Who Shouldn’t Buy “Like Magic”

Earlier this week I got a comment from a pre-order buyer of Like Magic:

“Between SuperCollider, PureData, and now ChucK they seem to do all the same flavour of “thing”. Which for the most part is “Cool, I made some beeps and boops”, but I could’ve also done that in way less time using audio tools that I know….so why this new platform/language/interface?”

Which is a completely excellent point. In fact, this is exactly the thing I was freaking out about when I first started to make this guide.

How do I coerce sound designers into buying this guide?!

The answer to that is simple: I don’t.

Who Shouldn’t Buy

I finally dove into writing this guide (which I’d been excited to do for a few months) right after I blew Akash Thakkar’s mind.

So my instant thought was “Oooooh this could be a new awesome custom thing for sound designers!”

…except then Akash learned Reaktor and all my worst suspicions were confirmed:

Sound designers who don’t like programming, don’t like programming!

BAH! Creative content creators…. sigh… amirite?! No, I’m kidding. I’m the weird one, I know.

So, to my point – there are two clear camps of people who should not buy this guide. I don’t want you to. At all. I want you to delete this email and never look back. It will be the best for both of us – perhaps we’ll hang out again later.

Sound Designers

Okay, so there’s a litmus test for this one – it’s real easy.

Imagine you have to go to work, and you are required to code more than make sounds in a DAW. Do you shiver or panic? Don’t buy.

If you’re really excited about sound design but feel like you should learn code and feel guilty that you don’t really like it – don’t buy.

Essentially, if you’re heart is set on making sound in a DAW with plugins, recording things, and the like – plus you’re happy never touching a line of code in your life – don’t buy.

Like Magic isn’t for you. You’re not going to get all the way through it. You’ll waste your time, and we’ll both be bummed when you ask for a refund.

Skilled Programmers

Most specifically, if you already know how to work with digital audio. But if you’re a seasoned programmer and you don’t know digital audio – you can find other, better ways to learn that are more engaging to you.

The guide is aimed at individuals who know either zero or some programming. If you know what you’re doing, again, you’ll waste your time and we’ll both be bummed when you ask for a refund.

Who Should Buy

So that begs the question, who should buy Like Magic?

Technical Sound Designers who want to learn more about digital audio systems
Those who want to have fun making sound with code and learning how it works
Those who want to be Technical Sound Designers or eventually Audio Programmers, and want to get their feet wet

That’s it. It’s pretty niche.

I promise, you’ll learn quite a bit and most importantly have fun making cool things.

Will you use those every day and have ChucK replace all of your plugins? No, probably not.

Will you come away with a very cool skill, understand more about the audio systems you work with, and have a new secret weapon you pull out sometimes for creativity? Definitely.

Today is the last day to get in on the presale, I’m shutting it down late tonight.

Get in while the getting’s good if you’re interested!