Does anybody use something like this to make music for any professional/commercial use or is it really just of academic interest and for tinkerers (no offense - there is value there to I know).
I ask because when I look at this (and I'm also an EE and a software developer) I get a headache.
Maybe. I don't know what you're latching on to, but I know both Jeskola Buzz¹ and Renoise² (which has some connection to the Buzz community) have been used commercially. These cover the tracker style + extra learning curve + crazy piles of features + weird UI, which should cover most of the bases.
This is not so much stranger in absolute terms than the modular synths people build (and probably a bit less obsessive.)
I haven't used it, but imo if you're getting a headache that's a bad sign regardless of what it looks like. You should do most of the looking with your ears and not have to use your eyes too much. That's what I used to love about trackers, but I haven't used one seriously since Impulse Tracker.
¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeskola_Buzz#Notable_users ²http://www.renoise.com/artists
Just like modular synthesizers are the purview of the... more obsessed sort, modular editors occupy a similar more specialized niche.
Edit: not dissimilar, but still different in a bunch of ways. Seems more like an attempt to marry the more common DAW audio-clip style with the modular synth environment (just based on screenshots).
The project is pretty much on hold since 2013 because the sole developer disappeared in June 2014... but the site and forums remain hosted, waiting for his return. The product looked so promising in its early 2012/2013 days but now lays dormant.
They improved the looks but there was always something that didn't work quite right. IN the 3.x series Midi was introduced, but it crashed all the time (and I've updated every time there was a new release).
Now I am using 4.x and it is dog slow for big sessions (which I originally recorded and mixed in 2.x on a much lesser PC with no problems).
I do understand their arguments. I know that they want to release something for Windows, Mac and Linux to improve their customer base (greatly). But I really hope that Ardour solidifies and they start improving the quality that it comes back to the quality of the 2.x releases.
It was totally normal that Ardour crashed at least twice in the 1 or 2 hours when we were editing drums. And the devs knew that this problem existed, but they've basically told, that it should be fixed in 4.x.
In the end, in my experience, it comes down to a few things:
- stability and available support for problems - ability to share native sessions w/ other users (as opposed to just stems) - support for hardware (audio i/o and controllers, including mixing surfaces) - ease of use - so the interface and process doesn't get in the way of the creative process
I am not necessarily a fan of ridiculous skeuomorphism in things like plugins, but at the same time a big knob or fader on the screen makes a lot more (and a lot quicker) sense to me than a little box w/ a hex value in it. I think the advent of touch screens in pro installations reinforces this - see Slate's Raven controllers, which are becoming very popular now - http://www.slateproaudio.com/products/raven-mtx/
In the end though this is just me - more power to anyone making good music anyway they can.