# Cloud Based DAWS



## Pudge (Mar 20, 2019)

With new technology hitting the gaming world, such as Google Stadia, using DATA centres to power and stream extremely resource intensive games. - How long will it be before music developers do the same?

It would seem good for DAW & instrument developers to use data centres to host their products. Not being limited by hardware would have huge benefits for everyone. Everyone could have access to infinitely sized template sessions loading as many instruments they wanted with no performance restrictions or need for slave machines, composing on amy device.

Furthermore plugin developers could develop the most intensive, realistic plugins EVER that would cripple ANY desktop machine. Having them take advantage DATA centre computing means super accurate algorithms, you could literally have infinite plugins on any session and recreate hardware perfectly.

Obviously a new hardware I/O may be needed or utilising old ones for recording, however when working with MIDI it would be amazing. 

As for the community it would open up new avenues for collaboration, sharing template set-ups and having multiple composers working on something at the same time, in real time etc...

As far as I know, no one is doing this. It would require A LOT of work and partnerships. Interesting though.

If only I was a millionaire, with a couple degrees in software engineering, computer science and programming... be a fun project to work on.


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## d.healey (Mar 21, 2019)

I rather run my own copy than use someone else's and be under their control.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 21, 2019)

Huh... no thanks.


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## Pudge (Mar 23, 2019)

d.healey said:


> I rather run my own copy than use someone else's and be under their control.



But if they gave you the option to download your copy?

Would you rather pay ££££ for hardware to run ££££ software? Or be able to spend ££££ on software and reduce hardware costs to ££? Harnessing the power or data centre means you could literally have no technical restrictions to your music. Isn't that what most composers want?

All seems a bit of a money pit upgrading computer hardware to run bigger projects. Its no different to streaking services. But if you had the flexibility to download your purchases then I really don't see where the negative is.

edit: streamin* i left streaking in because it made me chuckle.


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## dzilizzi (Mar 23, 2019)

I don't know about streaking services at my age. Especially cloud ones. 

If you have a bad connection, cloud connections frankly suck. Where I used to live, they only had DSL. And some of the places I travel to also have bad connections. I'd rather just have it on my computer. I'm a bit of a control freak also.


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## d.healey (Mar 23, 2019)

Pudge said:


> But if they gave you the option to download your copy?


It wouldn't be "cloud" based then.



> Would you rather pay ££££ for hardware to run ££££ software? Or be able to spend ££££ on software and reduce hardware costs to ££? Harnessing the power or data centre means you could literally have no technical restrictions to your music. Isn't that what most composers want?


I feel technically restricted by software not hardware.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 28, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> I don't know about streaking services at my age.



I SO agree


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## Pudge (Mar 28, 2019)

d.healey said:


> It wouldn't be "cloud" based then.
> 
> 
> I feel technically restricted by software not hardware.



Developers could go down the route data centres. 

You buy their product download it to use locally, or you can use a cheap subscription model to use all their instruments ( like east west composer cloud ) but you can make use of their own data centre to run massive projects using their products.

To most of you it might seem pointless or stupid idea. But I bet you in years to come, it'll start happening, especially when computing power goes quantum we'll move away from sampling and more towards modeling / simulating instruments in real time sessions.


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## AllanH (Mar 28, 2019)

As much as it seems counter-intuitive today, I'm sure some or all of DAW functionality will be hosted at some point surprisingly soon. Modern caching and virtualization technology ultimately will allow a "VM" comprising a DAW to be streamed and cached locally. VMware already supports this with their vApps, and MSFT has similar technology (though not as strong). Without getting caught up in semantics, we're already halfway there, as much software gets automatic online updates. The remaining practical limitations is networking throughput and latency. The only reason it won't happen soon will be Verizon, AT&T, Spectrum etc. ...


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## erica-grace (Mar 28, 2019)

Pudge said:


> Everyone could have access to infinitely sized template sessions loading as many instruments they wanted with no performance restrictions or need for slave machines, composing on amy device.



Everyone could have access to everyone else's information. No Thank You.


Pudge said:


> Furthermore plugin developers could develop the most intensive, realistic plugins EVER



How can plug ins be more realistic then they already are?


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## dzilizzi (Mar 28, 2019)

You are also at the mercy of their connection speed and computer speed. I think the idea of having a server at your disposal, with a lot of RAM and computer power sounds good. But you will be sharing it with however many others using it at the same time. You will have all the same problems you have with your current setup. And add to it the time it takes for the signal to go back and forth. 

Our internet speeds are not at the point that cloud based computing works great for businesses using database programs. I can only see it being more frustrating than less with music programs. I think the idea is a valid one, but not yet workable with our current infrastructure condition.


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## Pudge (Mar 28, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> How can plug ins be more realistic then they already are?



Well, for mixing Plugins Algorithms could run could be beyond the performance of your system limitations. Why do you think we have oversampling options? More accurate but at the cost of system performance. You could let other computers do that for you thus removing the tax from your own machine.

For sample libraries, you're not loading anything into RAM, just streaming it. So yes, internet connection would be a factor, but I'm talking way in the future. By the time we have quantum processors / servers you would likely no longer need to sample things anymore. Modelling instruments and acoustic environments would be so precise it would sound better than using a microphone to capture a performance, and if its the human touch you're after, they'll probably play some kind of tricked out instrument / interface hybrid to capture the "human" feel instead of recording a sample.

Sounds crazy, but it's all well in the realms of possibility, and such things would cause a cultural shift. But even if it's not done via a cloud and you're buying code to run on your quantum machine, there's going to be a brick wall to how "realistic" we can model sound purely because of physics



erica-grace said:


> Everyone could have access to everyone else's information. No Thank You.



Everyone piratically already has access to everyone else's information anyway... But you wouldn't be sharing templates... just using the cloud for horsepower.


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## d.healey (Mar 28, 2019)

Pudge said:


> Everyone piratically already has access to everyone else's information anyway...


We should reduce the amount of personal data companies have not give them more.


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## storyteller (Mar 28, 2019)

d.healey said:


> We should reduce the amount of personal data companies have not give them more.


This. When Zuckererberg made his recent Instagram birthday announcement and people noticed he was photographed in front of his MacBook with tape over the microphone and camera ports, that should tell you something... ha.


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## Pudge (Mar 28, 2019)

d.healey said:


> We should reduce the amount of personal data companies have not give them more.



So when you sign up to a developer to buy a product, you're not giving your name, address, card details, machine ID, I.P address and everything that comes with that...

Inception solves that, so you're details cannot be read by a company. But you'd still need to use a company (like paypal) to handle transactions and they'll need your details and then you have to rely on their encryption methods. So...

Nothing's ever safe. They just have to keep 1 step ahead with security.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 28, 2019)

So you sign up for a cloud-based DAW.....and then they raise the price drastically because they have you by the short and curlies...or worse, the company folds. It's bad on so many levels.


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## Pudge (Mar 28, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> So you sign up for a cloud-based DAW.....and then they raise the price drastically because they have you by the short and curlies...or worse, the company folds. It's bad on so many levels.



From a money company perspective, yes. You'd be putting trust into them. So there would likely be new laws to handle this so people cannot have their trousers pulled down around their ankles. Which is why it'll be interesting to watch the rise (or fall) of up-comming cloud based services for gaming. ATM Personally, tech's not quite there it's still in it's infant stages + theres going to be plenty of teething issues. THAT is for certain.


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## erica-grace (Mar 28, 2019)

Pudge said:


> So when you sign up to a developer to buy a product, you're not giving your name, address, card details, machine ID, I.P address and everything that comes with that...



That's different than putting your info onto a cloud.



Pudge said:


> So there would likely be new laws to handle this so people cannot have their trousers pulled down around their ankles



Yeah, well, I am a blue-blooded American Republican. You know - less government and less regulation and all.


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## gsilbers (Mar 28, 2019)

im old enough to have seen how tech has changed in the past 20 years and back then everything thats now available is nothing short of a miracle. now i don't think a daw cloud will happen soon, plus i could barley get a steady stream of that stadia presentation so even less the idea of cloud based gaming. 
but the thing is... back 20 years ago the ideas where different and these concepts where not implemented so it was hard to guess. and film music wasn't seen as cool at all. but in tech some made bets and won but a lot more lost. 
so now cloud daw might be an idea because we see adjacent tech doing stuff but in 10-20 years the idea or concept of daw might start to get outdated. I've seen trevor morris slave setup with 25 pentium4 32 bit pcs and a pile high servers my size being replaced in hans studio and now i see junkie xl with just a couple of pc andd doing the same, at the end the idea is always the same. from concept to completion in the fastest most spark of the moment idea to full orchestrated/arranged. with AI and tech changing maybe cloud based daw will not be a logic pro on the cloud but an AI capable of getting your keyboard playing melody to full on arrangement from what you tell alexa like tony stark and saying violins 2 doing mozart sonata whatever type of spicc arrangement and you play the melody and its like playing with a real orchestra. and so on until you have 8 bars completed. and with nothing else besides a computer monitor. or well.. whatever. but my point is that we might not now what will be coming next that will change tech and how we make music. or if even music makes money or the end result like in video games.


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## FrontierSoundFX (Mar 28, 2019)

Pudge said:


> With new technology hitting the gaming world, such as Google Stadia, using DATA centres to power and stream extremely resource intensive games. - How long will it be before music developers do the same?
> 
> It would seem good for DAW & instrument developers to use data centres to host their products. Not being limited by hardware would have huge benefits for everyone. Everyone could have access to infinitely sized template sessions loading as many instruments they wanted with no performance restrictions or need for slave machines, composing on amy device.
> 
> ...



Some sound effect libraries are already cloud based, like parts of Soundly. Processing audio remotely would concern me though. Even on the best servers there could still be a bottleneck somewhere like your bandwidth or personal router.

Interesting concept though, to remotely tap into someone else’s gear basically rather than invest in your own. We are certainly heading in that direction with ISDN.


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