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Turn-Key Linux Audio
gmaestro writes "The Turn-Key Linux Audio project at the Eastman Computer Music Center has released it's first instant linux audio workstation package. Simply download onto your Mandrake workstation, untar and type # ./install.sh."
That's great that we have something like that for music and audio.
Now if we could only get a system like that for video, with firewire included.
(I know Demudi claims to be multimedia, but it's only mono-media -- audio/music only.)
I understand Cinelerra is great, but I'm not a programmer and I can't get it to work on Mandrake or Redhat. If Linux could create an easy to setup video workstation, I know a lot of video people (like me) would jump on it.
If only they would add decent wavetable synth support to Linux I would ditch Windows without thinking about it twice.
Alejandro Abreu -- Composer http://listen.to/Ollin
1) What would you use to convert (english) sentences to speech samples (in real time, if possible perfomance-wise). ..and to stream combinations of these samples with a modified pitch per sample to the client.
2) What to use to alter the pitch of the samples in "real-time".
3) merget these samples together with a base beat/rythm (basic jazz, techno, whatever)
4)
Talking about a set of command-line tools or a easy to use API.
This is great and all, but does it come with drivers that will let me play my Dolby Digital (AC3) DVDs and AVI files, in full surround, using my 4 channel soundblaster live? So far, I haven't found any linux drivers that support all four separate channels on this very popular sound card.
After all, it's their board, and if they want increased market share, either write their own drivers, or include subcomponents that have decent driver support.
Mind you, we bought a couple of cheapie boxes last month, you know the kind, all sorts of integrated shit, and ... surprise ... all the stuff works OK under linux. Mind you, we put in GeForce video cards, so it's not a fair comparison (and we took the video out of one box after anyway - I just telnet into it as needed).
The only solution I see is to ask the sales staff if the board works ok under linux, and, after they tell you "yes", if it doesn't, return it. If they say "I don't know." - offer to test it for them, in-store (did that once - it was fun watching the store staff going - wow! that's linux? I thought it couldn't run Windows programs! Then I had to explain that Gnome, KDE, et al aren't Windows).
the reason they are not is that the developersthat are writing them are not interested in doing so.
the Loki installer is available for everyone. it works in any X or text setup, will auto install icons even in Gnome and KDE and is pretty dang nice..
does nayone use it? nope... they don't want to be bothered with installers and making binaries that work across distros.
funny how windows developers make sure they have a working installer but in linux you are flamed for even asking for one.
it's apathy that is holding us back in seeing linux apps that install nice like OO.o, mozilla andall the loki games..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ha... these packages are from the creators of the the heart of every technology used by modern studios. The names who developed the software in this list are the same group of university folks that developed the tech behind FM and Physical-Modelling. And who are developing in universities the new music technologies.
Csound among the other packages allows for live MIDI processing and its codebase has inspired most VST plugins.
This is an appropriate Linux package for the university that distributed it. It may not be a package that would be useful for the typical electronic music hobbyist who wants a free Acid or Fruity Loops. Not the announcement many might think... but it is very cool and significant for the hard core Linux computer musician.
Isn't that the Linux way? Support the hard core musician, (in this case the contemporary academic computer musician) and then add the cool interfaces for the hobbyists and the semi-pro specialists later.
Maybe you're a bit naive about the history of computer music and who actually invented the tech behind music tech?
idealord music
People do pay for quality audio drivers. They are the turnkey drivers from 4-Front. They work with most any card (autodetencts) and uses a simple install program. Aside from that, they have loads of other cool features like real-time mixing (works like DirectSound). Many people that I suggest them to online, however, won't buy them because "they have a problem with paying for sound drivers". I use them, and they are well worth the $25-$30 to get those features that you commonly only see in Windows. I even have more advanced recording capabilities and control over each channel's playback with a simple, low cost driver upgrade.
You won't, however, get a lot of the same features out of ALSA or standard OSS drivers. There are certain NDAs that the 4-Front guys probably had to sign to write their closed-source drivers.
Check out a demo at www.opensound.com if you are interested.
Totally. The whole subnet is thrashed, its 10Mbit uplink is maxed out The whole package is 116MB, I'm thinking someone is going to get a pound^H^H^H^H^H talking to.
to be allowed to do this. Some of them literally. Hundreds of letters have been written to the OEM's offering to write top quality drivers for free. The OEM's have, for the most part, refused, even to requests from the major distros who are legitimate firms that could be contracted with and NDA's signed.
In point of fact there is a Microsoft memo that leaked that pointed out the ease of writting hardware drivers for Linux as one of the strengths that Windows couldn't compete with. In the words of the memo "Even a complete programing novice with a copy of Writing Linux Drivers could write a driver in a couple of days."
But, writing a good driver *requires* the cooperation of the maker. Writing a good driver requires *intimate* knowledge of the *internal* design of the board.
Makers of sound and video cards consider the knowledge a trade secret. They are afraid that if they tell *anyone* how their board is put together this knowledge will make it to their competitors and they will suffer in a highly competitive market that can see the market leader be out of business a couple of years later.
Some drivers for some boards can be written to the point where they work by doing some good guessing and hacking it up as best as can be. These drivers don't work *well,* but it's a really remarkable thing that they're made to work at all.
The point is it isn't the hacker's "fault" that there are no good drivers. The OEM has to write them or offer actual support to someone else. Period. There's no other way. It *all* comes down to the willingness of the OEM to have good drivers for their own equipment.
Talk to them kid. Maybe they'll listen to you. They sure ain't listening to anyone else.
KFG
I'm hoping to get up and running on MacOSX in January, and undertake the fairly major task of porting the software and revising it to the new environment. If I can do that, the resulting still-GPLed software will be more easily ported to Linux.
One of the Linux DAW projects (I forget which) once asked me to teach them about dithering and why it mattered. I can only say that if the tendency of Linux audio software to be consumer-level 16-bit stuff bugs you, I can't do anything about that directly but I will say this again- I'm always ready to drop everything and help out a Linux audio project with this stuff. I know what the professional studios and mastering houses require, in terms of resolution handling, and what kind of internal bussing and processing are required. For instance, Pro Tools suffers badly simply because all internal processing involves repeated truncation to 24 bit linear, and the 2-buss requires submixes that themselves involve more truncation. You wouldn't be able to hear any of it as just one stage (maybe sense it vaguely) but it's cumulative.
I can say that and expound about how TPDF decorrelates additional moments of distortion but I haven't got a clue how to code GTK interfaces or anything like that :) it's all a matter of what you devote time to doing, I guess. But I wanted to take a moment to say again that if anyone wishes to add dither and noise shaping to their Linux audio project, I'd love to help teach this stuff...
I'm one of the LilyPond developers, and I'm jumping in even later.
The original remark is a little ambiguous. In most cases, LilyPond's default formatting will blow Finale's out of the water: spacing, beaming and fonts are much better. However, to meet the requirements for professional music typography, you have to tweak a lot of details easily, and Lily falls short in this area. In this sense, Lily can be compared better to Sibelius, since it Sib also has nice default output, but --as I have been told-- sucks in tunability.
SCORE is a different beast altogether, it's text based, and completely layout oriented.
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
well, as a font designer, I have very high standards for music fonts :), except for feta the only thing I think looks good the most Finale "Engraver" style font. (IIRC). For example, most fonts get the half-notehead wrong; that should be diamond shaped, not elliptical.
I just went to Coda's website to see if I could see some examples of Finale output in PDF or whatever, and all I could find was a bunch of things [codamusic.com] that call for "the SmartMusic Viewer plug-in", which obviously I can't use. I guess it's the same idea as Sibelius's Scorch plugin, which I can't use either. Scorch uses the same file format as Sibelius proper, I believe; any idea whether these Finale SmartMusic files are the same format as the ETF files that Lilypond can import?
Don't know about the smartmusic files (send me one, and I'll have a look), but I guess it's not ETF. For PDF, head over to CPDL or www.lightandmatter.org. Most freely available finale stuff hasn't been layouted by professional engravers, which is why they usually look sucky.
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond