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European Commission Sponsors Linux Audio Distribution
krez writes: "Lately I've been looking for info on open-source audio recording & processing software. Not an easy task really: Suites like Brahms for KDE, and GLAME for Gnome are a good start, but I've yet to find a program - or a series of programs - that even approach something as comprehensive as Cubase or Cakewalk on those other platforms. Anyway, here's something that might just prove to be a good start. The European Commission is sponsoring a distribution called AGNULA (A GNU/Linux Audio distribution). The distribution will come in two flavours: Debian-based, and RedHat-based. You can read about the project and it's goals at http://www.agnula.org." The Debian side of this project is called DeMuDi, and it's been mentioned here before.
This is part of a continuing pattern that I've noticed. The major corporate entites which are embracing Linux aren't normally leaving some variant of Windows behind but instead are dropping Unix. The stranglehold Microsoft has on Office and the problems introduced by switching from Windows to Linux (in terms of a possible inability to access old files) is really hurting Linux in the War against Windows. But what these companies need to realize is that they can convert their old files into plain text files, using the very version of Office which is trying to tie them into an ugprade cycle of doom, using some simple batch scripts. This would be quite a chore, obviously - but in the long run companies would save. I don't know why this solution isn't being offered to companies. From what I understand, many companies are hesitant to drop Windows for this very reason: loss of access to old files. But again, Bill Gates doesn't really lose on this one. Linux gains some but not in the area where I'd like to see it.
Anyone doing high end audio work is probably capable of procuring, compiling, and using the available tools. Even in the Windows world (even in the *Mac* world, for chrissake), people who need SMPTE, notation, and Csound are typically fairly knowledgeable.
This is like creating an "Desktop Publishing Distribution" by including LaTeX, PDF support, a bunch of printer drivers, and emacs.
Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see the point.
Cheers
-b
One thing noticeably missing from the Debian package listing is AC3 support. If Linux wants to intrude on market share from the Mac/Windows community, more effort needs to be made to attract audio professionals.
i have an audiomedia III and a digi 001 from digidesign - pretty much designed for pro tools - which rocks - and which are the only reasons i still use mac os (9). osx doesn't even have support for them yet - (and the audiomedia III has been out for _years_).... anyway, would love to see these supported by a linux audio package (and i guess that means kernel support).
If you play the binary image of Linux over a radio, do you have to provide source?
I have been pwned because my
I've read in a bunch of places that the European Comission has all but decided to create their own version of the dreaded DMCA. If/when that goes through won't this have to be completely crippled?
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Well, call me a heretic (and some will!) but I've recently moved back to Windows XP from Mandrake for almost exactly this reason; I could find no way to run any sort of decent sequencing/audio recording package on Linux. And I tried them all, every single OSS program I could find via Google, via Freshmeat...
It seems that lots of people appreciate the basics of audio work, (I'd hate to give up sox, even under Windows) but when it comes to:
* support for a *decent* soundcard, with multiple channels and digital I/O.
* low-latency audio monitoring during record
* sync of MIDI and audio
* up to 24 tracks
* plug-in realtime effects
* automation
...etc, there's nothing that comes close to Logic Audio. So reluctantly, I now have a completely XP-based desktop.
Now, another possible response to me is; "don't send complaints, send source code!". First, I'm not complaining, just observing. Second, yes, I could probably write such a package BUT, I'd need to work around the myriad of Linux audio systems, to research low-level drivers for the specialist hardware that decent cards use... it would take me years. By the time I had something usable I would have forgotten how to play guitar!
ben
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
There are a couple of points I'd like to clear up since I am a musician. Music software needs to be easy to use. Musicians don't like to spend weeks learning an OS when they could be spending that time writing music. Musicians like me also won't switch from tried and true platforms unless something BETTER comes out. Not equal but BETTER. I use logic audio in winXP and that works very well for me. If something equivalent came out for linux I wouldn't use it since I wouldn't get anywhere learning new software that did the same thing as the software I use. It would be difficult to code a software studio program that was comparable to ones used today on the windows and macintosh platforms. These are serious, large programs that take the combined effort of a group of hired programmers to create. They have good interfaces and are standard. Many open-source programs that I have seen lack in the interface area and in the standards area. There is a reason why programs like cubase or logic audio cost so much, creating them is a huge endeavor and creating a realiable environment and good interface is not an easy task at all.
I could see linux based distributions being used by linux users and hobbyist musicians, but I doubt that intermediate musicians would use it and pro ones would deffinately not use it (they are too attached to their MACS and protools!)
I believe music software is an area where we NEED large well-funded companies to create the software.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Why not gentoo-based? It's probably the best mix of Debian and Redhat. I hear lots of people switching from Slackware and Debian all the time to Gentoo. I switched to it after running Debian for two years.
I think making special-purpose distros are a good idea. If I can borrow a disk from a fiend, install it on a box and have everything I need to start creating music, this is a tremendously hassle-free to put their hardware to good use.
One of my friends is a composer and a musician - he's also a programmer, but he has *no* Linux/Unix experience at all - could a distro like this help him get started? Sure.
How about a music teacher at a highschool? Don't count on him/her having much computer experience at all - given teacher salaries and the typical equipment in schools, he or she would probably welcome something like this.
I just don't see how focusing an effort on specializing a distro has any bad effect on other, more general distros. It takes nothing away, just adds...
Look at the demand for Firewall distros like IPCop. (My personal favorite!) With that, I can dl a 20mb iso and have a working firewall in 20 minutes - I don't have to go in and disable a lot of services the way I would if I had started with any of the standard distros.
Just my opinion...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Must take this moment to endorse Ardour.
While it isn't finished, it is quite an attempt to provide a professional quality hard drive recording program. Perhaps a little $$ twords finishing the developement of ardour would be worthwhile; I don't believe there is any free software close to what it is doing.
As Lawrence McVoy says, fracturing *linux is one reason to run and switch over to FreeBSD. Fracturing *linux is just one of many reasons why *linux is dying.
If we want linux to be taken seriously in multimedia production then we need some way to get around the proprietary format/codec problem for media. This is actually one of the key reasons why I'm opposed to DMCA-like laws (and patenting of compression algorithms), since they create barriers to entry for free software. Free software authors can't pay the licencing fees.
Morally the right thing to do would be to create free alternatives, but this is probably not a feasible option (lawsuits for patent infringement, consumer acceptance of alternate formats, etc.). As it stands now even watching DVDs on linux is illegal (afaik css is being automatically descrambled by a non-licenced program). Clearly some solution for this is needed.
As for the infrastructure, linux audio is doing pretty well (ALSA+lowlatency works wonders). All that's missing is the production apps... a good sequencer (cubase/cakewalk-workalike) would do wonders. All of the GUI audio apps I've seen for linux are crap compared to professional windows apps. It's about time to do something about it, but is the community of linux-using music-making dsp-coding geeks too small ?
Take a look at Apple's OS X (and I think BeOS but I'm not sure). You'll see there that the audio capabilities are engulfed in the operating system itself which means that any app correctly written to their specs can use any plugin or easily use fairly complex audio/midi processing routines which are included in the OS. The primary reason for going into the OS is timing, I know UNIX/GNU Linux is pretty good at multitasking, but you can't rely on standard kernel scheduling for pro audio apps. One of the reasons I think Macs are so stable whilst using audio apps under OS 9 and under is the way the app basically takes over the machine.
Further this means that a simple audio processing app should just be a pretty graphical shell and can be put together by your average Linux hacker.
The good stuff, like Cubase and Cakewalk, is unlikely to ever happen on Linux I think. Mainly because all the good audio software engineers are happily employed by the likes of steinberg, emagic, digidesign, apple etc.
IRCAM is a good source of stuff, has very good people and has done UNIX based stuff in the past. I don't know much about the others mentioned but I just don't feel this is going to achieve much. Let's wait and see.
http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka4/tesss/impl_free.htm#p rojects
or
http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka4/tesss/projects.htm
AGNULA, not to be confused with AGNEWLA, the Louisiana chapter of the official Spiro Agnew Fan Club, or Arugula, the yummy, yellowish mustard herb. Maybe we're getting carried away with the acronyms?
...I must say, this is the only thing holding me back from converting to 100% linux.
A shame to say, but, I've been using Cooleditpro, (and its predecessor, cooledit) for over 10 years now. It's not that I can't change. I won't. I'd be willing to change to a different package entirely, if it even came close in terms of features, and interface. (Logic Audio comes to mind, but once again, no linux version)
Sorry, but as much as I'd love to support the open-source movement...as much as I hate to indirectly support microsoft......and as much as I hate to dilly-dally over my final move to linux......... untill I get full-blown audio editing, recording, mixing, and mastering suite..... shit, I'd be happy to settle for a conglomeration of little programs to do it all........but untill I get either of my wishes, I'm stuck in a windows world.
...bah....someone hop to this, pronto.....
-Dan Youth
( www.mp3.com/AneurysmX )
Finally enough I found this through a link in an earlier slashdot article (gtkmm vs qt thing), but take a look at Rosegarden, being only a Rhapsody user myself, this impressed me.
GNU DeMuDi, on rudy!
GNU DeMuDi, on rudy!
GNU DeMuDi, on rudy!
A wop bop a loop bop a bop bam boom!
but, i think the biggest problem is that it isn't easy to use for a musician. On Mac/Windows just start some downloaded setup tool and your new drivers are installed. same goes for audio-software updates. Even this seems to be a problem as the FAQ pages show on most manufacturer pages.
Installing Alsa drivers isn't that easy. I mean there's a 40KB text file that explains howto install them, you need at least 6 steps. Also you must know which chip your audio-card is based on. Then there's 4 different things to get off the alsa page (Driver, Library, Utilities, OSS Compat. Library) but you actually need all of them to get audio software going - why isn't this one package? For my card using the ice1712 chip i currently must use OSS emulation for most audio-tools (except Ardour).
speaking of Ardour - If i were a normal pc-using musician and i want to try out some new software i heard of, I'd try to get some demo version of it and test the tool. to get Ardour i must know howto use CVS and of course howto compile under linux. I know Ardour isn't finished yet, but this is another point that keeps joe average off linux-audio.
for me it's fun to try out howto tweak my linx box and to see linux have super-low latency with some kernel patches (approx. 2ms). A lot work and time is necessary to get these things going (time a professional musician can't afford). MacOSX can provide similar latency and much better usability. Recoding some tool like Samplitude Studio which has a usability level that i never saw with any other software is nearly impossible. I once put a friend of mine in front of my machine running Samplitude - he is a musician only knowing something about his hardware like mixing-desk, compressors, amplifier... - he figured out howto use the most important functions within 5 minutes, and actually made the mixdown himself w/o needing my help afterwards.
That's the actual difference between opensource apps and professional apps (which are sadly not available for linux). So its usability not features, there shouldn't be a distro for audio, there should be some foolproof system for drivers and software installation.
Congratulations, you just defined why we have such a thing as patents. Patents protect an invention so that the inventor can enjoy a limited amount of time of exclusivity. If the author wants to let others use his invention for the cost of a license, great. If the poor free software developers can't afford the license, tough. The alternative of not having patents at all would seriously hinder the inventive process, and we'd see much less advancement (don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of silly patents out there, but just because the system can be abused doesn't mean the original intent is wrong).
Morally? By whose set of morals? Yours? What makes you so special that the morals you hold are the morals everyone else should hold as well? Morality has no place in business, politics, or education. Leave morality to religion. (note that "morals" != "ethics".)
Right. The solution is that someone (company, group of individuals) needs to pay for a license, develop a player, and distribute it legally (whether they charge for it or not is up to whoever builds the player). Then and only then will playing CSS-encoded DVDs on linux be legal. (Okay, so a legal alternative would be a complete clean-room reverse engineering of the CSS encryption, but that's likely not even a possibility anymore with the proliferation of the DeCSS code, not to mention the DMCA itself.)
I think that I'd be happy with an Acid like kind of thing. I don't know where's the home page of it, but it's made by Sonic Foundry, like SoundForge :-) And yes, it's only for Windows, like SoundForge.
;-)) And I, through my ignorance, believe that just with the features that this program provides we could do a lot of things. No MIDI, no SMPTE (STMPE? SMTPE?), only audio. And without effects (you can invoke an external editor from within Acid). But the samples are treated in such a way that you can change the tempo of the song and the samples play faster or slower, withouth changing pitch. That's wonderful, and the most important thing IMHO. Apart from being very, very easy to use.
;-)
Anyway, I've got the 1.0 version, which came with my HP CD-burner (besides a lot of fine samples), and I'm in love with it. It could be vastly better (that's why there's the 3.0 version now, I believe
But of course, I'm just an amateur. I'm sure that pros need much more, but something like Acid available in Linux would make my musicing hours much happier
My weblog in spanish
Apart from Brahms there is another nice Sequencer/Note editor for KDE -- Rosegarden: http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/rosegarden/index. html
It is based upon the old (ugly, Xaw) Rosegarden 2.1, which is also available on the above site.
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
SHINE GET!
that they didn't plump for SuSE, probaby Mandrake as the base.
Sound artists would probably get a better "eXPerience" from Mandrake.
Ooops. Sorry...
"DeMuDi is an effort to overcome this dilemma by providing a costumized distribution specifically for this kind of user."
What, like a penguin suit?
a distribution called AGNULA (A GNU/Linux Audio distribution).
Looks like RMS got his way with this one :-)
I'm addicted to VST plug-ins and VST instruments. Is anything in the linux arena even close to having support for this stuff? This is just one of the many things that a linux-based audio program will have to overcome, which is why I switched to Mac (and have been waiting for stuff to be brought to OS X)
I think the community of linux-using music-making dsp-coding geeks with enough time and good taste to work on quality GUI applications probably is pretty small. Making GUIs is difficult and mostly not much fun; it doesn't fit well with the scratch-your-own-itch style of development, and you have to think about those users all the time. Infrastructure is hard too, but often not quite so damn tedious.
I work on the Rosegarden-4 project, which maybe one day will be "somewhat like" Logic. So far we have yet another half-decent sequencer with MIDI and a bit of audio plus reasonable notation support, and we could definitely use some help. But the potential is there, we're making good progress, and I'm quite excited about the infrastructure, which I really think is becoming good enough and consistent enough to support it.
Projects like DeMuDi surely are mostly a good thing. The software is slowly getting there, and a push towards making it easier to find and install all the bits and bobs you need can surely only help. (Except of course that this is exactly what the mainstream distributions should be doing anyway.)
The big problem with sound program on linux at the moment is OSS. What is currently the most stable and supported(barely passable).
OSS has a number of limitations that make it very hard to get high quality sound programs. From what I was told it's like the clasic unix sockets. So you have to do a loop until the socket is free BUT this means you have a small period of time where there is nothing. This is what with XMMS, etc. you get clicks when the songs change.
Alsa uses call backs instead(an OSS compatable api is included which simulates OSS) which means you don't get that pause. This makes writing high quality audio programs much easier.
The long and the short of it is that I doubt we'll get really STABLE high quiality audio programs until Alsa is included in the Kernal in the distros (It has been included in 2.5) Which won't be for at least a year(this is a guess). The other thing that happens when the new kenal comes out is that it is supposed to have a lower latancy(VERY important from real time video/adio programs).
That combined with GStreamer and the like means that in about one or two years we should have some very nice audio programs.
That being said heres the best program I've found so far:
A Good Audacity Multiplatform Audio Program
You are thinking in the wrong terms. For Microsoft, anything less than 100% dominance is not enough. So, a win for Linux is most certinately a loss for Microsoft.
Look up the word "Monopoly". They don't get that way by settling for 50% of the market.
Just stating my opinion, feel free to disagree. I don't believe that breaking the law is a good solution and also I don't believe that having companies keeping a stranglehold of media production by controlling the means of distribution and production is a good thing. Free (or cheap) alternatives would promote independent media production and enable more people to create and distribute digital art than the current situation.
As for patents, my opinion is that the time of protection for the invention is too long and the standards for granting protection are too low. The particular case of compression algorithms (and many other algorithms); I consider them mathematics, which shouldn't be patentable. It seems that patents don't protect individual inventors btw, but only those who have the resources to use the patents in court (i.e. large companies).
Another problem with ip laws is that they are in my opinion trying to create artificial scarcity of resources, where there exist none naturally, so that ip can be created, sold and bought like any other physical good. It's surprisingly conservative that when technology is about to make certain business models obsolete then laws are enacted to protect those models. I.e. "We've made lots of money doing this in the past, we have the right to make money doing this in the future." Strikes me as lack of faith in the adaptability of the capitalist economy - there will be new markets, when old ones are made obsolete.
Unfortunately, the standard of tying all these different modules together is VST/VST2, and to my knowledge there currently is no package that provides support for VST under linux. Even if there was such a thing, most VST plug-ins still call upon platform-specific API's, etc.
I hate to say it, but for the next couple of years I do not see linux becoming a viable platform for DAW/midi suites such as Cubase, Logic, or Performer, at least in terms of VST support. I don't know whether in the future it will be possible to port apps like Cubase to linux using wine (more specifically, Trans-Gaming's approach of porting programs one at a time), but I don't really see an alternative at this point.
I do appreciate the work that has been done with LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plug-in API, check here), but the de-facto standard is VST, and that's not going to change.
and you do need a kickass MIDI sequencer, I suggest BeOS + Sequitur. It does not have all the features of Cakewalk (I miss expecially the score) but it does have other special features of it's own, like for example processing filters and filter editing (for new filters), but there are many more.
There are many more good audio tools on BeOS. One more recommendation is XRS, a groove station, similar to FruityLoops. I composed this song completely in XRS, using just the built-in software synths.
Sigged!
One thing that I don't dislike in the European Union is the sense that they seem to have regarding information technology. It seems like they are making decisions which really could benefit the European Union and not a single company. This shows for example through the IST (information society technologies programme coordinated by EU).
:))
This gives you a glimpse to some open source based / utilizing projects they are supporting:
51 records found.
I don't know if opensource is the magic for getting EU money, but atleast it does not seem like it closes your opportunities. Just as it should be. But atleast it should be easier to get rational decisions in here than in US, in which I assume the elections are more strictly based on how much marketing support the candidate gets from selected corporations
When we have programs like reason, things will be good on the music side.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
would be nice aswell.. I'm still not sure which is better our of ALSA or OSS, and both of them support different features of my sound card :/
These distros (correct me if Im wrong) are partly to add a real time element to sound processing/sampling IAMAMP (I Am Not A Music Person) with kernel patches etc aswell as suites of music editing apps? It's not just a crappy simple distro where gnome-media is installed by default!
This kind of thing won't appeal to real professional musicians as there is absolutely no professional grade multitrack recorders / sequencers available on Linux - not even ONE. And dont suggest SLAB/whatever - they just dont cut it. It's a start I agree, but you're not going to get the user base over until there is a decent killer application that can compete with ProTools or Logic.
Having recently bought Logic Audio myself, I am quite happy with Windows 2000 as a platform. It's not linux but its perfectly stable and allows me to get decent latencies via my card's ASIO drivers.
Unlike others, I'm interested in music, not politics...
--- And on the 7th day, God created Windows. He must have been tired by then.
This morning on my way to work I bought copy of Linux Format to read on the train (LXF28 June 2002). On page 8 (Linux Webwatch) was a section on creating music on Linux which included a few interesting links.
Ardour - record 24 or more channels of 32-bit audio at 48kHz
TK-707 - a soft drum machine based on Roland's precursor to the legendary 808
Slab - another audio recording tool that consists of a virtual tape deck, a mixer, a wave editor and some audio mixing tools.
Open Music This project provides a spectrum of Licenses for musicians to realease their music under (influensed by the GPL).
How are the free versions of BeOS coming along?
Can they handle any of this software yet?
more market loss for Microsloth.
Microsloth is going down the drain, and so are you. You'll soon be out of work because microsloth will fire the department of its trolls first of all (although you're probably payed with an old version of MS Office).
HahahahahLOLLOLOooooooooroflroflrofl!!
Nope
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
The DeMuDi project is now about 9 months (maybe a year) old, and they have done bugger-all except to write one paper for some conference in October last year. That's it. I have never been so underwhelmed with anything as I have with Linux audio.
For example, ALSA. ALSA is supposed to bless us with a serious audio API and drivers one day, but the so far what I have seen of it, I wonder if those guys will ever get their act together. The drivers are horrible (even after you get passed the well-known difficulties in installing them, they are seriously substandard). The documentation sucks. There are way too few (2, maybe 3) developers working seriously on it. Like so many of the higher-profile open source projects, it's lack of professionalism amazes me.
Linux is truly horrible for audio work, and as long as hackers remain hackers, it will stay that way.
A bit of topic maybe, but I have just installed SuSE 8.0 and I was happy to find a lot of music related software to play with on the SuSE CDs (MusE, Brahms, Jazz+, kmidi etc). Since I have a digital piano (Yamaha Clavinova), it was natural to think about trying out the midi capability that the digital piano has. So, I bought a midi connector (for the joystick entrance of my SoundBlaster Live 5.1 oem card) but have not been successful yet to get the digital piano to communicate with any programs.
Is there any slashdotters out there who have some experience with these things? It would be nice to hear from anyone else who have tried to connecting their digital piano to their linux box. Advice to a newbie like me would be much appreciated!
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Not being too Linux savvy I ended up creaming
my audio altogether
Now I use a swappable drive bay with a second
drive with Windows and all my audio apps. Yeesh.
I for one would be really happy to have some of
the cool audio projects in the dist, even if they are still
developmental.
-----
For great justice!
A somewhat rambling rant:
/.ers when it comes to music and sound software that runs under Linux. I've written a book about the subject, I've maintained a focused Web page on the subject for more than six years, and I've published more than 16 articles on Linux audio issues in the Linux Journal, on the O'Reilly Network, on Freshmeat, and in the Linux Gazette. I've even indicated where you can actually *hear* music made by people using Linux audio software such as SpiralSynth, Pd, Csound, and many other apps. Linux sound support now includes the Hammerfall and Hammerfall DSP cards, the MIDIman Delta series, and a host of consumer-grade cards (including the SBLive and Audigy cards). ALSA brings a very high-quality audio and MIDI API to the kernel sources. Audio performance latencies can be brought down to the under-2msec range by simple kernel patches. Software such as terminatorX, SpiralLoops, Ceres3, and RTCmix may not fit the average Win/Mac user's idea of what constitutes music software, but that doesn't mean it's not usable (i.e., musical) software ! I've said this so many times it's becoming a litany response: Cakewalk and Cubase have been in commercially-supported production since the late 80s, years before Linux even existed. And as Paul Davis (Ardour developer) points out, absolutely *no* source-code models exist for learning how to achieve designs similar to those commercial packages, so almost everything has been learned from scratch. Yes, it takes time to write a professional-quality hard-disk recording system, a lot of time. AGNULA's time-span extends over a 2-year period: Last year at this time Ardour wasn't even usable; this year I'll be lecturing about it to students in Barcelona in June. So what will the situation be like in two more years ?? Okay, I understand clearly when someone says they must have Windows in order to create their music *now*. That's fine, but judgments upon software they have *not* learned to use are irrelevant. So go ahead, stick with Win/Mac: meanwhile we're the ones who are working to bring something better to Linux users who want pro-audio software. Helpful support is always welcome, and you can find links to such groups as the Linux Audio Developers and Linux Audio Users mail lists by following the URL in the title to this post.
;)
I'm consistently amazed at the ignorance of so many
Honestly, reading some of these posts makes me think of what the responses were like when Linus announced his intentions to the world. "Oh, you'll never be able to [favorite Win/Mac activity here] on Linux". Ten years later a lot of those posts read like they were written by some rather short-sighted whingers...
Wrong, wrong, wrong... Sure, the officially stated goal of the patent system is to protect the inventor (especially the "small inventor" who does not want his hard work to be stolen by a large company). Unfortunately, there is a big difference between theory and practice and we all know that in the end, the patents are disputed in courts where the companies sue and counter-sue each other. In many cases, the one who has the deepest pockets wins because the "small inventor" is forced to drop the case or to settle for something that less than ideal. Of course, eliminating patents completely would not be a good solution either, but at least the current patent system should be updated
Regarding the license fees, there is another (bigger) problem: the free software developers cannot pay the license fees because the licensing terms are almost always incompatible with the free distribution of the software. Most of the licensing mechanisms are based on royalties or on some variable fees that depend on the number of copies sold or distributed. This is not compatible with free software because the authors have no way to know how many copies of their software will be distributed. This does not work either if someone takes an existing software package and modifies it to create something new: who pays the license fees in this case? The original author who is not even aware of this new software? The new author? But then, when should the new software be considered "different enough" from the original package?
-Raphaël
Please excuse me if this doesn't make much sense since I haven't really looked into sequencing with Linux.
Anyway, I'm wondering whether the situation with GUI sequencers isn't similar to IDEs or typesetting, in that a large part of Linux users are happy (happier, actually) with using an editor, compiler and some command line tools, and not a GUI.
So, does an appropriate language for defining a piece of music exist, a LaTeX for musicians? Or are the features that musicians need that can't reasonable be implemented in such a version?
I guess you mean Open versions of BeOS. Well, the only attention-worthy project is OpenBeOS (sometimes referred to as OBOS). It can't handle this software, or any software, yet. However, BeOS 5. PE (personal edition) is free and just as powerful as the Pro edition. You can even download ISO images of PE with additional drivers and/or software. These would be the BeOS "distributions".
Sigged!
- This is either offtopic or just a stretchy tangent, take your pick ;) But on the subject of specialized task-centric distros ...
:) )
... why pay tribute to Adobe?" (Or Quark, etc.)
;)), Windowmaker for the desktop, and one or two "state of the art" programs for ...
:)
a) as long as it's inclusive rather than exclusive, I can see a lot of different specialized distros; that's partly just a matter of marketing / mindset though. If it's based on a Free software system with any sort of easy updater (apt-get, urpmi, emerge, or whatever tomorrow brings), distro's specialty is a starting point, not ending. It's more like taking a "taskset" as some distros divide apps into, and making it the focus. It doesn't *prevent* one from installing email clients etc on that box to make it more versatile, but it makes keeping a specialized box free of X factors easier.
b) The closest thing I've found to (circa 1993*) PageMaker is Scribus, which is a nice app. (KWord's frame orientation makes it similar, too, really, but it's obviously a word processor with some cool layout thoughts than vice versa, no offense intended either way -- good program
I'd love to see (at the very least) a lot of high school newspapers decided "Hey, we're trying to put out a little paper and teach some quite generalizable skills
There are a lot of items lacking or only partway there in the Free software world when it comes to running even a small newspaper idea-to-press -- and I would love to see a distro which integrated lots of publishing tools in one place, including tools for making an online edition!
How about one which included KDE and GNOME (for the libraries and apps, not necessarily for the DEs
- image cataloguing, type conversion
- vector art (sketch? sodipodi? OO?)
- raster art (GIMP, and which other?)
- word processing
- layout (the two I named already, any better?)
- web browsing (Mozilla 1.0, Konqueror)
- html creation (not sure, I use pico for this;))
The big lacks:
- integration with existing copyflow systems
- fonts for layout
- integration with printers' systems (perhaps they can just print from giant PDFs burned on CD?)
On the other hand, if *most* tasks related to putting together a publication can be taken care of with Free software, then the remaining tasks can be handled on fewer machines. This is what goes on at many (I would say typical) publishers anyhow, even if for different reasons. Things like "the reporters get the tiny screened pieces of crap, the layout artists get the 21" monitors and fast computers with Quark / InDesign.")
timothy
* no insult here -- I just haven't used Pagemaker much since then, and I don't think Scribus is yet to the level of programs like Quark, partly for font reasons which are not under the control of the program's author!
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
On a related note, if you're looking for a sound editor, check out GNUsound. I wrote it myself so it must be good :)
It seems strange that the distros the European Commission (presumably based in Europe) aren't utilizing the major European Linux distribution. Namely, SuSE.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I've gotta agree...what's the deal with you folks? Check out the page he listed in the subject line:
http://linux-sound.org/
I've been checking out this stuff and using the software linking from it for a few years now (thanks Dave P.), and I've had a really fun time with it. If you are willing to use proprietary software and want to throw $50 towards a good project, I can recommend the 'Ultramaster rs101,' which is a fun little 16 track sequencer: http://www.ultramaster.com/rs101/. (seems like the site is temporarily down, try the google cache for now: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.ultramast er.com/rs101/.) If you want, you can hear some of the music I've made on linux with this package: http://www.easy-protest.com/music/
Currently I'm in the process of installing Ardour to see how that works, and I've used a bunch of other stuff already with good results, like Audacity, snd, (haven't tried hard enough to use) PD, etc.
There's a lot of stuff out there, and a lot going on! I know Ardour's been mentioned a lot, but if you would like to get some real pro-audio on Linux, I would recommend checking it out: http://ardour.sf.net/--and maybe tossing some money toward Paul Davis, who does a sh*tload of work for Alsa, Jack, and etc. as well as creating this amazing software. Of course, there are others out there too, get involved!
I would like very much to reduce my dependence on Redmond. So, when it came time to upgrade my machine, I considered upgrading my OS & software as well.
I looked around, under, and over, and my options were...nothing. There are a lot of toys for Linux out there, but nothing that can hook all the pieces of my digital studio together.
I'm not necessarily looking for an open source solution. If Cakewalk (SONAR) or even Cubase were available for Linux, I'd probably go there. I'd be willing to pay the money and continue using proprietary software just to move off of Windows. But the reason Audio software costs so much is that it is hard to write well.
Trust me - it's much worse to lose a perfect take because of a digital clock sync glitch than it is to lose a document I'm composing. Much worse. In addition to being technically ignorant, stoned, and irresponsible, musicians are just not going to stop a recording session to code a quick driver fix so they can finish the song. They'll throw the thing out the window & set it on fire. Don't you watch the Osbournes?
Why hasn't anybody said anything about trackers ? (another, another, another). I couldn't create a beat without one.
Also, if you don't know about Ardour, I don't care 'bout ya.
This kind of thing won't appeal to real professional musicians as there is absolutely no professional grade multitrack recorders / sequencers available on Linux - not even ONE.
You have obviously never heard of Ardour.
Well for the desktop anyway.
Talk about bloody ridiculous, you need a differeant app depending on whether you are using KDE (Brahms) or Gnome (GLAME). Ontop of that you need a bloody different PKG format depending on whether you are using a Debian based distribution or a Redhat based distribution.
This is ridiculous.
If bloody MS can come up with a common development API/PKG format for 2 completely unrelated OSes, DOS based Win9X & VMS inspired WinNT/2K/XP (out of the hundreds of apps I've used on my Windows partitions, on 'n off, I've only come across 2 that didn't work in NT/XP, ontop of that my version of StudioMax says it'l will only work in NT/2K yet it works fine in 98SE), then there's absolutely no reason that all X86 nixs (QNX, SCO, linux, Solaris, etc) can't have a a common API/PKG format, let alone different distributions of Linux.
The fact is that Linux will never be a success on the Desktop with this mess.
Ontop of that there's people out there who I s'pose who expect their grandmas to recompile all the software they download or purchase, before they use it. Give me a break.
Don't lets start on dependency hell.
I have a page with several popular GPL VST Plugins ("Destroy FX"). If someone were to port VSTGUI to linux, we'd definitely compile our stuff for linux users as well.
Hey,
if anyone is interested in writing his own audio effects, be it under linux or 'doze, check out http://www.musicdsp.org !
- bram
One thing I've found interesting is that they talk about Libre Software.
I find this quite nice and could end endless references to speech or beer.
But ALSA lacks good documentation aimed at application developers like this: http://www.opensound.com/pguide/
Until it does, expect ALSA's exceptance to be slooooow!
(RANT)
So we'll all have pie-in-the-sky bye-n-bye, eh? That means nothing for those who need it now. And no, while you DID point out some cool and useful tools, they aren't the full-featured tools the original poster asked about, are they?
Shake the OpenSourceHappyDust(tm) out of your eyes and admit it: the Open Source equivalent of Cakewalk just doesn't exist. Maybe it will, someday, maybe even as soon as next year. But for now, it doesn't.(/RANT)
[posting AC cuz I'm at work & can't remember my p/w]
Um, playing CSS-encoded DVDs with an unlicensed decoder (e.g., DeCSS) is quite legal. CSS is not patented. It was kept as a trade secret. But it's not a secret anymore. There is no need for a license to use it.
On the other hand, thanks to the DMCA, distributing DeCSS is (unfortunately) legally questionable. I believe the Constitution protects my right to distribute it, but the issue is still in a murky position in the courts.
(Of course, as a Slashdotter, it goes without saying that IANAL.)
Yackety-Yack!!! It's time to pack serious Linux sound and audio solutions in a bowl and smoke it. American commercial products have to much of a head start and the mass marketing engine is to powerful. Serious music composition is difficult enough without throwing the toils and troubles of Linux internals on top of it. LILO BOOT linux Windows Windows..... Start ---> Cakewalk "Now I'm makin' music and swigin' a cols ass 40!"
Thanks Onan for setting em straight!!
/. makes techno or electronic music, ,if you do, you'll know that artists always seem to go thru 'technique trends' - e.g a couple of years back, inspired by prodigy and chemical brothers, everyone was time stretching their drum loops and removing the kicks to make new sounds. R
One more important point for any musician thinking about why to use *nix for audio, apart from the obvious moral considertaions using linux for audio gives access to a vast array of experimental/compositional tools available for *nixen, e.g P.D/Gem, Csound and the LADSPA plugins or is that lapsda? = this is the alternative to the closed VST standard.
Not sure if anyone at
ight now, artists like Aphex Twin and Mouse on Mars are using Win/Mac environments like Reaktor to perform techniques like granular synthesis on samples (check Druqs album by Aphex).
Whats next in the hunt for new sounds? - how about using the experimental tools developed at outfits like CMU and IRCAM, and released under GPL, running on linux and hacked by a legion of GNU dsp programmers?
...however, like many musicians whove tried to get alsa/ardour going, I've gone thru major drama just trying to get the ALSA drivers installed - complete failure on Mandrake 7.1 a year ago, (complete failure to compile) and now steadily heading for isntall failure #2 on debian woody.
For those folks who 'just want Reason' or 'need another version of Cooledit', or for those who only use preset sounds and arent into making something new, this might not be all that exciting, but for hardcore synthesis gurus, this is nothing short of unlocking the keys to the kingdom
This EU project funding could not have come at a better time....
Okay, here goes my mileage varying: I found ALSA a trifle clumsy to install, and expect it to remain so until it comes with the kernel, but on my soundcard (a GUS MAX), it kicks major ass all over OSS/Free. OSS/Free doesn't even do full duplex on my soundcard....
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
I use suse myself, but it is annoying to have to run a seperate script for low latency. The deal is that most linux distros are tuned for web serving, not multimedia playback, so it takes some heavy tweaking to get the system right, whereas with DeMudi you simply get debian that comes out of the box with all the audio and music software pre-compiled and also with the low latency settings precompiled into the kernel. Believe me, doing all this on your own, though it CAN be done, is a huge timewaster if you're a composer who wants to use linux, rather than a programmer who occassionally likes to compose. If you want to use linux for pro audio work, Demudi makes it easier (as long as you hardware is supported by debian.)
Check my site out for ogg vorbis music produced with linux.
If Suse gives money to do a Suse based Agnula dist, so a SuMuSEDi dist wil be released
Vok