody
Jarvisimon wrote:
Moody wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that Ableton should be expected to keep up with developments on prototype supercomputing cluster architectures?
Yes, I'm suggesting that the early adoption of this GPUCPU should happen.

32 cores each with 4 part multi-threading would allow sets to run at full quality and it could happen sooner rather than later.
Are you aware of how costly these processors usually are and (as mentioned in the article you posted) this is a different architecture, hence completely different instruction set (Although some people are taunting Ableton to start over from the ground up… is this where you are going)? On the up side, this will be marketed to the companies and/or departments who could benefit from the advances in supercomputer technology (Oil companies, governments, Pixar, etc...) and we the consumers will benefit from the trickle down that ends up in our consumer class products. Anyways, nice find and I digress, I do not have the patience this morning (Have not finished my coffee…) to banter about supercomputing. Especially with someone whose credentials may or may not accredit experience in the market.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:01 pm
by Jarvisimon
3dot... wrote: I'm in no particular hurry..
I'd rather mind the tools available to me in the present..
rather than bitch about the future..
This ain't bitching. It's about looking at what's around the corner. Bitching is complaining. You're wrong to put this thread in that category.
3dot... wrote: btw I was one of the first adopters of the AMD (single core) Athlon 64bit cpus...
...they managed to get me hyped...
it didn't catch though...the 64bit hype took about 5 more years (and 2 more computers)..to arrive (a 64bit os)
don't get hyped ..
It didn't happen because everyone was stuck in a similarly apathetic state.
3dot... wrote: and rather look to the excellent tools you have available to you NOW
I do but I also look ahead, which is the purpose of this thread.
3dot... wrote: Live shouldn't be expected to adopt/support every emerging technology from 3rd party companies...
it's too much of a mess...think about it !
I have thought about it and I disagree. Software manufacturers should be looking at exploiting the latest technology available as it's to the benefit of all computer based musicians.
3dot... wrote: that said.. I love innovation .. and if Live adapted this first..(and it worked well)..
I'd be happy of course..
See. Positivity isn't so difficult after all.
3dot... wrote: I certainly wouldn't mind if Live ran on my GPU and free'd up some power..
but...I'm in no position to demand it .. I'll simply add it to the 'wishlist'
Technology is about supply and demand. If Intel announced the release of these chips tomorrow and pre-orders were high, you'd see the forums full of demands for the necessary upgrade, so I disagree. Make your voice known that you'd like them to take new advances seriously and if enough signatures are added, they'll take notice.
3dot... wrote: (if you have a problem with current CPUs think about getting a dedicated DSP processor (like UAD/TC)
could help you if you need more 'Power'..and between us...who doesn't?)
:wink:

I bought a UAD1 when it came out and it cost me £900. Because it hadn't been so heavily advertised, its plug-ins were quite limited. It took at least another 3 yrs before it caught on with the larger majority. If only more people were enthusiastic at the time!

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:13 pm
by Jarvisimon
Moody wrote:
Jarvisimon wrote:
Moody wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that Ableton should be expected to keep up with developments on prototype supercomputing cluster architectures?
Yes, I'm suggesting that the early adoption of this GPUCPU should happen.

32 cores each with 4 part multi-threading would allow sets to run at full quality and it could happen sooner rather than later.
Are you aware of how costly these processors usually are and (as mentioned in the article you posted) this is a different architecture, hence completely different instruction set (Although some people are taunting Ableton to start over from the ground up… is this where you are going)? On the up side, this will be marketed to the companies and/or departments who could benefit from the advances in supercomputer technology (Oil companies, governments, Pixar, etc...) and we the consumers will benefit from the trickle down that ends up in our consumer class products. Anyways, nice find and I digress, I do not have the patience this morning (Have not finished my coffee…) to banter about supercomputing. Especially with someone whose credentials may or may not accredit experience in the market.
Do you remember when a 1Ghz CPU was over £500?

I don't see what my credentials have to do with it either. I'm a nobody in the hall of music fame but that ain't going to stop me wanting a computer that does everything I need without freezing tracks.

Do I need to be famous to be taken seriously? Fame doesn't denote someone has their eye on future technological advances, to me fame is a false indication of someone's stature and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Discernment is a far better quality.

I'm off out shortly anyway, so take your time finishing your coffee.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:37 pm
by hernandezmaryann
Something good!

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:22 pm
by Moody
Jarvisimon wrote:
Do you remember when a 1Ghz CPU was over £500?

I don't see what my credentials have to do with it either. I'm a nobody in the hall of music fame but that ain't going to stop me wanting a computer that does everything I need without freezing tracks.

Do I need to be famous to be taken seriously? Fame doesn't denote someone has their eye on future technological advances, to me fame is a false indication of someone's stature and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Discernment is a far better quality.

I'm off out shortly anyway, so take your time finishing your coffee.
I am not famous either... but I do have a decade worth of supercomputer (clustering) experience. I can first hand say $500 - $700 for a processor is on the cheap side of things in comparison to what we are discussing. Secondly, the architecture is often the limiting factor of these chips. Only so many people develop on these platforms because there is a small extremely niche market to compete in. Again, the trickle down from the big spenders is what we will benefit from. Imagine it like racing... F1 cars and MotoGP bikes are the supercomputers and we the club racers and street riders get the nifty gadgets as they become honed and made affordable. Hope that makes sense… it would be nice to discuss this in a manner as to what we might see on the consumer market from this…. Have a good one!

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:24 pm
by Tone Deft
nice one Moody.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:54 pm
by hoffman2k
The year was 2004. The wallet, stocked with just enough cash to buy a Powermac G5.
Ah, 64-bit CPU, kickass GPU and a new OS.

Fast forward 7 years. Apple has long since discontinued the PPC platform and their OS has only become 64-bit capable like a month ago. With the computers being 64-bit capable for about 5 years now.
We're only just about to get into (consumer) supercomputing once thunderbolt can link up computers like super-clusters are linked with infiniband. And I doubt the first advancements will be in the real-time area.
More like render-farm type of applications. Consumers could only work with ethernet like in Logic Nodes and xgrid before.

GPU real-time audio processing... I'd set aside any hopes for another 7 years. (or 3.5 years according to Moore)

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:53 pm
by synnack
Moody wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that Ableton should be expected to keep up with developments on prototype supercomputing cluster architectures?
+1

I think it's fun to discuss crazy future things and possibilities for innovation. But practical reality means there is a finite amount of developer time and their time costs something. So given a set of hours to work on Ableton Live, where do you want them focused? The 1000 features everyone has been yelling for already, or future features no one requires yet.

A basic rule in working with any Product Management is for every new feature you ask for that is not already considered, you have to name one feature already considered to take off the list.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:12 pm
by Tone Deft
it's kind of the opposite angle from people overthinking what the iPhone can do.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:50 am
by Jarvisimon
tempus3r wrote:
Moody wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that Ableton should be expected to keep up with developments on prototype supercomputing cluster architectures?
+1

I think it's fun to discuss crazy future things and possibilities for innovation. But practical reality means there is a finite amount of developer time and their time costs something. So given a set of hours to work on Ableton Live, where do you want them focused? The 1000 features everyone has been yelling for already, or future features no one requires yet.

A basic rule in working with any Product Management is for every new feature you ask for that is not already considered, you have to name one feature already considered to take off the list.
I'm talking about next stage CPU's here, not future features that no one requires yet. A CPU is not a feature, it's hardware.

My answer to you would be, develop the 1000's of features people have been asking for but develop it for the new CPU and have it out for when this new technology is released.

Intel have already developed the toolkit and apparently the "knights ferry" chip is already out to the developers (beginning of June 2010 http://www.trubritarforums.com/index.ph ... hts-ferry/ ), though I will concede that it's presently only in the hands of the upper echelons of the techno elite, so will likely be a couple of years before the commercial music industry gets to see it. However, I still think companies should be prepared for when it hits mass market and not 5 years later, as is woefully the case.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:56 am
by Jarvisimon
hoffman2k wrote:
GPU real-time audio processing... I'd set aside any hopes for another 7 years. (or 3.5 years according to Moore)
As i've stated in another answer, the "knight's ferry" GPUCPU is already in the hands of developers http://www.trubritarforums.com/index.ph ... hts-ferry/ so I doubt it will be even 3.5 yrs until the music software industry gets a whiff.

Wouldn't you like to see people take the initiative and get on the case asap?

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 4:51 am
by Moody
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

With collaboration partners, Intel aims to deliver complete technology solution for exascale performance by the end of the decade.

http://newsroom.intel.com/community/int ... -computing

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 7:59 am
by Jarvisimon
http://newsroom.intel.com/community/int ... -computing

I like the bit about the Chinese Tianhe-1A supercomputer drawing the equivalent in power to supply electricity to 2 million homes. I wonder how many plug-ins that thing could run?

Anyway, this article backs things up. The Knights Ferry architecture is going to supercede xeon processors, which are the more powerful version of our domestic i7's etc.

Has anyone seen the Studioblade? http://www.musiccomputing.com/studioblade claiming to be the world's most powerful music workstation available. Goes to prove that taking the current best Intel chip to the forefront of music technology is a viable business opportunity.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:58 am
by Tweaking Knobs
they wont do it.


Its just not profitable, and that is what matters to any company ... profit.

Re: Something for the Ableton development team to think about.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:08 am
by Jarvisimon
Tweaking Knobs wrote:they wont do it.


Its just not profitable, and that is what matters to any company ... profit.
I think you'll probably find out that next generation technology is going to be as profitable as any other......I just want to encourage the market to take it up earlier.