The Fix Is In: Ardour Set For Summer Release

uprightcitizen writes "Good news for the open source audio recording world! Ardour creator Paul Davis has announced a feature-freeze and has set a binary release date for the now-famous GPL multitrack audio recording application. Ardour has recently been featured in Sound on Sound and has been mentioned on Slashdot many times (here(1), here(2), etc..). The feature freeze is effective as of May 4 and the binary release date is set for sometime in July or August. Good Job Paul!"

Comments

Sounds like they went through a real

[Anonymous Coward]

Ardourous process.

more pro use of linux

[Anonymous Coward]

One more pro use of linux to knock the proprietary big boys down. The article doesn't say it, so I will here. We're gaining on those markets where Apple and PC hardware have been used and how, simply because there were once the only solution. Where there was Photoshop, now there is GIMP. Where there was film editing, now there is Film Gimp. Where there were proprietary rendering, now movies like XMen2 use Linux. Where there was Pro Tools, now we have our own solution too.

These may be relatively small markets compared to desktop users, but they are extremely solid ones. Once GPL software is usable there and the savings are being made (come on now, free software compared to over $14,000 for Pro Tools in audio) the hold will be unavoidable.

It's a coming of age

Re:more pro use of linux

[shaitand]

obviously the comment of a photoshop fanatic, I know I used to be one. Now you couldn't pry my gimp from my cold dead fingers ;) Sorry, photoshop has a couple points on gimp, but gimp has points back. Gimp also has another small advantage in that it's about $800 less expensive than photoshop.

Re:more pro use of linux

[i_am_nitrogen]

Photoshop is frequently used for other things beside print. Gimp is really slow at handling huge images (4kx4k pixels) with its default configuration (I don't know if increasing the tile cache to 1/2 the RAM size like Photoshop uses would improve that). But, Gimp doesn't suck. Patents on color spaces and color matching and color systems like Pantone are what suck.

I understand people being defensive about software investments. However, I would love it if an Open Source package came along that could replace Acid Pro 4 and its Dolby Digital encoder (a rather large investment for someone who only writes music and makes movies as a hobby).

Re:more pro use of linux

[shaitand]

Alot changes in open source programs in the course of a year. If I'm understanding the feature you mean, then it's not the default behavior... but I've never really tried. I may not be understanding you at all though... sometimes it's hard to convey visual related features via text.

Re:more pro use of linux

[Cplus]

I agree, and I mean no offense to the users and developers in saying this, it's a wonderful product, can be great for non-professional use, but it's not even close to what a professional needs. Note that by professional I don't mean a web-designer, GIMP is ideal for web-designers.

Re:more pro use of linux

[AusG4]

This is just ridiculous.

The ProTools software is FREE.
$0. No money spent.

The $14,000 you spend on ProTools hardware is for the very powerful (and very much worth the money) DSP cards that make ProTools -the- premier audio recording application among serious studios. I know that some people are going to respond with some justification as to why the MOTU 828 or the HammerFall is better then DigiDesign, and that's fine... we all have our preferences... but the DSP's offerred in addition to the audio interface in the ProTools TDM systems make them so much more powerful then CPU bound rigs for large projects.

To compare what you get for $14,000 from DigiDesign to what you get for nothing in the OSS world is a very invalid, and very misinformed. There is simply no comparison between what you get.

And don't even get me started on the rest of your examples. GIMP is cool, but Photoshop it ain't... Film Gimp is -really- cool, but it's not even close to Shake.

Being part of the open source world, I'm so happy about the efforts and advances we're making in various places... but let's not get our heads stuck in the famous "reality distortion field"... there is a VERY LONG way to go before the projects discussed in this comment rival their commercially available conterparts.

Re:more pro use of linux

[questamor]

They need to just, for the love of god, make the interface not suck!

Oh. so it shouldn't be renamed "Sound Gimp"? :)

Re:more pro use of linux

[croddy]

actually, ardour supports the RME hammerfall DSP, which (in its two incarnations) rivals the 001 and the 888 in most areas. that being said, you can do a hell of a lot of DSP with a dual 2.5 athlon. sure the audigy is a "toy" for *recording*, but if I'm just doing synthesis and processing, it makes a damn tolerable surround driver.

honestly the best reason I can find to use the 888 is that it supports pro-tools.

Re:more pro use of linux

[i_am_nitrogen]

I think you mean brush size cursors. Gimp already has precise cursors, though I don't recall enjoying them. Brush size cursors would require drawing a circle of the appropriate size and hiding or changing the X mouse cursor. It could probably be done in the same place the marching ants are drawn. In fact, if someone more familiar with the Gimp code base pointed me to the location of the X event loop, the code where current brush size is stored, and the marching ants drawing routine, I'd probably be able to pull off brush-size cursors for circular brushes in about an hour. Precise outlines for irregular brushes would be as easy as creating a temporary surface, scaling to the current zoom level if necessary, and using the marching ants code to trace the outline of the brush. That would require not more than a few hours from someone with lots of Gimp internals experience.

Re:more pro use of linux

[Zork the Almighty]

PoseGimp and CakeGimp, what else ?

Re:more pro use of linux

[matvei]

Where there were proprietary rendering, now movies like XMen2 use Linux. Where there was Pro Tools, now we have our own solution too.

Earth to AC, the software packages that the big boys are completely proprietary and often developed in-house. Not all software that runs on Linux is open source. For example, you can get Alias|Wavefront Maya for Linux but it certainly is not GPL'd.

There are no open source tools that could come even close to Maya (or other high-end packages for that matter). With the insane budgets that Hollywood movies have I doubt that they will choose inadequate tools just because they are free, beer or speech.

Re:more pro use of linux

[Negatyfus]

You echoed my thoughts.

I'm very grateful for what open source has given me, but the open source community needs to get their heads out of the sand. There are some very decent applications, but-- like you said-- some just don't cut it compared to their proprietary (expensive) counterparts. In some situations, the open source product may suffice, or even be preferable, but that's not the same as an equivalent. Photoshop has its place. GIMP has its place. GIMP != Photoshop.

What I'd like to see in The Gimp is a mouse pointer the size of the current brush. I'd like real-time scaling/rotation, so that I can see how big it will look and I won't have to guess. There are a bunch of other such (arguably) minor issues and some bigger. Fact is, improvements should still be made. There is still a long road to travel. I just wonder if we're persistent enough to pull it off. WILL we ever get there?

Re:more pro use of linux

[DF5JT]

"The $14,000 you spend on ProTools hardware is for the very powerful (and very much worth the money) DSP cards that make ProTools -the- premier audio recording application among serious studios. I know that some people are going to respond with some justification as to why the MOTU 828 or the HammerFall is better then DigiDesign, and that's fine... we all have our preferences... but the DSP's offerred in addition to the audio interface in the ProTools TDM systems make them so much more powerful then CPU bound rigs for large projects."

Correct me if I am wrong: The DSP-cards in a TDM based system have the sole function of delivering cascaded raw CPU-power for audio data processing. They have no hardware specific routines coded, which makes them replaceable.

Compared to today's PC prices, these DSP-boards are ridiculiously overpriced for the deliverage of CPU power.

With a Linux cluster you can easily replace the Pro Tools hardware in terms of processing power.

What we are left with is the quality of the software. While Open Source projects can now equal the sheer performance, they only have one application for audio editing.

And Pro Tools has a shitload of proprietary plug-ins that actually make Pro Tools Systems usable for deployment in a production environment.

Unless the Open Source community manages to convince plug-in producers to let them use the closed source interface to the plug ins, all efforts to have Linux replace the actual editing and production environment of Pro Tools will fail.

Re:more pro use of linux

[Anonymous Coward]

afaik photoshop got a shitload of things that gimp hasnt, and at least to me they shorten the time i need to get my work done.

1) a great text tool
2) great bezier shape tools (totally own gimp - when you compare usability of the two apps in this regard)
3) good aliasing (diagonal lines dont have strange aliasing effects)
4) ability to group layers
5) ability to add effects to layers that can be removed or changed on the fly
6) the undo-brush (great for retouching images)
7) slices (at first i thought i didn't need them but hey, its so easy now to turn a webdesign into lots of small images in a minute)

etc.

Re:more pro use of linux

[frequnkn]

I'm just as excited 'bout this as the next guy. I've tried audio on linux many times over the years, but it's never worked enough to leave the Mac platform. However, an audio software environment (DAW) is only a small portion of the software/hardware mix.

Good, solid, pro hardware (audio, midi, video I/O) costs an order of magnitude more than software. Hell, most ProTools software comes free (as in beer) with most of their top hardware packages. Digital Performer is only a small upgrade-leap away from the free version that comes with their hardware.

So, $13,999.99 of that pro setup goes into a nice computer rig, good converters, good harddisks, preamps, effects, cables, etc. This isn't even counting acoustic treatment of the rooms, or a nice mixing surface. Oh yeah, and we need linux drivers for all of this as well. I believe there are Delta series drivers for the M-Audio interfaces, and the Hammerfalls, but not much else in the pro realm.

Let's show projects like Ardour some support and beat on hardware vendors to help with drivers!!! *grabs his hardware vendor beating stick*

Re:more pro use of linux

[AusG4]

The ProTools Core Cards (which contain DSPS themselves anyways) are also multi-channel I/O cards that allow connection to external AD/DA convertor boxes.

Linux cluster? This is just never going to happen. Ping a box over a quiet ethernet LAN and you'll see 1-2ms of latency. Add in the processing time for the sample you're routing, and you're looking at like 4-10 ms of latency.

This is just NOT good enough for recording sound... not even close. The TDM hardware is unmatched because of the completely in-card path of the sound being processed. All the actual ProTools software does is give feedback to the user and allow the user to tell the ProTools cards what do with the sound they are processing... it doesn't actually do any of the lifting.

Re:more pro use of linux

[FrankNputer]

Sorry, but this is a strawman argument. The software is technically free - but it's useless without ProTools hardware. It won't run. So the cost is actually intertwined.

(Plus, you're at the mercy of a proprietary lock-in. Doesn't matter if you like another interface better - it won't work either.)

ProTools is not necessarily best, BTW - just first.

Re:more pro use of linux

[AusG4]

Dude, you missed my point.

I was clear that you get the software -with- the hardware... and the typical OSS-geek retaliation of "proprietary lock-in" is, as usual, short-sighted.

Most studios care about 2 things, in this order:

1) Audio quality
2) Ease of use

They could give two s**ts about having to diddle with parameters and run a compiler in order to get their studio running, just to save some money. Given what most large studios charge per hour, the investment in "proprietary" gear doesn't sway them, as they get an ROI on that investment rather quickly anyways.

ProTools on a PowerMac is basically a turn-key solution that doesn't require any kernel tweaking or compilation of device drivers in order to setup. This is the ONLY point that matters to most studio engineers.

No amount of "Oh, but you're locked in and it costs a lot of money" whining will sway them on that.

Until Linux and it's competitive offerings are -as- turn-key as Apple/Windows (and for the average USER, not someone who knows what the command "ls" does), they will remain the minority.

OH, and Logic Audio, for example, has released their OS X version with support for TDM today... the "no matter if you like another interface" argument is misinformed.

But here's looking to the future. :)

Re:more pro use of linux

[FrankNputer]

I didn't miss anything, dude. You say that ProTools is free, with the purchase of additional hardware. I pointed out that ProTools doesn't work without their hardware, so it's part and parcel of the equipment. End of story.

It's like buying a PC and getting Windows "free". Take that disc & stick it in your Mac, or your Sun Server & what happens?

And anyways - not that I MADE a point about OSS vs. ProTools - but not all of the audio apps for Linux are command-line operated. So bitching about the Is command is pointless. And you still have to know something about computers to tweak a system for real pro-level audio - unless you BUY a turnkey solution.

BTW - you missed no. 1 on the list. Studios care about what they can book. A higher-quality product that doesn't draw clientele is not much use.

Re:more pro use of linux

[AusG4]

Of course you don't need to use command line to run linux audio apps.. wasn't what I was trying to say.

At any rate, I give up.

I don't understand you're last comment.... are you suggesting that Linux audio apps draw clientele?

Re:more pro use of linux

[FrankNputer]

Well, you brought up the difficulty of using Linux...but there's GUI apps for pretty much everything nowadays. So knowing ls is not required anymore than knowing the DIR command in DOS.

The last comment means that ProTools is not necessarily the best - it's what people expect to be available. Engineers hopefully care about quality first, but studios are a business and generally have a bottom-line perspective. So if people were calling up & asking for Audacity, then the studios would put it in.

Plus, suggesting that studios make huge $$, so that TCO is not important, is misguided. Professional studios have lost significant market share to the low cost of digital recording equipment & the resultant proliferation of small, bedroom studios. When I was an intern many years ago at a large studio, the card rate was about $125/hr. But now, there are far more places to go that charge 1/3 that amount - so the big studios have had to drop their rates over the years to stay competitive.

Solid audio software is the breaking point

[mao che minh]

Solid audio software is the breaking point for many Windows and Macintosh users that mix music. I have a few friends that happen to actually be successful in the music biz (on a very small scale, of course), and they all use Macintosh (one has worked with Puff Daddy before, no shit). A few DJ friends use Windows for simple mixing and burning. All of them show an interest in Linux, but are put off by it's lack of a really good audio application. If this proggie is as good as it's makers are claiming it is, then Linux will have about (let me count....) 11 new users real fast.

This same scenario has to apply to many others out there. My small group of musically talented friends can't be the only ones.

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[jdkincad]

I'll second that. A musician buddy of mine is really interested in trying Linux, but until there's a replacement for Cool Edit Pro there's no point in him switching. Atfer all, what's the use of an OS that doesn't have the apps that caused you to get a computer in the first place?

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[tshak]

Read down for my post why this isn't a Pro Tools (or comparable products) replacement. And even if it was, that's only one tool. WAV editing tools are huge. Plugins are even bigger (generally costing several times more than the DAW software) and many people have already invested in them. Software synthesis (eg: Propellerheads "Reason") is rapdily growing and are used almost exlcusively for some productions.

I don't see this making a difference to all but the very casual home music hobbyist. And even then, on Mac's or Windows you can get very powerful and not-so-aptly-named "light" versions of a lot of these tools for an affordable price or even for free.

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[groomed]

He might want to try GNUsound.

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[xaaronx]

Do you, or anyone else, have a list of some of these tools? I'm thinking specifically of ones in the "free" category. I don't necessarily need the best thing, but something easy to learn to use. I'm probably not going to use it to actually make the music, but as a writing tool. I can't be more specific, because I don't really know what the tools are or what they can do for me yet.

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[bhsx]

I just modded 3 posts in this forum; all of which will probably be /dev/nul and void. You just hit the nail on the head with this statement:
what's the use of an OS that doesn't have the apps that caused you to get a computer in the first place?

I can't imagine a better way to describe why Linux addoption hasn't become the norm; and like the former owner of mp3.com, I have a vested intereset in seeing Linux used as a desktop OS.

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[Sri Lumpa]

I have recently installed Redhat 9 to a friend's computer whose windows ME was totally dead (blue screen at start up even in safe mode) because they didn't have the Windows CD (already installed on computer when they bought it, pirated of course although I don't think they were aware of that then) and I refused to install an illegitimate copy of Windows so I installed Linux for them to surf the web and use Open Office.

The problem is that their son is using Reason and knowing nothing about this domain I do not know if there is anything comparable on Linux and I haven't had the time yet to give it a hard try with Wine and WineX and was wondering if you may know of a Linux software similar to reason (or at least trying to do simething similar even if not cutting it, that would be a start).

Thanks .

Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point

[greenguy]

I've bee researching exactly that (a replacement for Cool Edit Pro). The best option seems to be Sweep.

Church audio recording setup with ardour

[zzxc]

I recently set up an audio recording computer for a church. (433mhz, oss/free sound drivers, CMI8738 sound card) They were going to use windows, but I convinced them that Linux would be the better choice. I set it up so that recording is done from the command line, encoding ogg [vorbis.com] (ok, vorbis) or flac [sf.net] in realtime.

For shorter tracks, ardour is used for more user friendly recording. (Audacity and sweep cause choppy audio in my experience)

In addition, I have made command-line full duplex recording possible. (where the instrument track is done first, then vocals laid on top of it) However, be warned that you'll need to make a small program to write raw instructions to the soundcard if you want to turn off the audio loopback, as the CMI* OSS/free driver doesn't implement this for some reason. (I haven't checked if ALSA does this or not)

One major bug that slowed it down was only recording .5 seconds for every second of audio, and thus it sounded like it was in fast forward. (44100hz 16bit) After reading the driver line by line, I fixed it with a one-line shell script.

I have been getting extremely good sound out of it, however. In addition, I have only had to write about 50 lines of code. So if anyone has tried without success to record with a CMI8738 soundcard on linux - don't give up. If you want me to send you the fixes to the problems that I have created, contact me.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[CableModemSniper]

If you want me to send you the fixes to the problems that I have created, contact me.

I'm not even going to say anything else.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[Yeroc]

Whoah...the fact that you had to jump through all those hoops including reading source code tells me that Linux has a ways to go before your average musician is going to find it the easy route to go for audio recording...

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want me to send you the fixes to the problems that I have created, contact me

Can you just not create the problems in the first place? I mean... that works for me

(ok I couldn't resist. sorry. good points otherwise :)

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[shaitand]

His primary issues were with the sound driver/card he was using. It's best to go with linux friendly hardware to begin with.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[HappyPhunBall]

You convinced them that using a linux system with a CLI interface and custom code would be a better solution than Windows plus readily available and supported software? Nice job, hope you are proud of yourself. I am quite sure your church pals are only humouring you my friend, and probably regretting it already. Wanna bet any amount that as soon as you leave they will replace that box?

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[Anonymous Coward]

This moderation is bullshit.

Translation: "I wish I had posted this AC"

This isn't flamebait! The guy makes a perfectly vaild point, and I am sure he is correct in his assumption.

Translation: "I knew what I meant when I wrote that, and I'm sure I was correct in my assumption"

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[D iz a n k Meister]

I agree with this post. The Savior would have chosen a GUI.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[makapuf]

You should check ecasound, it's perfect for that usage.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[FroMan]

(Audacity and sweep cause choppy audio in my experience)

I use the ALSA i810 (I think?) driver with a machine to record our church services. I was having trouble with audacity being choppy until I used some hdparm optimizations on the hard drive. With the laptop I was getting only 6.8m/s to the drive and after the hdparm opts I was getting 19m/s to the drive. That seemed to clear up the recording. My guess is that audacity was writing too large of blocks to the drive at a time hence strangling the CPU for those times.

Perhaps the ardour writes smaller chunks to the drive at a time?

Anyways, I have some questions about ardour here. Does it have some of the filters that audacity has? Specifically I am looking for the noise removal. We have far from the best equipment at church so it generates a lot of background fuzz that the noise removal in audacity cleans it up very well.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[argStyopa]

Me, I'm just thinking that "Ardour" and "Church" just don't go together.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[FroMan]

We don't write raw audio to the harddisk - we pipe it into oggenc or flac on the fly.

There's an idea, but I certainly need the noise filter before I can write to a lossy codec. And since I figured out the hdparm setttings things work fine, granted it take a ton of space (2gb for entire sermon).

It isn't audacity. It is strictly for recording. You can use audacity after you record with ardour.

Okey, my bad. It looked like it did recording and mixing, I assumed it could do the mixing/editing after the fact also.

We run on all donated equipment, much of it not that great. However, with the equipment described above we get crystal clear audio. (a professional sound engineer was amazed) In fact, we hooked the computer to a faulty output the other day and blew the soundcard, so we had to buy a new one.


Lucky. :-P I assume ours was donated since we are pretty much a small startup (~20 families). However, we still get a certain amount of fuzz in the background. It only seems to be on the output to tape and the aux output (which I record from) that has that fuzz though. To the speakers its very clear.

BTW, what soundcard are you using?

I am using the i810 soundcard in a sony laptop. Also using the ALSA drivers as the OSS driver does/did not support recording at the time I started playing with this.

Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour

[shaitand]

It's by far and away easier to list the hardware linux has problems with than the hardware it doesn't. 99% of the time you can install a good linux distribution and have to install ZERO drivers, and ZERO... as I recall that has never happened to me with any version of windows. As for picking hardware that is linux friendly, the same thing is done for windows (all versions) if you build your own machines and know enough to be doing it you pick "friendly" motherboards and hardware... in the windows world you get used to equating windows friendly hardware as "good shit" and not windows friendly hardware as "bad shit" but 99% of the time the hardware that has issues on windows has a software issue that doesn't apply to linux. If you don't build your own computer then the techs at whereever you bought it put together friendly hardware, it's easier for them to work with and causes you less problems. Apply the same as above. If you buy proprietary pieces of crap such as... dell, gateway, compaq, hp, microtel (sorry guys), and pretty much anything with a logo on the front and the video connector in the same sideways row as the keyboard and mouse connectors, then be prepared for it to not perform reliably from the start.

Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[tshak]

Pro Tools is not just software - you'll normally find it installed as a hardware/software combo. This is in part due to the fact that modern CPU's can not handle mulitple high quality real time effects for larger studio projects. The other big factor with Pro Tools (and comperable systems) is the Control Surface. Sure, there are incredible MIDI controllers out there, but the proprietary Pro Tools control surfaces are second to none.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[questamor]

One thing often mentioned with the 'big' apps compared to free software is the monetary cost. The software is minimal when it comes to the costs of an entire studio. For larger projects with big profit margins it's next to nothing. The embedded knowledge of thousands of Pro Tools users isn't going to go away just because a few thousand dollars can be saved on projects that are worth millions.

Where inroads will be made for now, is in small productions that have no choice. Where once their project was impossible due to monetary constraints it will now be one step closer to reality.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[fishbowl]

The problem with ProTools, is that you don't need a golden ear to recognize something that was produced with it.

I don't mean to make a value judgement on it, just that there are some subtle characteristics, especially in the vocal effects department, that scream out at me "yep, protools."

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[tshak]

I don't dissagree, but I contend that this is practically impossible. You'd be amazed at what albums used Pro Tools. For example, many classical recordings use Pro Tools - but what they don't do is over-compress, over-EQ, or over-process the sound. What you're used to hearing has nothing to do with Pro Tools, and everything to do with the Pop Music Industry's production style.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[fishbowl]

Agreed. But what's really annoying is when you hear the same effect that just says "I used the default setting of the vox flanger."

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[cblood]

There are many good alternatives to slow tools. But protools was first and because compatility with other studios was important, it became the defacto standard. I Record with SAWstudio because It is great. but there are many other systems that work fine.

What is needed is a standard way to save edit lists, to allow interchange between diffrent packages.Don't expect any help or support from protools. But ardour should shake things up a bit.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[oscarcar]

I think you have to look beyond the imitation of what is already out there. With Open Source you get possbilities of a lot more creative people doing original things.

Some Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) do a pretty good job of being able to have effects and such act as controllers, filters, what have you. But with the source code, a lot of really, really interesting things could develop that haven't been thought of.

Now you have a few companies that all try to copy each other in getting certain tools in the hand of their users. And that's great, but we're better off opening the ability to creating tools to a lot more creative people.

Would we have the electric guitar or a saxaphone, if it wasn't for the common man taking a hack at building an instrument?

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[EverDense]

Agreed. But what's really annoying is when you hear the same effect that just says "I used
the default setting of the vox flanger."

Damn straight!
Which you can bet is usually because...
The singer they are working with has a voice that requires hiding behind effects.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[utahjazz]

The singer they are working with has a voice that requires hiding behind effects.

*cough* Kelly Osbourne *cough*

On the flip side, I love listening to old Zeppelin albums and hearing the bleed between tracks. Ah, magnetic tape. What has the world come to. Oh baby baby, you're killing me.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[jred]

Man, that was a good one. And I even *like* Kelly Osbourne :)

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[TheFr00n]

While Protools does represent a truly wonderful system, it's dated. It's fantastic in that, being hardware based, it doesn't require a monster machine to run, and it runs without falling over (with the possible exception of their shite win32 version).
However, the playing field has changed tremendously since Protools came out. Significantly, CPUs are way more potent, to the point where I'd say that if you have a 2Ghz CPU, you can probably do more realtime FX than a Protools system can anyway.
Now, by saying this, I'm not detracting from what Protools is - it's an excellent standalone system and it's beautiful to use. However, it's no longer a prerequisite to accessing that level of professionalism in recording.
I totally disagree with your assumption that an ordinary PC CPU cannot match, if not outprocess, a Protools setup. I recently ran a mix for a cinema targeted advert, using 32 channels, with CPU-processed eqs and fx, on a very vanilla Intel 1.6a, without a problem.
I'm not saying that this would have been my choice of equipment (I prefer Paris Ensoniq), but the point is that PC hardware has been steadily evolving, while Protools hasn't really (aside from the whole 24/96 thing).
And with applications like Ardour available in Linux, the entry level price tag for pro-quality recording just fell through the floor.
My only concern with the digital audio revolution remains what it was when this all started: We've made powerful music-making technology available to a huge population of tonedeaf idiots. Future generations will not thank us.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[Niten]

Excellent point... you hit the nail right on the head. I believe that the greatest opportunity for open-source systems, in general, lies not in the already-entrenched markets, but in markets that have yet to be explored due to current cost constraints.

Why does Google use Linux on its machines? Linux did not become the best solution for high-end web servers overnight, taking large portions of that particular market share from proprietary rivals. Instead, by becoming the first* widely-used, affordable (read: free) clustered operating system, Linux found its way into Google when Google saw that Beowulf clusters, the new open-source alternative, would be the better route to go than the old way of traditional, monolithic servers.

(*Correct me if I am wrong...)

By the way, the parent post piqued my interest... for more information about the coming-about of the electric guitar, follow this link.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[makapuf]

sure, what's interesting is the sub 5ms latency with a common soundcard/computer. HIGH uptimes. Reliability. Availability. Sample accurate sync with other software through JACK (jackit.sf.net). SUPPORT AND price, of course.

Possibility to run remote via X might be interesting for noise.

(but the ardour website has more points about that)

On the downside, many people are trained to use protools. but they can learn.

NOTE : many people tend to think about the big music software companies. Ahem. This market is tiny and paid usage of the software is even more tiny.

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[lennart78]

In analogue studios, default settings on fx-units are also the way to go. Nobody who likes to spend his time in a productive way is going to try to tweak these babies into anything better than the manufacturer allready has achieved.

Besides of that, if you hear the same effect come back over and over again, it strikes me as a creativity problem of the producer, and not as a problem that ProTools itself has. (Except, but that doesn't seem likely to me, if the "vox flanger" has only 1 setting, and is the only effect applicable...)

Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon

[SubtleNuance]

...there are alot of people that would like to do there own recording, who dont have $500 to spend on software. these are the same people who cant even dream of a $25000 studio in their own homes... what they can do is become proficient at Ardour and use it instead. There is room for Both ProTools and Ardour. I understand that Ardour cannot replace PTools in all situations -- that ProTools is feature rich in a nontrivial way when compared to Ardour, but what Ardrour CAN do is cut out the legs for smaller users. The same as Gimp vs. Photoshop, Ive used old unlicensed copies of PShop but have switched to GIMP for last 3yrs or so -- its good enough for what I need, and getting better.

ardour still not a "big boy"

[Anonymous Coward]

i like ardour. I use ardour. I've probably submitted 20 bugfixes through the years.

However, it's still not ready for prime time. A couple more years and it could be.

The DSP framework needs a complete rewrite to fix some limitations, and the phase vocoder is 2nd generation, when most commercial tools use 4th or 5th generation.

Re:ardour still not a "big boy"

[torpor]

"Phase Vocoder is 2nd generation"?

Boy, it sure sounds like you know what you're talking about here, but I'll bite.

What is meant by a "2nd generation phase vocoder", please?

Re:ardour still not a "big boy"

[theno23]

Errr... you must be thinking of something else, ardour doesn't have a phase vocoder.

FWIW I've also supplied a few patches to ardour and have written several phase vocoders for Linux.

- Steve

Re:ardour still not a "big boy"

[locarecords.com]

I use Logic 6 professionally in a studio on a label that is dedicated to releasing Open Source music LOCA RECORDS and we have been waiting for something like this to come around...

It would be cool to make the whole process Open Source.. we dabbled in LINUX before but, jesus is it complex for the average user....

Open Source music is soon very soon...

Re:ardour still not a "big boy"

[SubtleNuance]

..I looked around your website (good design conscience btw, excellent graphics) -- where are the MP3/Oggs? I wouldnt mind having a listen..

Re:ardour still not a "big boy"

[locarecords.com]

All the Ogg and MP3 tracks are located on the artist pages.. maybe not the most logical choice... hmmm.. maybe a slight redesign is needed...

F/OSS: Conquering new markets!

[exhilaration]

Woaw. This is pretty cool. Ardour might do for Linux and professional audio users what CinePaint (Film Gimp) did for Linux and movie studios.

You know - I don't mean this as a troll - but I really have to wonder what the hell is going to happen to all the software developers working for closed source companies when mainstream users start adopting free products in droves.

After all, if Microsoft's Palladium is successful, that could mean the end of software piracy - which probably accounts for a good chunk of the market. What will all those users do? Will they go out and spend $200 on Windows, $500 on Office, and $600 on Photoshop? No, they'll come running to Free and Open Source Software! And pretty soon, they'll be able to find replacements for EVERYTHING they need.

(Sorry for jumping from topic to topic, it's late.)

Re:F/OSS: Conquering new markets!

[markov_chain]

How about a grant model? This already works pretty well for research, where the results are made available to the public. An agency (government, consortium of corporations who realize software is useful, but don't want to develop it alone, etc.) puts out a call for proposals for desired project, and funds one which seems best (by reputation, plan, etc.). The grant covers the developers' time, administrivia, etc.

If this results in a smaller total number of employed software developers, does that mean the previous model was inefficient? Maybe eliminating that inefficiency is good in the long term-- the extra developers can now work on new challenges that will further increase our standard of living, instead of reinventing the wheel in all the proprietary software shops.

Binary = stable in some many people's eyes

[mao che minh]

Because a stable binary release means that it will be taken more seriously by the "every man", and major distributions will be less apprehensive about including it with their distro (binary installs are easier to upgrade and manage in todays apt-get, RPM, ports world of open source operating systems).

A potential Linux user that doesn't have the luxury of a hand-holding-Linux-guru friend to help them install their desired software would view an easy to install binary application as a "big plus".

Re:Binary = stable in some many people's eyes

[DaCool42]

binary installs are easier to upgrade and manage in todays apt-get, RPM, ports world of open source operating systems

two words:

emerge ardour-cvs

Sync? Timecode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it might be good for standalone audio-only projects with only a few tracks. One feature I do not see listed is timecode, and support for hardware sync clocks. Without that, you are out of the running for A/V production. In pro audio, media-independent sync is absolutely necessary.

Ah but the people who won't understand this, are the same people who don't understand why the lack of CMYK support is such a limiting factor for Gimp.

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[Anonymous Coward]

CMYK is only useful for legacy printing gear

RGB works just fine for monitors, be they LCD or plasma or CRT or even projection, and it works well for RGB printers such as Durst Lambda or Fuji Pictrograph. Not only be RGB printing but continuous tone and hence without the bother of screening.

The longer CMYK is supported as a legacy technology, the longer we'll be using outdated processes to provide inferior output.

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be happy once my creamwear card is supported with asio 2.
That's the problem .. drivers.
Another is of course .. plugins and vst instruments.

Re:hmm

[Sri Ramkrishna]

"Creamwear", "asio", "drivers", "plugins", "instruments"..damn, Come out of the damn closet already! You're just being transparent now! :-) (j/k)

Please don't hurt me.

sri

Re:hmm

[IamTheRealMike]

ASIO isn't needed on Linux. CreamWare drivers are apparently being written by CreamWare themselves and VST plugin integration via Wine was working months ago (though I dunno about integration with the tools).

VST instruments I'm not sure about, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could do the same trick as for VST plugins.

Too bad there are no specs for the CreamWare cards, but I guess binary only drivers are better than none. Open hardware is clearly going to be another days battle.

Audacity, Freshmeat

[bcrowell]

How does this software compare to Audacity? Any comments from people who've used both? Personally I've only used Audacity. One thing I really like about it is that it's cross-platform -- cross-platform apps are the best way to spread the word about open source.

And was anybody else bugged by ... -- ?

1. This belongs on Freshmeat, not Slashdot.
2. If this was submitted to Freshmeat, they'd tone it down, since it's so obviously a marketing blurb.

Re:Audacity, Freshmeat

[bengoerz]

I'm not exactly the type you requested comment from -- I have yet to use Ardour -- but I have used Audacity (and looked at Ardour heavily). In my eyes, having used several audio programs, the intent seems different. Each one is produced for a "target audience", if you will.

Now Audacity is a decent multi-tracking program for beginners. However, there are many limitations to the control users innately have. For instance, the compressor in the latest release has absolutely no settings -- it just compresses according to presets written into the program. So, while your audio won't be clipping like an uncompressed signal would, but you also get zero control of the particularities of the sound that is produced. From my perspective, having mixed several multi-tracks in my day (most including vocals, drums, guitars, bass, and more), the more control I have the better.... and that's where Audacity falls short.... at least until you start downloading additional plug-ins.

Ardour, on the other hand, looks to be a much more robust design out of the box. It seems intended for more professional usage. From what I've seen, it's got excellent control of just about every processor you could normally want in a studio recording app, and an interface that provides fast and comprehensive control to them all. It's almost like sitting at a real studio mixing board -- the same layout. However, its main drawback looks to be in its learning curve. Most people who just dabble with sound now and again will probably be lost in the complexity that the program offers. However, for my money (or lack thereof), it looks to be much closer to my needs than Audacity.

So in essence, it's all about what you want to do with it and the complexity that you're willing to endure.

Re:Audacity, Freshmeat

[Wumpus]

How does this software compare to Audacity?

It doesn't. Or hardly doesn't, at least. Ardour is a full featured professional recording application, designed to tackle any audio recording task you can throw at it. Have two studio quality sound cards, giving you a total of 20 cannels in/out, at 96Khz/24bit? Want to record a rock show, with live drums, backing vocals, and enough microphone cables to make AOL's server room look tidy? Ardour can handle it, and then some.

Want to take that 20 track show, and overdub the guitars in the studio, while the whole mess is mixed in real time? It can do that, too.

Ardour is the open source equivalent of Pro Tools (mentioned on slashodot a few days ago). Audacity isn't.

Now, if you're not interested in any of these things, Ardour is probably overkill for you.

And if anyone deserves the marketing here, it's Paul. Ardour is a massive piece of code, that took years of uncompensated full time work to get to its current state. It's well designed and well coded. No corners were cut in the making of this piece of software. Go get it, and pay for it.

Re:Audacity, Freshmeat

[groomed]

Ardour is a bit overkill for my needs, and Audacity is too slow for my taste, so I wrote GNUsound. You might want to give it a try.

Re:Audacity, Freshmeat

[CoughDropAddict]

This is all true. But don't forget the other side of the coin: want to open two mp3s, glue them end-to-end with a crossfade, and export to mp3? Ardour doesn't do mp3, and the rest of the process is going to take twice as much work. And you'll have to read the manual and become familiar with concepts like "diskstream," "route," "playlist," and "region." And you'll have to tweak JACK until it runs under your kernel and soundcard without xruns.

Ardour does what it's designed to do: studio recording in professional situations. But so does Audacity: soundfile editing and simple multitrack recording, all out-of-the-box and with minimal effort.

Re:Audacity, Freshmeat

[Hadlock]

lol

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[BJH]

Hate to tell you, but that 'legacy' CMYK technology is currently installed in just about every printer (think 'big book factory' rather than 'laser/inkjet/etc.') in the world. Not being able to submit graphic data in CMYK is a big limitation.

Like Christmas in July...

[BadElf]

Oh man! A binary?? I've been dying to try this piece of code, but was never successful compiling it from CVS. Ended up using ReZound and Audacity (which are both good in their own rights), but judging from the Ardour screenshots, I think I'll be switching once the binary comes out.

I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas. Hurry 'dem binaries, pleease!

Re:What the hell are you going to church for?

[shaitand]

very precise enviornmental conditions... the various environmental conditions which exist/have existed/will exist in the universe are theoretically infinite. That makes the occurance not a longshot, but an inevitability. I think that is the strongest argument for evolution I've heard to date ;)

This might get me to switch

[bengoerz]

I've experimented with Linux and other open-source OSes for a while now, but I've never found one that can make a permanent home on my desktop. One major reason: No good multi-track recorder! Sure, there are options like Audacity, but there is nothing that can rival the mixing options of, say, Cool Edit Pro. For my mixing, I absolutely NEED features that I can control -- a good compressor, gain control, some decent effects, a reliable GUI, etc. Now, it looks like Ardour may offer that, and so I rejoice. This may be the last rail laid on my transitional track, and the golden spike is beautiful. So Ardour, I say bring it on. Lemme see what you got!

Re:This might get me to switch

[groomed]

Well, Ardour definitely will meet your mixing needs. If you're looking for a simpler but also powerful editor that's more like Cool Edit you might want to try my program GNUsound as well.

Re:This might get me to switch

[jargonCCNA]

Cool Edit?! You think that shit has mixing capabilities? Get some real editing software. Go find Acid Pro and Sound Forge. Absolutely unstoppable. Get away from that kiddie stuff. Think that's flamebait? I used Cool Edit for a long time and yes, I did swear by it. Then I used Acid and realised that Cool Edit is garbage. It is. It wretchedly incapable in comparison.

That's fine

[J. T. MacLeod]

Because those people don't matter.

The people who do matter understand that CMYK is important. There's not much to be done about it, though, because it is patented technology.

As long as we're not dealing with a standard that is patent encumbered, it will come in due time. (Due time being the time of those who feel like working on it. They aren't on anyone else's time table.)

Re:What the hell are you going to church for?

[shepd]

You're are very right.

BTW: The "intelligent designer" was an alien.

If Christians believe what you say (intelligent design) then there's no reason why we weren't placed on earth by aliens.

You see, here's the difference between your theory, and the truth:

The process of science:

Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Debate

The process of religion (intelligent design, ie: Genesis, without God):

Fiction -> Asserting -> Insisting -> Twisting Fact -> Torturing

For a thoughtful debate on this, watch Penn & Teller's Bullshit! episode on creationism (why do these things keep popping up? do none of you watch thought provoking TV?) Actually, I'd swear you've watched it, because those sites you link to are exactly the bullshit they disprove.

There may be debate as to wether evolution is the best scientific model, and if there are mistakes in it, it will be revised through the aforementioned scientific process. There, however, is positively no serious debate as to whether we were cherry picked by aliens or not.

I have a question, though. Why does "intelligent design" require a Noah's Ark?

Riddle me that, and riddle me why an alien with an awesome spaceship would use a shitty wooden boat to transport animals instead of some matter-energy transporter?

Either that or tell me why it is impossible that the "intelligent designer" was an alien.

If you can do neither, then your theory is really pathetic, because I am but a lowly slashdotter, and certainly not a scholar, yet I was able to disprove it.

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ardour supports MTC sync. From the FAQ at
http://ardour.sourceforge.net/ardour_faq.txt :

* functioning as a MIDI Timecode master (it generates MTC)
* functioning as a MIDI Timecode slave (experimental; send reports!)

From browsing the mailing list archives, i gather that ardour does not directly support true SMPTE (which is timecode encoded as an audio signal); but if you have a hardware MTCSMPTE box you might be able to use SMPTE.

Usability

[SJ]

OK, so this seems pretty cool...

Does it "just work", like my Mac does?
Does it interface perfectly with all my audio hardware?
Can I export directly from it to a DVD editing package on the same machine?

Re:Did you know...

[maverickbna]

You make that sound like a bad thing.
/me is confused.

Re:Evolution is proven

[Scaba]

In my opinion, it should be made a law (A natural phenomenon that has been proven to occur invariably whenever certain conditions are met)...

Laws are for mathematics. You mean it should be made a fact or a theory. Oh, wait - it's already both.

Have you even written a genetic algoritthm?

[moogla]

University of Maryland researchers were able to grow a checkers playing program out of nothing (it knew legal moves, that's it). Once they thought it had "cooked" enough, they turned it loose on yahoo games where it quickly reached an expert ranking.

To claim that white noise guided solutions can't give rise to more complex systems is to say that the premise of annealing processees are false. Yet molten rock sometimes forms diamonds, so there must be something to it!

road map

[rtp405]

Yes, an official feature freeze and subsequent binary release have been announced. However, the release date of the binary is june 13. This will be followed by four weeks of the main developers absence. The binary is a 1.0.rc1. All the c++ dependencies will remain statically linked so it's likely that Debian won't be including this binary in official releases. I think the objective of this release is to increase testing from users but not create an all out marketing assualt.

Reguardless, the announcement is seriously encouraging.

IMO, a commercial studio owner and engineer/producer, professional audio production in linux is close to being a reality. To prove the point to myself, about six months ago I produced a commercial album from start to finish in Ardour. At the time, it was a serious challange which I expected. Since then, Ardour and JACK have seen alot of serious developement.

Unlike what one commentor stated, syncronization in the form of MTC and MMC does exist and it mostly works. You're probably well advised to inquire about syncronization on the mailing lists.

Equally interesting to Ardour is JACK which is a low latency, high bandwidth audio server. It enables port connections between software applications which is serious stuff.

While many linux audio solutions are not > 1.0 there are interesting solutions for preproduction, production and postproduction audio work.

My partners and I have been in business for 19 years. We've had four major studio redesigns and without hesitation I will say that the linux based solution is more interesting than any of the others.

Re:road map

[jordens]

Debian will probably include it.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?archi ve=no&bug=95870
http://n.ethz.ch/student/robertjo/download/rj-deb/ pkgs

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[croddy]

ardour currently supports MMC (to a degree) and a lot of development has been specifically targeted at the mackie d8b. I can't find info on time code on the SF page, but I do believe it's implemented or on its way eventually. I know it's fun to be a naysayer. but a feature freeze is the first step toward a stable release, which is the first step toward binaries, and a wider test base . . . you get the idea.

honestly it's not all that hard to compile from CVS if you're familiar enough with GNU/automake-type source packages. I think the total number of external dependencies I had to compile was 7? give it a shot. if you're willing to pay digidesign $?,000 for a full-fledged protools rig then the time out of your day to donate a little testing to ardour is a drop in the bucket.

and WTF, GIMP does CMYK just fine. *yes* the interface is a bit obfuscated, but it is there.

Libraries.

[afidel]

I like their stance on libraries. It makes a lot of sense to link to a private version of the libraries if your goal is stability. Sure it increases disk use some (nothing compared to the output of a multitracker though) and memory use some (again nothing compared to having buffers for multiple high quality PCM streams in ram). This is similar to the way XP and even moreso longhorn are going for criticial libraries, if the version is different from the system default then it gets placed either in a subdirectory under the application or in a special subdirectory of the system library location and called up when the associated program calls the library. This means that none of your core apps or the OS itself get hosed by and update and the other programs behave well because they get the library version they expect.

Sound cards

[rf0]

This is all nice and everything however are there any sound cards thats can support Full-duplex or more than on channel as even with ALSA just can't getit working

Rus

Re:Sound cards

[pnambic]

There's quite a few, actually. RME cards are what Paul Davis recommends; if you can do without quite as many channels, the M-Audio Delta series (especially the PCI-based options) work quite nicely as well.

I personally run MusE/Jack on an M-Audio Delta 1010LT (8 channels analog i/o + S/PDIF stereo i/o) at 24/96 and have yet to run into serious problems.

Re:Sound cards

[ratfynk]

How do you get alsa and jack to do anthing usefull, when you can't use them because of library deps that are needed but can't be used because of your sound card config? (I've had screwy issues with Cakewalk in windows that are almost as bad) so I sold my copy to some other sucker. I have tried to install Rosegarden4, which seems to be a nicely thought out recording app, but always run into no config because alsa just won't config on my system.

What would be really nice is if some company could come up with an embeded Linux 4 track hard disk recording device. I would even pay money for that! Like the Xbox hacks. Computer sound cards suck for a to d conversion anyway. Sound quality is not a PC priority, just look sound card analog inputs Hmmmmm... Why not just take the f'in things right out of the loop.

For now I will just stick to using a two track dat machine, mixed down from a Sony r to r 4 channel off a Mackie 1202! Clumbsy, lots of wires, but quiet with good s/n ratios and it WORKS! I only record acoustic music so I don't need to mix 24 tracks with fade, flange and fudge anyway.

Re:Nowhere close to ProTools

[rhavyn]

I don't know anything about audio software, but even I was able to go to the features page and see that all they need is permission from Steinberg to release VST plugin support. There was also a good amount about hardware support (both sound input and controlling the software).

I know this whole reading thing is hard, but try it sometime.

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[IamTheRealMike]

Ah but the people who won't understand this, are the same people who don't understand why the lack of CMYK support is such a limiting factor for Gimp.

Ah, but it's not. How many people do you know that have done image manipulation at some point in their lives with a computer? Lots, I'd expect. I know I do. How many of them need support for professional printing equipment? None.

You'd be totally amazed at the number of people out there who write music using their PC, keyboard, sample editor and guitar. I know several. For people like that, who actually care about not warezing VST or SoundForge, this sort of stuff is a dream come true.

Of course, I am sceptical that anybody but those who do music professionally actually pay for that stuff, but hey. Here at work we all use the Gimp.

Re:Sync? Timecode?

[BJH]

But these problems have nothing to do with RGB being additive and CMY(K) being subtractive.

Er... who said they did?

Re:Nowhere close to ProTools

[KoolyM]

Nope, they can simply grab the source from some public page on Steinberg's website and use it. All Steinberg demands is that you give them credit for using their VST technology.

Mixing things, Freedom of Religion

[Pelam]

This whole thread makes me sad.

Somebody mentions that he goes to church and
instant flamefest (mostly about evolution)
ignites?

I hope most of you know that freedom of
religion is right there among other basic human
rights.

Would you eg. not hire somebody, because
you assume that he is stupid since he believes
in Jesus? What if he is from different culture
or perhaps physically different, but still fit
for the job?

Would you be friendly and polite to him?
How about trying to feel what he feels like,
or even helping him if he is abused somehow?

As a christian I would like to add that christians
are mostly just like everybody else. They come
from every possible background etc.

Naturally they have different explanations for
things and different ways to structure the world.

(If you ask me, I would say that Genesis happening
exactly the way it was written is nowhere near
the center of Christianity. I think many would
agree. What exactly is in the center is too
seldom discussed openly.)

I never knew...

[Qbertino]

I never knew about this one. This finally looks like some serious reference grade quality audio app in the OSS dept. Cinelerra, Gimp, Sodipodi and now this. It's another patch closing a wide gap in open source and it seems a damn good one.
I'm more the 3D guy rather than a sound fiddler and helped buy Blender (www.blender.org) free, but this is so cool I'll think I'll donate a little here too.
If you've got a paypal account allready, spare an Euro, Dollar or two, it's a good deed for the day.

Re:Nowhere close to ProTools

[Knos]

They can't.

The vst sdk comes with an include file that needs to be modified for gcc/linux .. And this happens to be
forbidden by the vst license.

Pro Tools for free

[evenprime]

Here's a link to the

free version of ProTools...I think it is cripple-ware, not a time limited demo. Don't know, though, since I've never used it, so YMMV.

http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree

Re:Pro Tools for free

[xaaronx]

Kickass. Thanks man.

Re:Nowhere close to ProTools

[KoolyM]

My bad. I hadn't read the VST License Agreement in a while. It states

The Licensee has no permission to sell, licence, give-away and/or distribute the VST PlugIn Interface technology or parts of it in anyway, on any medium, including the Internet, to any other person, including sub-licensors of the Licensee or companies where the Licensee has any involvement. This includes re-working this specification, or reverse-engineering any products based upon this specification.

Still, I suppose they could ask Steinberg for permission to port the SDK to Linux.

Now Maybe

[blinder]

I'll be able to compile the darn thing!

One thing I hope they do do is make it easier on us poor schlubs to satisfy all of the dependencies and get it up and running.

I've been "working" with this on and off for the better part of 3 months and have yet to actually compile it completely.

I may seem overly negative, but I firmly believe that Ardour has the potential to find its way into professional facilities, at least in B or C rooms.

Also, hopefully this means that VST pluggin support can finally be added (without violating steinberg's license)

All and all, this is good news!
Now, if gear manufacturers would just adopt the same open source model as Ardour, I'd be all set

"Uh yeah, I'll need that 56-channel Neve, and I'll take one of those Studer A827's... great thanks!"

Re:Did you know...

[twaltari]

It is a bad thing; switching desktop over to Linux has no incencitive if the applications you use don't run on Linux. If there is a way to make non-geek computer users to convert into Linux, it is to first make 'em use cross-platform open source applications (Gimp, OpenOffice, Eclipse to name a few such, successful apps). There should also be more commercial applications on Linux (games, Photoshop, AutoCad etc.)

Re:DId you know...

[AusG4]

I guess MySQL is a small, unsucessful project then... designed on Solaris from the ground up. Mind, MySQL is so heavily multithreaded it has to be... LinuxThreads are just -not- Solaris Threads.

More NON-Pro Use of Linux

[KevinDumpsCore]

It doesn't make sense for audio professionals to suddenly switch to Linux just to use a digital audio multi-track program. They're either locked into proprietary hardware (ProTools) or proprietary software (VST plug-ins).

A free digital audio multi-track program makes better sense for price-sensitive users like songwriters, unsigned bands, churches, high school drama departments, college radio stations, etc. However, the ardour project has been hostile to such users in the past by insisting that they use an expensive soundcard like the Hammerfall. So we'll see what happens.

Re:More NON-Pro Use of Linux

[nlago]

the ardour project has been hostile to such users in the past by insisting that they use an expensive soundcard like the Hammerfall.

Ardour is a sophisticated piece of software, and needs adequate hardware and drivers to run. Right now, under linux this comes down to the Hammerfall, somewhat expensive, and the M-Audio Delta series, which is very reasonably priced (check out the Delta-44: 4 analog ins, 4 analog outs).

Patents

[yerricde]

are the same people who don't understand why the lack of CMYK support is such a limiting factor for Gimp.

Is timecode patented? The biggest things holding back CMYK support in GIMP are the patents on acceptable-quality conversions between RGB and CMYK color spaces.

That said, does one need timecode for pop music production?

But which church?

[merriam]

The joyful message you're spreading is that if we use free software, we'll have to labour for hours correcting it and extending it before it will work adequately.

Own up -- you're really preaching for the Other Side.

Re:No, a law

[Scaba]

A scientific law, for example, is the three laws of Thermodynamics.

Well, that's an example of three laws, but otherwise you are right. I was being flippant.

Why they are laws can be gleaned from my original post.

Not it can't. You gave an opinion, you made assertions, but opinions and assertions aren't proof of anything (unless you're George Bush), nor do they define the requirements of a scientific law.

Evolution is a theory right now (wow you're brilliant for pointing that out) in scientific terms, meaning that for all practical purposes it works, but it can still be overturned given enough evidence.

Right. That's what I said. Science is based on exactly this sort of thinking: "This is what we currently think is true, but will accept evidence to the contrary." However, you want to argue that your belief - that the mechanics of evolution (the theory part) are forever proven - is a better belief than the belief of Creationists - God made it all in seven days, all because you had a bad experience with the nuns in grade school, read too much Nietzsche or some other such nonsense. That's unscientific thinking.

Like I said, I don't believe that it could ever be, though.

Again: how is your belief different from the beliefs of Creationists?

ProTools versions and prices

[divbyzero]

Kudos are definitely in order for Paul and the others working on Ardour. However, I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that ProTools is an unreachably expensive system. ProTools comes in multiple versions which have different levels of hardware acceleration. The more hardware acceleration, the more expensive the version.

ProTools Free runs purely in software, using off-the-rack, home sound cards, and is free (beer, not speech). Nobody uses it for real work, but it makes for an okay functional demo.

ProTools LE is targetted at home and small studios, and uses generic pro-level audio adapters. The software and hardware together come out in the $500 to $1000 range.

ProTools TDM is what the big studios use. It requires proprietary hardware with extensive use of onboard DSP and dedicated control surfaces. This is the one for which the hardware and software together fall in the $10000 to $15000 range.

The mid-level LE version is not a toy ... many professional albums are made on it. It competes directly with the likes of MOTU Performer, Emagic Logic, Steinberg Cubase, and Cakewalk Sonar.

You need to recheck your facts

[qortra]

I'm afraid you are just wrong on a few of those points.

The ProTools software is FREE. $0. No money spent.

ProTools offers a severly scaled back version for free (that's "as in beer" folks. no open source, no guarantee that it will be free tommorow). And, did you mention, its for windows 9x kernels? I use Linux, but I'll even work with win 2k or XP if I have to. But not windows ME or 98. I no longer wish to reboot my computer every day.

but the DSP's offerred in addition to the audio interface in the ProTools TDM systems make them so much more powerful then CPU bound rigs for large projects.

If you read some of Paul Davis's documentation, you'll find he mentions this particular issue. PC (x86 and now x86-64) CPUs are rapidly increasing in power, and it turns out that a normal x86 CPU can do anything that any other computer can do with enough power. Stick a decent enough CPU and good D/A,A/D converters on a system (good ones do exist) and you could match if not emulate protools hardware. So don't tell me the hardware is superior. We have more than enough power in our desktops to do excellent audio production. The only advantage of ProTools is that it just has better third party support as of now.

I haven't used GIMP or File Gimp very much, but I have the impression that they aren't production class yet. However, the topic is Ardour, and I think it is doing quite well, and might soon actually be appropriate as software for music production. This is especially the case if we can get third party developers behind it (doing effects and what not). In fact, third party support is probably the only really big obstacle stopping ardour from becoming mature very soon. But that isn't going to happen unless people like you can stop kissing DigiDesign's ass long enough to help out Mr. Davis and those like him.

Re:Much respect

[nlago]

If folks are going to make open source DAWs, where is the open plugin API?

It's here. And it's around 2 years old, with lots of plugins available. Sure, there are more VST plugins out there, and some may be "better" that the equivalent LADSPA ones, but there's already a lot of interesting LADSPA plugins out there.

Re:Ardour is the Diakatana of Linux audio software

[nlago]

Paul Davis does this about once every six months... Consider his other dead-end project, Quasimodo, and things don't look too good.

Please don't take this troll into account. Ardour has been under development for around 3 years now. The story with Quasimodo is that the CSound community created a "standard" way to do most of what Quasimodo aimed at, so he abandoned the project. jack and ardour, however, are here to stay; not only thanks to Paul's hard work, but also because they have gained enough "critical mass" with the community.

No, -YOU- need to recheck -YOUR- facts

[AusG4]

OMFG...

ProTools TDM, the full version of the software, comes FREE with the appropriate DigiDesign hardware. ProTools LE, the light version of the software that does host-based auto processing, comes FREE with the appropriate hardware. ProTools FREE, which only works with 2 in/2 out on-board hardware (and is limited to 8 tracks) is just free for download (no purchase required).

At any rate, more than 50% of DigiDesign sales (and their primary focus) is Macintosh systems, which is what most studios use anyways. At any rate, ProTools 6 runs on XP just fine, thanks.

As for the rest of your bulls**t about running plugins on the CPU... it's barely worth commenting on, but I will.

The TDM system is scalable .. if you run out of room on your CPU, what are you going to do? Buy a faster CPU? When you have a 3 ghz P4 in your machine and are trying to add one more AmpFarm (oh wait, Line 6 AmpFarm probably doesn't run on your CPU) plugin to your mix and you can't... you're kind of f**cked, aren't you? Start mixing down and rendering out (and thus locking your mix, which sucks, but hey). The Logic folks have noticed how bad this problem is, as you can "temproarily render" your tracks when you run out of power now. Cool, but limiting.

Of course, had you gone the less troublesome route and used TDM, you could just buy another farm card and slap it in.

Any argument that says that the CPU is good enough for higher end audio work is laughable... and clearly being issued by someone who hasn't had to work with EQ's, amp simulators, chorus and a decent sounding reverb across 3 or 4 dozen tracks of 24 bit audio. Hell, I was recording my band on 8 tracks and ran out of CPU power.

With TDM, you're CPU power (and thus, the part of the equation that you can only wait for moores law as far as scalability goes) isn't an issue.

Alas, most people are just going to record in their garages with a pair of microphones and a drum machine, so we're really splitting hairs at this point anyways, I guess.

Re:No, -YOU- need to recheck -YOUR- facts

[nlago]

ProTools TDM, [...]comes FREE with the appropriate DigiDesign hardware. ProTools LE [...]comes FREE with the appropriate hardware. ProTools FREE, which only works with 2 in/2 out[...]

That is, you can only get a version of protools that is comparable to ardour if you spend serious money (even if it's buying specific hardware), as the parent post said.

Of course, had you gone the less troublesome route and used TDM, you could just buy another farm card and slap it in.

for the slight fee of US$4,000.00...

Maybe it wouldn't be totally out of the question to buy a multiprocessed computer system for that money? Ardour doesn't benefit from more than 2 cpu's right now, but this may change in the future.

[...]a decent sounding reverb across 3 or 4 dozen tracks of 24 bit audio

I hope you use a single instance of the reverb plugin to do this, right?

Many people won't abandon protools, much less overnight; still, ardour is great news for smaller studios, home studios, musicians and the free software radicals like me.

Re:No, -YOU- need to recheck -YOUR- facts

[qortra]

I'm not sure that we're disagreeing as much as you think we are. I just think we should be giving Ardour our support because I do think it is the future.

That being said, I don't know why you're taking issue with the fact that ProTools in most sane incarnations is not at all free. ProTools (which, of course, does run on any recent version of Windows or MacOS) is an expensive proposition for anyone; sometimes 5 digits, as you've mentioned. And it might be worth it. However, saying that ProTools software is FREE with the appropriate hardware is like saying that a Ferrari Engine is free with the purchase of the chassis (which is incidently the same price as the whole car). The only truly free version of Protools is, as you mentioned, ProTools Free. And its, as I've said, only available for windows 9x kernels, or Mac OS verions
Now, I'll admit that TDM is a brilliant system. It tends to work pretty well for a lot of people. However, I still maintain that under certain circumstances, PCs should be able to run quite a few non-destructive effects on quite a few tracks if optimized. Sure, third party developers (like Line 6) would need to develope their products with an x86 or PPC instruction set in mind. If you run out of processing power on a workstation, you actually can get a faster processor, sometimes a cheaper proposition than buying a $400 farmcard. You can also buy multi-processor systems that would improve Ardour's performance quite nicely. Incidently, dual processor motherboards (and the cost of another processor) are also cheaper than $400 farmcards in some cases.

I do believe you that most PCs right now (perhaps not any) can run full mixes (with dozens of tracks as you say you do) and many non-destructive effects. However, I do think that by the time Ardour matures (not this June, or perhaps the June after, but soon nevertheless), the processing power will be there, and then I think that host-processing based solutions will eclipse modular,proprietary solutions like ProTools TDM.

regards, qortra

also, feel free to email me about this; I would be interested to hear what you have to say, and doubtless, nobody on slashdot is watching anymore :-P

Re:Nowhere close to ProTools

[detect]

I agree, VST, Direct X plugin support and support for the M-Audio cards would have to all be in before I could even think about switching over. Since audio is the promary purpose of my PC, Linux hasn't been an option.

The problem is that you have a huge market of audio engineers willing to spend big bucks on sequencers as it is. It will be tough to compete with the Steinbergs out there there.

I also heard the OSX version of Nuendo was made on Linux and then ported to OSX. If only they'd release a linux version of Nuendo.. :)