Wired: Pro-Level, GPL'd Audio Editing For Linux

Sven Hertz writes "For all us music professionals who were longing to a promising music production and creation software on Linux, there is now Wired (screenshots). It supports unlimited Audio/Midi tracks playback and recording, and introduces a Plugin system for instruments and effects (VST support under way too). It can also read AKAI CDs and import 18 different Wave formats. The first test version was released a few days ago and its news made the rounds successfully on OSNews & GnomeDesktop while it was placed "app of the week" over at GnomeFiles."

Comments

Linux sound is start to pick up

[Pecisk]

Yes, it is great to welcome another program, aimed at normal production use for common users for working with sound, but I want to point out that it doesn't arrive in the empty place. We have Audacity, Ardour, MuSE, lot of other programms which slowly reach stability and production use. Also I should mention work on ALSA and JACK, which are critical components making Linux a profesional workstation for working with sound.

Of coarse, lot of work should still be done for getting serious for common recording pro's crowd, but we are moving here.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> But on a serious note, does anyone know of any good free audio editing software for Windows?

AFAIK, there's
-- Kristal as a sequencer / multitrack / VST host ( www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php )
-- Audacity as a wave editor ( audacity.sourceforge.net )

Audacity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Audacity runs on Windows, Linux and OS X... and is GPL.

Linux Audio developement is fairly decent nowadays

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's good enough for the amature/prosumer enthusiest definately. If they have a strong computer background already.

Of course nothing will be good enough for the wannabees, which I suspect will come out in droves on this article. (which I hope not)

Linux has gotten very decent at audio production since Alsa drivers became standard. It makes this sort of thing much easier then compared to the old OSS stuff. Now you have stuff like gstreamer being developed, but that's desktop stuff, not audio developement.

There are lots of apps. Lots of information:
Linux audio developer's list
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/

google will show you the way.

A great app is Ardour, which makes your Linux PC into a audio workstation.
http://ardour.org/

From their website:
Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. Produce your own CD's. Mix video soundtracks. Experiment with new ideas about music and sound. Generate sound installations for 12 speaker gallery shows. Have Fun.

Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-linear, non-destructive region based editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a mixer whose capabilities rival high end hardware consoles, lots of plugins to warp, shift and shape your music, and controllable from hardware control surfaces at the same time as it syncs to timecode. If you've been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Cubase SX or Sequoia, you might have found it. /end of qoute.

And before you get all up tight about VST/VSTi plugins you can run many Windows plugins thru Wine
http://www.djcj.org/LAU/quicktoots/toots/vst -plugi ns/

And there is ongoing work of getting native plugins developed/ported.

With audio backends like JACK and Linux 2.6's scedualling options you can mix outputs from various different applications and sources with garrenteed latency and quality.
http://www.agnula.org/documentation/dp_t utorials/a lsa_jack_ladspa/

Here is a audio specific distro:
http://www.agnula.org/

Linux audio Guide:
http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/index.php

And that's just scratching the surface. If your intellegent and you make sure to select the proper hardware and sound equipment you can setup a very effective Linux-based audio workstation enviroment for relatively low bucks compared to something like OS X or Windows and depending on commercial software.

Unless of course your a Warez'ng pigfucker and don't pay for crap in the first place.

Before you get all up tight about desktop quality or lack of hardware support and how windows kicks ass and such, just stfu. If I was going to do this professionally and I had a lot of money I'd use OS X on Apple hardware. Windows just blows goats for everything except generic desktop usage, unless your willing to just throw pockets full of cash at it.

But Linux is actually fairly decent. Not the greatest, but definately best bang for the buck.

Re:Cool, but what about...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a beliver, all pro audio software more or less sucks, so take what I say in context with that.

Ardour is closest to a how a pro DAW should be with a plain workman like interface that inspires confidence. Rosegarden is obviously inspired by cubase, I've fired it up but never used it on a project because I can't stand QT apps. Audacity is a great editor, it's always built without error for me and despite a couple of minor niggles it's solid and usable.

Ardour is the most solid, workman like DAW I've used since the Otari RADAR; if you want to work with sound and not look at pretty brushed metal UI crap that is.

The first step, no more

[NeedleSurfer]

One can hardly run a studio with only one software, I'll agree that the main required software has finally been made for Linux but there is a host of other software you need to actually run a studio. Librarians/editors, machine control for your automated consolle, track and cue sheet software, archival software (which surely exist on Linux), countless number of utilities; BPM to delay calculators, pitch to loop lenght calculators, you know, little utilities you just can't live without in the end when you get use to their function. You will also need, pitch detectors and a lot of pluggins, from noise reduction to convolution-based reverb and so on.

What I'm trying to say is that, this Wired software looks fun and potentially great but as of now it looks like it's not even on par with Cakewalk (or Sonar if you prefer) which in turn, aren't on par with anything they are the lowest grade wares you might find in a studio (I say might because I never have seen a studio running on Cakewalk or Sonar).

I sincerly hope some LinuxHeadz will be jumping at this and bring us back the good ol' days on the Mac, when the entire audio community was working on one platform making better and better by the day, now the devellopement effort are spread a lot less new wares and a lot more me-too wares are being made, Wired has the potential to change that. The Linux community has the necessary structure to bring this back and make this software evolve and get complete with an incredible assortment of companion wares.

So a first step it might be but it's a great one and the future will tell us if it was a leap...
go Linux!

Re:The first step, no more

[micromoog]

There's already a gigantic shitload of good audio software for Linux . . . I'd call this a "minor addition" rather than a "first step". Here's a listing. There's also an entire Linux distribution set up for audio.

Here's what I use:
multitracking: Ardour
MIDI sequencer: Rosegarden
editor: Audacity
drums: Hydrogen
softsynths: Alsa Modular and QSynth

There's really a ton of stuff out there . . . it just (like almost all free/OSS) doesn't get as much exposure as commercial work.

Re:This rules

[krymsin01]

I use a program called Buzz. It's a windows program, and was once the only reason I used windows at all. Buzz is a modular synthesizer/composer, and a very powerfull tool once you get used to it. I tried to get it to run under wine, but never with much success (various dlls would kill wine). Eventualy, I found a good tutorial on how to get it working under wine. Haven't used buzz on a windows machine since.

Re:OSX needs this

[Bulln-Bulln]

Well, Wired seems to use wxWidgets. It shouldn't too hard for a skilled person to port it to OSX or even Windows.

http://www.multitrack.us/

[Anonymous Coward]

Those guys would tend to disagree with you.

Also take a look here:
http://www.linuxmusician.com/index.php
You might be surprised. ;-D

Re:This rules

[CowboyBob500]

For Mac:-

CakeWalk -> Logic Audio/Cubase/ProTools/GarageBand
BeSweet -> FFMPegX
VirtualDub -> ?
TMPGEnc -> FFMPegX
Alcohol 120% -> Dragon Burn
DVD Decryter -> MacTheRipper
DVD Shrink -> DVD2OneX
? => DVD Studio Pro -> Sizzle
Nero => DiskBlaze -> Dragon Burn

For Linux:-

CakeWalk -> Rosegarden/Ardour
BeSweet -> Mencoder
VirtualDub -> KDenLive
TMPGEnc -> Mencoder
Alcohol 120% -> K3B
DVD Decryter -> AcidRip/Video-DVDRip
DVD Shrink -> ?/DVDShrink runs under Wine
? => DVD Studio Pro -> DVDAuth
Nero => DiskBlaze -> K3B

Bob

Fruity Loops?

[Tethys_was_taken]

I've just started to dabble with music creation on the PC. While I was looking for apps to start with, I found this excellent windows app called FruityloopsM (FLStudio now). IMO, it is very polished and excellent to use. And, like a good game, simple to learn and hard to master. I'm not advertising, I'm just blown away by this things quality.

Now, FL is pay software, and I have the 30 day demo (*hangs head in shame*) and it's one of the things keeping me on Windows (the other things being the games :).

I've been looking for a decent app for linux which resembles fruity loops. Does anyone know of one which can hold a candle to FL? I've been informed by various sources that FL is a point and click tracker, a VST interface (whatever that is) and various other scary sounding terms :/.

Besides, if any of you 1337 developer gods out there are interested in making music software, this is one app worth cloning

Re:Fruity Loops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there's one available for linux, and it's even in debian. It's called hydrogen.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

For MIDI/Audio with music notation, try

[FeatureBug]

Rosegarden has a MIDI sequencer, a music-notation editor, audio, DSSI plugins, etc. For musicians who can read music notation, Rosegarden is probably the best available MIDI software for Linux.

Re:Suggestion: A music section

[zerblat]

Well there the Linux Audio Blog, Linux Musician and Quick Toots. I'm not sure most /.ers in general are that interested in pro audio.

The are lots of articles on the web about recording with open source software. Also check out Dave Phillips's site and his articles in Linux Journal.

Other PRO-Level audio software for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also advanced drum machine for Linux. It's called Hydrogen.

Just tried to compile it

[Chilltowner]

It looks cool from the screenies, but it has some fairly serious dependency nightmares once you actually try to get it going. I'm no shrinking violet when it comes to compiling these things, and I'm not afraid to start tearing around in the code to make it work, but this is beyond the pale. PortAudio is particularly hellish to deal with. It's only version 0.1, so I'm sure they'll improve things in the future, but I'm giving up until the install and dependency issues become more sane.

VirtualDub

[DrYak]

Avidemux is a replacement closer to VirtualDub

(Both are linear editing tools : i.e.: you process video streams on which you apply filters and codecs).

KDenLive like BroadCast2000, are more like MainActor, ULead, Adobe Premiere, etc...
They are non-linear (you have small clips you assemble together [usually by drag-dropping them on some storyboard-like tracks])

It's easier to do editing with non-linear.
But you can still do some editing with linear tools too. (Usually linear editting tools alow you to work only on a small portion of your stream [and thus, isolating clips]. They also allow you to use a squence of more than 1 file as input stream [and therefor you can assemble your clips into your final movie]. You only lack the nice and userfriendly interface with tracks, but basically you can do the same).

VST Support in Linux Applications

[base_chakra]

For those who don't know, VST (Virtual Studio Technology) is a plug-in architecture engineered by Steinberg Media Technologies. VST plug-ins aren't limited simply to sound filters, but allow users to expand their host applications with elaborate third-party instruments that do things like, say, simulate a grand piano. Many regard it as superior to the competing DirectX-based plug-in system.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of VST instrument support in Linux-based audio applications. Many musicians depend heavily on specific VST instruments, and wouldn't dream of migrating without them. Also, VST allows for so many new possibilities with your host application, it would multiply Wired's potential capabilities tremendously, and would be tantamount to porting dozens of applications to Linux.

Since Windows has a long-standing reputation for latency problems in MIDI timing (especially with budget hardware), I can see how a new version of Wired with VST support could compel some Windows users to switch.

Not an unreasonable amout of deps.

[donscarletti]

I am not anwering the original poster. It is clear to me that this is just a deliberate troll, and a damn skillful one and I respect that. Kudos to whoever posted it. But this is a response to the four individual people who modded this up and obviously need a response.

This is not a gnome application. I don't really know what it was doing on gnomedesktop.org in the first place, it really has nothing to do with gnome (or at least no more than it has to do with XFCE). It's a GTK2 application which uses wxwindows to abstract most of the GTK2 stuff anyway so it wouldn't be hard to port to another toolkit. You don't have to be running gnome to use it, you don't even need to have gnome installed.

GTK2 which is what it actually uses is a fairly good library to base such an application on. It provides a very nice user interface with only a bit under 5 or so megs of dependancies above the stuff that comes with X. (when everthing is compiled and installed)

Pango is really part of GTK. Freetype is pretty much used by everyone (gnome, KDE, games, most other things), and the rest of the stuff you mention comes with X (the ones that actually exist that is). Personally, I have no idea whatsoever what you are complaing about. Do you expect everyone to use Xaw or make their interface from scratch with raw X calls? Maybe you beleive that all sound editing should be done on the console. You are really putting a stupid expectation on developers and suggesting a course of action that would hold back creating good gui programs for linux for ages.

Personally, I suggest that you just go ahead and install GTK and QT as well as anything else apps you want ask for, as well as their respective dependancies. Then what I suggest you do after that is shut up. This process will only take you half an hour at the most and will allow you to run many more applications without having to complain about it.

Rezound

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one of the best available WAV editors for Linux is Rezound http://rezound.sf.net/

Re:This rules

[Bedouin X]

Seriously, this sounds like it either happened back in the early Windows 9x days (or earlier) or on poorly maintained Windows installations. My Mac digital audio experience mainly consists of MAX and ProTools and I'll tell you that I've had ProTools on my G5s crash more in the last three days than I've had Sonar or Nuendo crash in the past few years on Windows. The Mac also has a much larger propensity to randomly crash or lock up. I hear Mac users say what you've been saying all the time but it just doesn't jibe with my real world experience. I think that people are just so used to saying it that they haven't bothered to check recent developments.

This has generally been the case since Windows 2000 dropped. I've been using and setting up Macs and PCs in studios for 15 years and it appears as if the tables have pretty much turned. Well, not really as the Mac doesn't suck on digital audio like Windows did, but Windows certainly has earned its stripes and is - at minimum - a peer to the Mac in digital audio.

cubase and logic

[Britz]

the largest 2 apps for midi sequencing with integrated audio support are Cubase and Logic.

You can choose between them. Since logic was bought by apple now for x86 there is no choice. Most studios run one of them (together with other, more professional apps). Those are like Photoshop for graphics. And like Gimp never caught up with Photoshop I have yet to see anything remotely similar to Cubase or Logic on Linux.

My friend does Cubase and as soon as something occurs I can install Linux on his comp, but until then ...

dd

[pikine]

Just for information, to rip ISO files in unix (Linux, Mac OS X, etc), just do a:

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=~/cdimage.iso

Furthermore, on Mac OS X 10.3, "Disk Utility.app" will do the same. It also burns ISO images. I've also used cdrecord on Mac OS X with some success (specifying the device was a bit puzzling).

answer: linux audio developer's simple plugin API

[pikine]

LADSPA has been around for a long time. It is not meant to duplicate VST, but it is a simple plugin interface just "good enough" to chain together effects like freeverb, compression, etc. It relies on the host (audio program that uses the plugin) to provide a user interface of the parameters to program the plugin. The plugins tend to come in a bundle, from dedicated plugin developers, such as Steve Harris and Richard Furse, who are experienced in DSP. There is also some kind of XML-based GUI description for LADSPA plugins around, but I'm not on the state of the art affair on that.

coralized link

[signingis]

Almost...

http://bloodshed.net.nyud.net:8090/wired