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New MusE Release, A Step Toward The Linux Studio
spamatica writes "In these times when multimedia on Linux seems to be on a roll, it's my pleasure to break the news that one of the most powerful midi/audio sequencers on Linux, MusE, has just had a new release. This release is a major milestone featuring things such as Jack-transport and win32/VST-Instrument support. Moreover it has been much improved concerning usability, stability and functionality. The Linux-based studio is looming ever closer -- in fact, it's here!"
Here it is: http://www.agnula.org/ and here is the MuSE tutorial: http://www.agnula.org/documentation/dp_tutorials/m use/index_html/view
What's this Atari ST nonsense?
I still use Steinberg Pro-24 (the forerunner to Cubase) on an Atari ST. It is far more stable than any version of Cubase that I have used on a PC. I don't own a Mac, but I do hear that recent versions of Cubase have been rock solid on that operating system. So if I upgraded that would be they way I'd go. Then again by the time I can afford a decent Mac, Rosegarden (http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/) may have reached a stable release ...
As for the poster below who talks about booting from a 720Kb floppy, my ST has a SCSI hard drive, and boots in seconds.
My Delta 1010 works just fine, as does my Turtle Beach USB MIDI adapter.
Your Echo Darla, Gina, Layla or RME Hamerfall card would be supported by ALSA as well, among others. Linux audio may have issues, but a lack of professional sound cards that work is not one of them.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
You need a professional soundcard because:
1) You may want to record good quality audio. Maybe from several sources simultaneously.
2) You may want to listen to what you are doing before burning a CD.
3) You need a professional soundcard with latency of a few ms (and good drivers) so that you can play a note on a MIDI keyboard and not having to wait half a second to hear it from your softsynth and effects.
)9TSS
Well, they're both audio and MIDI sequencers for Linux. They both support outboard MIDI gear, native Linux ALSA soft synths, and audio and transport synchronisation through JACK. Both look and feel somewhat like the big sequencers for other platforms. Both use Qt for their GUIs, though Rosegarden also uses the KDE libraries. I happen to think Rosegarden has the more polished GUI, but I'm biased (see disclaimer at bottom).
Both support arbitrary numbers of MIDI and audio tracks, with audio mixing and routing capabilities. Both support LADSPA effects plugins, of which there are hundreds available free. Both can (with some work!) be made to use VST effects through vstserver. MusE can host VST instruments with libfst using Wine; either of them can drive VST instruments hosted separately using jack_fst. None of these VST solutions is currently at all easy to configure and build, but see here for more information. Rosegarden is implementing the DSSI synth API and will probably ultimately use a DSSI wrapper for VST instruments. Rosegarden can also be run without audio support if you only want MIDI or score, whereas MusE always requires JACK.
My rather fuzzy impression of the difference in "feel" between them is that MusE feels like it came more from a studio/MIDI gearhead background, Rosegarden more from a composition background. MusE is a bit further ahead with things like instrument plugins, audio routing (send/returns etc) and automation. Rosegarden places a lot more emphasis on the score editor, whereas the one that used to be in MusE was actually removed completely for the 0.7 release.
Rosegarden is a somewhat bigger and more complicated program than MusE (c 200K lines of code vs 130K LOC), which you may see as good or bad depending on whether the extra code happens to do stuff you want or not. They're both written in C++, should you happen to care.
On the subject of soundcard support: the usual quick answer is "it's probably supported unless it's FireWire or made by MOTU". In particular the current M-Audio, Terratec and RME semi-pro gear mostly works fine, as well as most consumer cards. The lack of FireWire audio device support currently is a pain though. Anyway, see the ALSA soundcard matrix for detailed information.
(Disclaimer: I am a Rosegarden developer and, although I track MusE CVS, I have never actually managed to get MusE 0.7 to build because I don't have the right libraries and autotools. So do take all this with a pinch of salt.)
I've had a few friends adventurous to consider playing around with Linux audio programs, but when they ask if their $200 (and up) interfaces don't work and the best I can do is point them to the O'Reilly book on writing Linux drivers, it's (understandably) a real turn-off.
Of course, you're being an ass to them by playing the elitest RTFM! game.
Linux supports a WIDE range of professional sound recording cards. if you would have actually searched instead of acting like a snide know-it-all to your friends you would have known this....
Here, I'll help you...
Alsa sound card matrix.
it shows support for the Sonorus medi/o and studi/o professional 24 channel recording cards.
Oh look it supports the RME hammerfall card 52 recording channels at 24bit resolution.
There are lots more supported, I leave it up to you to find the rest in the link above.
I strongly suggest you actually learn about the ALSA support of professional soundcards and the PRO MIDI interfaces.... the midiman usb midi devices are also well supported and used extensively by professionals. Handing out advice to people when you do not know the facts only spreads bad information.
and as always, find out what is supported and then go buy it. buying something at random and then hoping it is supported is always a silly thing to do.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.