Karl Steinberg 就是 Steinberg 公司的老大。这是 Streamworks Audio 网站的 Robert Guerin 采访 Karl Steinberg 的记录
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THE MAN
Robert Guerin: What was your main motivation to go from an audio engineer to a music software developer in the first place?
Karl Steinberg: When I met my business partner, Manfred Ruerup, he had a record contract and I happened to be assigned his engineer. We met in that studio and had an extraordinary commonsense from the beginning. He was also selling keyboards at the time, so he came with the Midi Data Specification which was printed in some US magazine (Keyboards, I think). At that point, I had just started to realize that computers were somewhat easier to handle than a soldering iron. This seemed like a good fit to me and I programmed a midi sequencer within a few weeks (including development of a Midi Interface for the C 64), the “Multitrack Recorder”.
RG: Do you still keep a close eye on everything that is going on in the development of new features and applications, or do you now play a more administrative role in the company simply overseeing the direction these developments take?
KS: I am still actively programming. We are about to release Cubase SX 2.01, and all of us are involved in making it a success. All of us are watching technological developments, and all of us are creating ideas, so we are really more of a team, rather than one man providing the directions. In fact, the users are those who bring in many of the relevant ideas.
RG: Do you still have time or interest in doing musical projects for fun? You were an audio engineer before 1984, right?
KS: I do find some time for the fun stuff (grin). I have a small studio at home, and often spend some hours there in the evenings.
RG: What computer setup do you personally use?
KS: Currently I have a self-made, water cooled system, no hardware synths, but very much into surround.
RG: Is it possible to hear what you do or is this something you keep for yourself?
KS: I never get anything finished so there's nothing coming out yet (smiles).
THE COMPANY
RG: How do you feel the transition to the Pinnacle Systems group has helped Steinberg since it became a member of that family in January 2003?
KS: There are several areas where changes make sense, but as you can see we continue to develop music industry products such as Cubase as we used to, and beyond.
RG: Should we be expecting a turn or change in Steinberg’s direction as a result?
KS: In the professional audio area (Nuendo) we are currently building up on some interesting synergies, for instance (and obviously) in the video area, with more to come.
RG: Can you give us an idea of how big the Steinberg development team is in Germany? How does this team compares to the rest of the Steinberg staff in terms of resources; in other words, to run a company like Steinberg how much effort goes into development compared to sales, support and administration?
KS: We have several teams working in different areas, such as consumer products like Clean and MyMP3, and the larger crew works on the sequencer core from which both Cubase and Nuendo are derived. Some technology which is common to all products is developed by almost all of us. Then there are the Design people and the QA guys (Quality Assurance, testing). And let’s not forget the manual writers. All in all these make up for more resources than for marketing and sales, but then some of those areas are also shared with the Pinnacle resources.
RG: In your opinion, what do you feel is Steinberg’s biggest achievement over the years?
KS: Nuendo 2 and Cubase SX 2 (smiles). Oh, and HALion, Wavelab, and... It’s too much of a system that single developments could be sufficiently answering that question. Perhaps in the end, our greatest achievement is our “System”: the engine running behind our products.
RG: Most companies that go through difficult times at one moment or another, or have to make some hard decisions are often left wondering why they made that decision in the first place. They usually go on with the experience behind them and learn from it. Has this ever happened throughout Steinberg’s history, like a software you didn’t launch that you should have, or vice versa? If so, could you give us an example and tell us why you feel that this example would be considered a mistake?
KS: We had some products which either cost too much or just didn't sell well. Most of all there were products which were too early, or too “esoteric”, without naming any. But I don't recall that we did not at least launch a product that we had developed, even if some few did not have a long lifetime.
RG: How do you explain the fact that there is such a concentration of audio applications and very popular tools developed for musicians and audio professionals alike in Germany, as compared to the US or Japan for example? I know that Germany has always been a very important center for musical geniuses throughout the centuries; is this the 21st century German contribution to music after having produced icons like Bach or Beethoven?
KS: I have the impression that there was a shift from musical to technological challenges (smiles). Seriously, Germany is often a sought after country when it comes time to choose a recording facility, as people here appear to be somewhat more “tech heads” than in other countries in Europe. But at the same time, Germany didn't play much of a role in international pop music, for instance. However, this trend seems to be improving recently as we (Germans) appear to be facing a more European development which forces us to create our own styles.
RG: It seems that with the Internet now offering an easy way to keep users up to date, that everyone is heavily relying on this communication medium to do exactly that. But on the down side, the same medium has also contributed largely in the promotion of pirated versions of the applications you develop, even though there are security deterrents (in this case, a USB key) to slow down this practice. Besides the obvious loss of revenue, how does this phenomenon affect a company like Steinberg and how you think it affects the users that do pay a good chunk of change for their legally purchased applications?
KS: It's simple if you think about it. We have to spend a lot of time to work against piracy and still lose revenues. That means users suffer from the additional quality that could be have been achieved if all those resources (both people, and money) were available. I think you should pay for those things which have a practical value for you, and enhance your life’s quality. Otherwise there is the danger that that quality is severely diminished. We love to develop programs, most of us are musicians and we know better and more creative things to do than to lose time and pace due to piracy.
THE APPLICATIONS
RG: Quite often, beta testing is an important part of a software development. How do you usually recruit your beta testers?
KS: We try to find people who are developing real-life productions with the application to be tested. Most of the so called “automatic tests” are done in-house by the QA guys (Quality Assurance), but working on a real project is a different story. We also try to spread it such that we cover a great variety of equipment. We also involve third-party members, like plug-in or hardware developers.
RG: What ever happened to Rocket Network support in Cubase? Why was this feature dropped?
KS: It was not accepted as expected, and possibly too early. We are working on other solutions.
RG: System Link appeared to be a great feature when it came out. I know I was pretty excited about it. But as time passed and users started to voice their experiences, it appeared that it was not as stable (in terms of reliability) as one would have expected, probably mostly due to the fact that there are so many computer configurations out there. How would you like to respond to such criticism found in Steinberg forums from users?
KS: A networking system is often only stable once you get it going, and so is System Link. It works well if the peripherals are supplying and receiving data accurately, and it is sample precise then. Also you can use it for a variety of applications, such as video, workstation, or providing a VST plug-in server. We have many customers using it every day reliably, and we use and test it here so there must be something about it (smile).
RG: What motivated the decision to remove tools like the hit points in Cubase VST, which allowed film composers to match their tempos to visual cues (timecode based) from the current Cubase SX version? Was this a question of cutting the fat out of the less known and used software functions to make place for other functions?
KS: We have just put in similar functionality with the latest versions, and even better ones (e.g. Time Warp). Some areas sometimes need to be cut in order to renew them, so to be able to develop more sophisticated functionality.
RG: I read in another interview that the name Cubase came from a derivative of CuBit. How did the name Nuendo come about?
KS: We were looking for a name, it's hard to find one nowadays...it's a play of words, a pun. if you say “there are many tracks in Nuendo” the word “innuendo” is spoken, so Nuendo is somewhat of an “innuendo” itself. It's interesting to see (hear) how often people say “in Nuendo”.
RG: By focussing on Nuendo as your flagship, is your intention to take over ProTools’ place as the standard in the audio media production industry?
KS: Not exactly. It’s simply too expensive to switch a BMW driver to become a Mercedes driver. We believe that Nuendo is opening a new space for people who are looking for a powerful and affordable solution to produce numerous different projects in film, TV series, advertising, commercials etc. In other words we are looking for new customers, and if some of them use ProTools as well or before, we don’t care.
THE FUTURE
RG: Steinberg’s influence on the musical scene is undeniable. I remember when I started composing using tools like Cubase on my ATARI ST, back in 1990. I could not have imagined that my computer would eventually become a one-stop-shop almost for all my composition needs.
Do you think that the next 20 years will be just as revolutionary in the way we produce music as it has been in the past 20 or that this is a market that has attained a certain maturity and it will refine itself until the next quantum leap?
KS: The first, I think. There are too many areas which can be improved and are to be expected to change, even if you only look at the common computer related issues such as voice recognition, character recognition, touch-screen controls and the like. There is too much left for imagination to think we're done already, such as a re-synthesizer controlled like Tom Cruise does in Minority Report :-)
RG: That’s all the time we have for now. I’d like to thank you once again for taking the time to share your ideas with us and answer these questions.
