Back from LAC2013@IEM-Graz

Not sure if I'll be back anytime soon, as life is short and shorter by the minute as there's so many things to get done, let alone seeing again. I believe no matter one sees it, Graz is a lovely town, singular on its own. And it just got brilliant after this latest LAC iteration. As they say 'round here, it's like Porto (the wine), it just gets better with age :).

As it's been the norm, this self-indicted über-procrastinator only gets the chance to put some babbling about the experience a lot after. So it is this now, it's all gone and wrapped and is with tears in the eyes that these lines are now happily written.

Now seriously ;) the Linux Audio Conference 2013, held at the IEM Graz just went great and smooth, although it seemed faster paced and formally shorter than usual, informally it ended with a great and awesome finale: a whole Sunday escapade in the countryside, a cherry on top of the cake.

Regarding my presence, making it was my official consecutive 9th attendance already, the usual record applies: infamous as a die-hard, lone wolf developer goes (read hobbyist), piling up some orders of magnitude high in the coding stash and none to the documentation still, I must say and praise that users are actually in charge of the asylum, sorry, institution. ;) Just to put merit where it is deserved, the current released documentation dedicated to my own software critters (eg. Qtractor) are products of extraordinary and excellence dedication from unsung heroes, written by users to users, as remarkable evidence that miracles can also breed from bare reason.

All that to say I tried to fill the lot of (huge) little gaps with one first workshop iteration--Qstuff*: past, present and future--which just went fine as great in value but, well, a lot has been left to be desired. One's only is to blame and that's me, this old lazy and sloppy über-procrastinator, no other. And then it happened, an additional aka. addenda workshop was promptly requested and kindly granted thereafter--Qstuff*: part II-- thankfully. And yet again no stretching of time was really enough to spill a decade old full of garage mold ridden stuff... whatever. I admit I've abused the conference venue and facilities somehow, after all I was given a lot of 160 (80+80) minutes allowance and burned it all with babbling making it to a total excess of 4 hours plus and, quite frankly, just skimming the poster subject(s). But, don't take me wrong, though time was very well spent only that it was not fully (how could it be?) enough to help covering all the issues the praying audience surely deserved. So, I failed just miserably, in the good sense at least. Or so I like to think :)

Next time I shall ask (in fact, I already did) for some all-day-long, non-stop, open, free-style workshop type for the next LAC (2014 obviously). No kidding here. Just think about this: when one of the attendees churned out quite on-the-fly, not one but three tunes in a row and when you know that some of the Qstuff* was piece and central in that workflow, then you know that you've been doing something right. Flattered to the bone and there's no evidence of sinfulness nor any close. Simply happiness.

Louigi Verona is his (nick)name and to him goes my greatest gratitude. The aforementioned tunes are readily available on soundcloud.com: LAC2013 tune #1, LAC2013 tune #2 and LAC2013 tune #3 (nb. the first one actually includes some on-site recording samples of my babbling from Qstuff* part I workshop :))

Jeremy Jongepier (left photo) is also on the short list by all means. All my video footage are incidentally focused on him: Using your electric guitar with Linux (workshop excerpt), Slow Down, Leave It All Behind and Nervous Walking (2nd. club-night excerpts) are there made available unedited (CC BY 3.0 applies).

One honorable mention I should not forget from evading this wall of records, one that must be given to Superdirt² (photo on the right) . This project's performance just coined a massive dance-floor hit during the Linux Sound Night (aka. 2nd club-night). One memorable, so to speak. Only who was there may know what I'm talking about. ;)

And to all others whose names aren't here mentioned, and they are a lot, please don't get me wrong. A great, an immense thank you all for your interest, the slightest it can be, on my Qstuff*. Most of you expressed that very clearly and sure I know who you are personally. Although some I might not remember so easily, as this rusty brain is just getting older and rusty by the year, after year :)

Last but not least, I am deep and profoundly thankful to the core staff and team organizers: IOhannes m zmölnig, Peter Plessas, Florian Hollerweger and as usual, Robin Gareus and Frank Neumann et al. ;)

LAC2013 is now gone. Long live the LAC2014. Speaking of which as been firmly announced, the next years LAC will get back to its home place or, in other words, it will be LAC2014@ZKM-Karlsruhe. Nuff said.

As usual, as final candy,

• all unedited photos taken during the whole stay:
  http://www.rncbc.org/lac2013
• few videos (actually 4, already mentioned above) were shot and all focused on Jeremy Jongepier's aka. AutoStatic aka. The Infinite Repeat:
  http://www.youtube.com/user/rncbchannel

Cheers, and see you all next year.

ps. Qstuff* is one lousy acronym I've made up in a hurry to collect all the things I've been polluting the Linux Audio world during the last decade. Yep, ten years o.O