[orangefarm]

Is there any reason why music production in the cloud isn't the standard yet?

High-quality VSTs requiree a lot of CPU power. Even my 16-inch MBP easily heats up once I add some more advanced VSTs.

I would rather pay X$ per month and have my music production work station in the cloud and interact with it from any old device with a fast internet connection.

Working with a buffer size of 512 samples, I currently have a latency of 11.6ms in Ableton. Adding another 10ms latency through the internet connection wouldn't be a drama for me.

Working in the cloud would allow me to easily upgrade or downgrade my system based on my needs, better collaboration with others, automatic backups, one-click access to new VSTs and samples, etc.

This set up would probably be less ideal for people who actually have to record a lot of 'real' instruments but a lot of music is only created in the box today with VSTs.

But I'm surely missing something here. Why hasn't this been a trend yet?

[djaychela]

>Is there any reason why music production in the cloud isn't the standard yet?

Latency springs to mind, firstly. It's hard enough getting a local DAW with audio interface working fast enough reliably with a high CPU load to ensure that a performer is happy with it. Adding in journey to/from the cloud, I'd think would make that part of it a non-starter.

Your quoted 10mS is doubling what you already have, and I'd wager there's more to it than that - particularly if you have an up and downstream connection to take into account. Put the buffer size up on your Ableton setup to 30mS, and see if that is playable.

[atoav]

As a musician: what you say sounds nice on the marketing papers, but no thanks. Me and most of my collegues value reliability and owning the things they play with. Why? Because it is your damn instrument and it shouldn't change unless you like it to, and it should work anywhere even without internet. Something that needs a network connection to start up is dangerous, but something that relies on a decent internet connection is downright wrong. For home use — maybe — but for live use? Never.

Also 10ms more is already too much. If I had to decide between cool cloud synths and the latency I'd go for latency.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Adding another 10mS of latency makes keyboards and sample pads unplayable for anyone who can actually play - especially if that latency is variable.

[guggle]

> I currently have a latency of 11.6ms in Ableton. Adding another 10ms latency through the internet connection wouldn't be a drama for me.

Music is all about timing. Latency is crucial. 11.6ms is already too high for playing anything but instruments with slow attacks. Adding 10ms more would make it almost unusable for anyone that actually plays with their fingers.

What you describe could probably be used for musics that are programmed rather than played, but that's already a niche product.

[spunker540]

If gaming can do it via Stadia, I think music production should be able to do it too. I understand the other comments about latency being particularly crucial for live performance. But there's a big difference between live performance and recording. And I could see a model where as you play live and lay down tracks, it uses a low latency local sample, but then when you playback after the fact (where latency is not important) it can leverage more advanced state of the art VSTs via the cloud.

[vortico]

Audio over internet would be at least 300ms latency, not sure where you're getting "10ms". Anything over 10ms is annoying, and 50ms is nearly unplayable.

[orangefarm]

Why would it be at least 300ms latency?

[vortico]

To send/receive a multi-channel audio/MIDI buffer to/from a server, you need to go through at least a dozen protocols, including waiting for the speed of light between you and your server. If you're in NY and your server is in LA for example, that's already 30ms gone just considering speed of light. Other factors multiply this latency by an order of magnitude.

[orangefarm]

Okay and you would say that if you optimised all of these factors you would end up with a latency around 300ms?

I just set my Ableton Live to 300ms and it was actually o.k. I think the reason is that a lot of people don't actually 'play' their instruments these days - at least in electronic music.

Instead, they program their drums by putting midi notes on the grid and then listening to the result. The same with synths etc. So when I work this way, the 300ms latency are actually bearable. Of course it would be different if I used drum pads to play my drums 'live'. But honestly I don't know many people who do that and when I watch tutorials on YouTube also almost no one is doing that. A lot of electronic music producers 'play' their instruments with their mouse button.

[vortico]

Access Analog (https://accessanalog.com/) is already doing something similar, and their system is around 300-2500ms latency (https://accessanalog.com/support/#1534876416634-f660a710-8f4...). A company cannot reliably offer much better than this latency, unless they have servers in all their customer's cities.

To most DAW users, 300ms is unacceptable, so any service that processes audio on a server needs to make this caveat very clear in their documentation. The problem with such a business idea is that local computers run DAWs just fine, so very few people would seek remote audio processing.

[lend000]

Sounds like a business waiting to be born.