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Reborn 1.0 And The State of Linux Audio

Posted by timothy on from the switched-on dept.

Eugenia writes "This is great news for the Linux audio users! Reborn, a clone of the legendary ReBirth, has just been released. It provides software emulation for three of Roland Corporation's most famous electronic musical instruments. Also thrown in are four audio effects, individual mixers, a programmable sequencer and is fully compatible with the ReBirth .rbs song file format. To celebrate this release, OSNews runs an article presenting the most advanced professional, or semi-professional audio applications available today for the Linux platform." Most of the article consists of a list of audio software that can currently run on GNU/Linux systems. It's a pretty good list, but things like Cubase aren't there yet.

8 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Don't expect Steinberg to make the jump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Since Cubase was mentioned, I really doubt that Steinberg will ever shift in the direction of open source OS's in regards to their marquee products (Cubase, Nuendo, Wavelab, etc.) simply because they are moving towards a hardware based solution in the future, following Digidesign.

    Sad, but true.

    1. Re:Don't expect Steinberg to make the jump by horati0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Since Cubase was mentioned, I really doubt that Steinberg will ever shift in the direction of open source OS's in regards to their marquee products (Cubase, Nuendo, Wavelab, etc.) simply because they are moving towards a hardware based solution in the future, following Digidesign.

      Steinberg (or any other sequencing software company for that matter) aren't moving to hardware replacements for their products. What they are doing is coming up with some pretty rad hardware to control the software.

      It's an odd thought, controlling a software program with an outboard piece of hardware but if you think about it, it makes sense. As computers get more and more powerful, only the software that records,renders,manipulates,and,masters the audio needs change. Virually replacing an entire studio's worth of gear is a matter of a:\install.exe. Steinberg, Cakewalk, Logic, et al, all know this and will continue to push for a software-based studio.

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    2. Re:Don't expect Steinberg to make the jump by uebernewby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nope, Steinberg won't do Linux because they feel Linux isn't able to deliver the performance they want. Before you start yapping 'low latency kernel', consider the direction Steinberg's been taking off late, with VST, VST2 and now VST System Link, not to mention their ASIO standard that aims to whack latency down to almost nothing: Steinberg is interested in real-time computing. Linux may be good for a lot of things, but real time virtual studio work isn't one of them.

      BTW, claiming that Steinberg is 'moving towards a hardware based solution in the future' is pure FUD and has no basis in reality whatsoever. Steinberg is, after all, the company, that continually thinks up new standards and protocols for making studio work on a computer a better experience. Oh, and just for the record, no, I don't work for them, nor do I own any of their software as I can't afford it.

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  2. Good news indeed by aufecht · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seeing that these days the only I time I am rebooting into Windows is to run Cubase and various other music apps this is good news. I have been desperately trying to bring my music production over to Linux, in fact I'm picking up my copy of "The Csound Book" today. Over the years I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to run many of the freely available sequencers (Jazz), software synths, etc. Although I have never been a huge fan of ReBirth I have a friend who uses it and sends me ReBirth files once in a while. It will be interesting to see how they function in ReBorn.

  3. Where is Jazz ? by beru777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't see Jazz listed...

    There's going to be a lot of work to catch up with software such as Cubase SX or Reaktor...

    Especially I saw no standard for plug-ins, like VST, for example (which already is multiplatform so could probably be ported to Linux, after all it's just API specs). I didn't see any software that gives audio and midi multitrack integration either.

    Another huge problem is going to be the drivers for the many professional audio cards (none of them has drivers for Linux, as far as I know)

    1. Re:Where is Jazz ? by spameggsbaconandspam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      re: the lack of a professional sound card...

      rme actually makes very highly regarded audio interfaces that work on linux, windows and mac. in fact, the card that has linux drivers has the lowest latency of any audio interface available. you can expect 1.5ms. they are 24bit, have great convertors and work with nearly anything out there.

      http://www.rme-audio.com/english/linux/index.htm

  4. Mirror (tgz i386 only) by sketchup · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To reduce the server load for those guys, the tar.gz is als available here: reborn-i386-1_0.tar.gz Tom

  5. legal issues by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hope that they got permission from roland to mimmick their hardware, I know someone who wrote a 909 emulator once and was forced to remove it because he did not have permission from roland to copy their design.

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