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An Intro To Editing Audio On Linux
W-9z writes "Ars is running a guide to editing audio under Linux that I think is a great read for anyone trying to
find new ways to flex that Linux muscle. There are some outstanding FOSS tools out there. They look at Ardour, Audacity, and SND. The author talks a bit about why Linux is a
superior platform for this kind of work: 'FOSS software is, almost by definition, a work in process. If Ardour doesn't have a feature I need, I can code it myself. With this
possibility, the software no longer defines what I can do -- it's just a point of departure.' It's an interesting companion to the /. discussion of video editing earlier this year."
Wow, I never knew Linux was so good for that kind of thing. In fact, I might just stop using SONAR (Windows) and switch to Linux.
I guess that means that the 1% market share just got a bit bigger.
I usually don't turn to linux for day to day tools, but I have to admit, it is pretty good for editing large audio. Tools are lacking, but its pretty stable doing.
"FOSS software is, almost by definition, a work in process. If Ardour doesn't have a feature I need, I can code it myself."
But, what if you aren't a coder?
A friend in the industry tells me he's converted at least a dozen pro audio editors to ardour, leaving behind pro tools and logic for good. This looks like it's one of the killer apps that's going to take linux far. We already have several that are making F/OSS well known in the wider world like apache, blender, gimp and the rest.
What's insane is the pro proprietary companies charge prices in the four figures just for some of their software alone. Can't be justified when you have the same abilities free.
RST
On proprietary platforms, eventually you'll run into "you can't do that." On open platforms, you'll run into "you have to learn more to do that."
That applies to so much more than just audio programs.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No linux has the audacity to play audio
Glad to see both JACK and audio editing programs getting a little more attention. Although there's still a lot of room for improvement, the tools are really advancing rapidly. One of the things I find interesting is the Unix like philosophy behind most of the tools, especially their speed and scriptability. With the rate at which development is progressing, I imagine there will be some VERY powerful tools available in the next couple years. Here's to hoping movie studios start using Linux for audio too!
Vandemar.org
Unless, of course, you don't know how to code it yourself, either because you don't have the technical know-how or the willingness to invest time investigating and learning how it works.
This is becoming a pet peeve of mine when people espouse the benefits of FOSS; it only applies to tech-geeks. Great, programmers can do things with it that they can't do with closed-source. Now how about everyone else?
An intro to getting your goddamn sound card to work on linux?
fervent software
Offers a Linux distribution based on Debian designed for audio work.
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
Offers packages to be installed over Fedora for audio.
It's only superior if you have the ability to code the feature you need. There's a huge assumption there that someone who is skilled at using a DAW is even inclined to code new features for an application. Personally speaking, I lack the skills to approach that, so a superior platform is one that lets me do what I want without having to code the feature. That's not to discount the value of being able to do that, but really, most modern DAW's are extensible in some way or another (be it via VST, or some API). Having said that, Audacity rocks!
look, i love open source software as much as the next man, and it's price really goes with my poor musician ethic, but to be honest, as the man said it's a work in progress. Configuring a number of audio programs to run togehter, such as a drum machine and a synth or sampler, through jack and rosegarden is a royal pain in the arse.And musicians don't want to code new bits to their software, they just want it to work. so for now i'll still keep that windows box that doesn't go anywhere near the net....gotta love reason and acid pro...and keep this freebsd box for the net
My brother owns a recording studio, and Linux wouldn't compete in that arena. For a home studio, these apps + a SB Audigy are fine, but no talented band, producer, editor or mastering engineer will look twice. The midlevel sound cards don't approach the quality and power of the high end (even rotools HD) vehicles.
For me, I want to see Linux drivers adapted for the high end hardware. Windows isn't an issue as most high end studio apps offload the processing to the hardware. The software is just a window to what the hardware is doing in the recording.
If you're just mixing tracks for a garage demo, this software looks great. I paid a fortune 3 years ago for Win32 software that didn't approach this level. I see great things ahead as hardware gets better.
For now, though, the SB cards don't offer the best input quality. I can tell the difference in noise floor, transparency, and soundprint signature. When I've listened to demos, I can pinpoint quality gear versus prosumer gear.
In the end though, a 4track tape is enough if you have talent. Most bands don't.
For a very good live distro, try Musix
-P@
Traction2 is built using JUCE. JUCE is an all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform applications. Both of which were built by Jules of Raw Material Software. On April, 25th 2005 JUCE was released with Linux support.
There is talk that this powerful, unique, and user-friendly audio application could be ported to Linux. If anyone else wants to support such an idea, e-mail Mackie or see this thread on KVR.
Real men flex their muscles by editing raw sound:
% cat /dev/audio > /im_the_man/raw.snd /im_the_man/raw.snd
% hexedit
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Is there some reason why FOSS audio tools will not work in Windows? I'm just puzzled, because I don't understand the jump from "here are some great FOSS audio tools" to "this is why Linux>Windows." I used FOSS on Windows all the time; it it was coded well it works perfectly fine. Or are these FOSS-tools platform-dependent on some specific distro of Linux?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
ProTools is industry standard, period. No FOSS is going to conquer their market share. In fact, outside of the /. crowd, this will remain small. Lack of hardware support for most popular interfaces will doom it so, not to mention Linux's inflexibilities to the average user.
A blog like any other.
Record withPlay with
There is a Windows version too. If you think you're not into music editing, well, ever get an mp3 that was just too low in volume? Audacity can easily fix that - amplify, under the effect menu. Not suprisingly, Audacity is also open source. Not a big download either, but you will need to get the LAME codec to import/export mp3s. There's a link on the Audacity page to the codec and it tells you how to load it into the program. Just do a search; the Audacity home page should be enar the top.
Not to get into the giant pissing match here, but music sounds better on Linux (at least with classic rock and old blues). It's got more clarity. Windows palying music seems to have a little muffling effect by comaprison. You might be able to adjust the settings somewhere in Windows to sound that good, but I've never found out how. If you know, please post it here or post a link.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
I don't know about the author of this article, but I am certainly NOT an audio engineer, so I could not "code it myself". In fact, most end users probably aren't even developers. And even if you are a developer, you will have to spend a good deal of time getting intimate with the architecture and framework of the application. Sure, you can hire somebody to code something up for you, but that's not the same as doing it yourself. If you're going to pay somebody to change something, why not request a feature from the author and give him a "donation" in return?
On the other hand, many audio editing tools have some kind of relatively simple, well-defined plugin architecture, so if you have the skills it is quite possible to write your own plugin (or modify someone else's). Even many closed source solutions have an open plugin architecture, so I don't really see the necessity of having the main application open (though it doesn't hurt). So, in essence, I don't really how Linux is a "superior platform" for audio editing. Yes, it encourages open source software, but a lot of the software is available for Windows (i.e. Audacity, but it doesn't look like the other two have been ported).
The platform shouldn't matter; it's the applications, stupid! Once again, use the right tool for the job. If Audacity on Linux works for you, fine. If CoolEdit on Windows works for you, fine. If something else on another platform gets the job done, more power to you.
An engineer friend of mine just recorded 80 tracks of audio simultaneously using protools (dual G5 mac)...over an hour solid. It was a large live event with no second chances, and it went without a hitch.
I think one huge advantage of the commercial apps is the associated hardware. The DACs and off board procs do far more than a single workstation could do, and unfortunately open source hardware can't really be free. For big tasks, professional recording is much more than software.
There may be a way to cluster some slave workstations or something to provide the required horsepower, but some time-sensitive situations are going to require that such a system be very, very stable.
Well, the article itself touches on a few of my reasons. Ardour, specifially, is very "Linuxy" in its interface layout and design, reminding me in many ways of the old Dos version of 3D Studio. It definitely looks like a programmer-designed UI, it's very stark and bare-bones, and things are never quite where you expect them to be. It's clearly a Cubase/Logic inspired design and layout, but without the years of fine-tuning those have had to get to their current states. I prefer Ableton's more unorthodox approach anyway, but that's just me
The other is, as always, hardware support. Getting less important now in some ways, for some uses (I use quite a lot of virtual instruments, so not a huge deal for me) the lack of hardware DSP support is a killer. Proprietary developers are to blame here, in fairness, but it's still a problem.
Probably most importantly for me is the real killer, and I suspect the reason most audio folks won't move to Linux for some time to come (and coincidentally the reason so many of them use Apple machines): we don't want the software to get in the way of the creation of music any more than it has to. At the moment, many parts of Linux are unhelpfully complicated, especially to non-technical people.
A final thought, based on the quote from the article repeated in the summary:
Quite apart from ignoring the fact that almost every major audio app can use various forms of plugin, which have relatively easy to obtain SDKs, and that various generic programmable plugins (like MaxDSP) exist for which one can do the same, it ignores maybe the most obvious point of all: not all musicians are programmers.
Game dev and music blog
As TFA says, there are lots of audio editing apps out there. I'm looking for apps that can create the sound as well. I know about the Beast. Any one have any other ones they know of and like?
...they want their complaint back.
...I'd like a similar post like "An Intro To Editing Video On Linux." Nor production quality, but something I can edit the commercials out of the shows I record. A product like Womble MPEG-VCR for Linux. Yes, I know how to use Google, but I've never found anything remotely capable of doing what I want. I can hack together MEncoder commands, but that is a pain. This is one of the few areas where a GUI is better than the CLI.
When will someone write an ASIO (or similar) Driver framework for Linux (that actually works)?
When can we start utilizing 24bit/96khz (Professional) Digital Audio Interfaces, on Linux?
Why doesn't steinborg start developing Cubase for Linux?
I want some VSTi's that can be developed in c, perl, or tcl! =p
When will Digidesign start developing Protools for linux?
I've been waiting years for such adaptation, but yet, I still have to resort to Windows or Mac to do audio engineering, which is the only time I need to do something that linux isn't yet capable of. =(
I'm lucky if I can get audio to work properly half the time. With some applications only talking to OSS, some to only Arts and some others only speaking directly to ALSA (with about a million other variations on this theme) I'm happy if I can get the damn machine to play an MP3. We really do have an wealth of sound applications just a shame they don't play nicely together. Looks like this is going to continue in the future as well with everyone and their uncle producing a next generation sound server.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I record an average of 2 to 3 nights a week at 24bits/96khz using a Sound Devices 722.
Unfortunately, the tools under Linux just don't come close to those under Windows. Linux lacks good dithering tools. Audacity does not work well at 24 bit. It lacks multiple levels of undo and many, many other basic UI features. It will take a great deal of time to implement those features with comparable attention to detail and reliability. Ardour is interesting but seems focused on
I've been using UNIX for 20 years and as my desktop for 18. The only other thing I use windows for is Visio. I hate having to use windows.
*ahem* Unless you want to do anything with MIDI. ;-)
I'm in a foreign language course, and I'd like to find something that can split the vocab audio on the CD so I can match it with flashcards. Anyone know if any of these can do it w/o days worth of tinkering and research?
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
I especially like it's loop recording function - the existing tracks will continue to loop over and over while you record as many 'takes' as you like in a new track.
The other app I use (Garageband on my iBook) doesn't offer this feature, and cuts off audio recording after the first take.
You can get around this by simply repeating your tracks so you have more repeats in the loop to record over, but then youre not really 'loop recording' any more, and ardour's approach to this is so much more convenient.
I was able to crash ardour by dragging audio around on it's timeline, but I expect this bug has been fixed by now.
I see lots of exciting things happening in the Linux audio world, apps like seq24, ardour and hydrogen make it hard to justify using anything else for the niches that these apps fill.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I still wish there was something as simple and complete as FL Studio that was OSS. I'd love to not have to reboot.....
Chaos is Divine *
And yet both of you (assuming that there really are two different people responding in this way) provided no detailed explanation as to exactly what one is gaining and what one is giving up. Neither of you seem to appreciate software freedom, so neither of you frame the issue along the line of an exchange—in exchange for software freedom, what are you gaining by choosing some non-free software to do this job?
Such an approach would have been far more informative for the reader because it would have let each reader decide whether their freedom to share and modify the program is really worth giving up.
Digital Citizen
The article states that Audacity supports VST plugins. This is only partially true. VST plugins run (with the VST enabler installed), but they use a default interface - not the interface that was designed for each plugin. Many of the designed (non-default) interfaces have data displays that give feedback on the setting being adjusted (such as a meter showing audio levels relative to an adjustable threshold). Using these plugins without the feedback from the data displays can be difficult. I believe few new users would put up with this limitation if they have used competing apps that fully support VSTs and their interfaces. Saying that VST plugins are supported without explicitly mentioning this limititation, as the article does, is quite misleading.
FTA: "Support for dedicated DSP processors is somewhat controversial. A DSP processor is like a graphics card for audio--it can accelerate DSP operations, reducing the load on the main CPU. The problem here is that since DSP cards are such a niche market, the only ones available are proprietary add-ons for proprietary software. They use proprietary protocols, closed source, and are locked down to be used with only one piece of software, eg. ProTools."
Why can't these apps just use a PC stuffed with DSP soundcards?
--
make install -not war
Except linux doesn't recognize either of my two soundcards.
I call B.S. on this one. Seriously, ProTools may have the most recognized *name* in the recording industry, but that doesn't mean it's the most widely used product for the job. What tends to happen with ProTools is studios know it "rings a bell" with people when they hear it mentioned, so they always list it as a capability their studio offers. But in reality, the ProTools rig often sits collecting dust. It's not a bad product at all, but flexibility and technology wise, it's been eclipsed by other packages. The mere fact that it uses proprietary "plug ins" turns a lot of people off to it. There are some awesome plug-in f/x made to the .VST standard, or even to Apple's new Audio Units standard, and many people would rather use a product that natively handles those formats.
(Even if you're not a big CuBase or Logic Audio fan, what about DP4 for the Mac? You can use any of these products with whatever audio recording peripherals you like too, rather than just some "ProTools approved" hardware product.)
"If Ardour doesn't have a feature I need, I can code it myself." Most people can't program themselves and would rather buy something that already has the feature they want...
And this has absolutely nothing to do with free software versus non-free software. There's nothing preventing someone from developing this stable extra hardware, documenting it, and allowing any programmer to write software to talk to it.
Also, you're confused about the term "commercial". Free software (a matter of liberty not price) is commercial software too the moment anyone uses it in commercial activity (distributing a copy of it for a fee, modifying it for a fee, building services on top of it for a fee, etc.). Commercial and non-free software do not mean the same thing. If one is disallowed from distributing copies of the program for a fee, that program is not free software for that person.
Digital Citizen
Can you use more than one sound application at the same time?
:) Hopefully things are getting better, but I know in my case Knoppix isn't configuring the ALSA mixer for my soundcard. I guess if I was interested in "pro-level" audio I'd be willing to dig into it a bit more. As things stand, I just listen to one app at a time. (Might have something to do with my antiquated, integrated audio: Intel Corp. 82801AA AC'97 Audio (rev 2).)
I still remember when gaim used to queue up sounds while I watched a movie... then they would all play once I shut off VLC.
I do some of the sound mixing for my band, while some is done by a professional. I use windows, and he uses Mac. I use SONAR, and he uses Logic. Let me say, even as a PC person, that Logic is an AMAZING program. It is incredibly simple, much more so than SONAR, but at the same time just as powerful, if not more so. Instead of having to apply filters with a drop down menu, you drag them to filter slots on a track. Buttons you need are big, the ones you don't are small. Filters have clear labels on their settings that allow even a novice to see what each does. Not only does a good interface and powerful engine make mixing much faster, but the output sounds better as you spend more time on the mix, not navigating menus. Linux is not an audio editing platform. Companies invest lots of money making quality realtime audio drivers for expensive equiptment for Windows and Mac, not for Linux. Sure, you can do some decent stuff with a P4, 1 GB RAM and an Audigey Basic, like this guy does, but thats not real audio editing. My system, let me stress I am an amerature, is a Dual P4 1MB cache x64, 2GB DDR2, 520 GB HD, and 7.1 Channel soundcard for regular stuff, and a 24bit external input box for audio recording. The professional mixman we work with has a dual G5, 23 inch monitor, Firewire 32 input 24bit A/D converter, and Mackie control surface, in addition to the regular 48 channel mixer he uses. I have used Audacity. I have nothing against it. It is the MS Paint of FOSS sound editors. You can have tracks, and cut them, and move them about, even put on some reverb. That is not real audio editing. For recording a band in a studio setting, you need hundreds of tracks and takes (sometimes), powerful compression, reverb, phasers, and environmental filters, support for recording 12-24 simultanious 24 bit uncompressed tracks to hard drive, support for professional zero latency real time firewire, usb and pci audio input cards as well as professional control surfaces. Does linux have that yet? I have no problem with linux, or people how dabble in cutting up a few audio files. But this guy has no right to declare that linux is now BETTER than windows or mac os x because he can record off the "line in" on his soundblaster. The arguement that you can add whatever you want to FOSS software, making it better than closed source, is getting tiring. Sure you can. You can also jump to the moon if you want to. Do you really think anybody has sat down, installed Audacity, and said "This doesn't have the features of SONAR or CUBASE", then proceeded to open emacs and write all those features into it? I though not. Linux is good for somethings already, and getting better at others. It is not by any strech of the imagination ready for professional audio editing.
Imagine for a moment that this was comparing cars, and the Microsoft model had its hood so famously welded shut. With the FLOSS model car, yes, I can fix it myself, but more importantly, I can pay someone else to fix it, revise it, etc. That's the significance of the language plugins and FLOSS in general. How many people actually work on their own cars? Not very many, other than changing oil. But how many people would be happy buying a car that could only be serviced, or enhanced, by taking it to teh dealer, that it was not just illegal to work on it your self, but impossible? Or worse yet, using the FLOSS model, the only way to work on a car / program was to buy an entirely new model and it was illegal to sell or even give away the old model?
Don't be so literal.
Infuriate left and right
Thats right, I was sooo disgusted with the basics of Linux's audio/video features in ALL distros, that I'v decided to build my own from scratch using DebIan
The reason I picked deb was because it seems to be the easiest to 'make work' fully in EVERY aspect, after burning through many, many distros that 'promised' full multimedia functions.
To start out with, it will have MPlayer working the way it should, instead of 'just being installed'.
Most of the programs mentioned in the article will all be in the distro, with availible plugins, WORKING!!
Hopefully this project will be done in weeks and not months, seeing that I'v been at it for some time now.
This WONT come cheep: Cost: some pizza ;)
I will post when it is ready for dl
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Im a fan of open source and communal development but I do not think Linux is superior to windows. For example (and some kind of attempt to backup my arguement) professional tools such as reason and Cubase struggle if not fail completely to run under a Linux environment, VST support within linux is limited (but there). There are many ways in which linux is superior to windows, but I feel this is not one of them, surely the tools are adequate, but for a user who is interested in business, compatibility aswell as music, the fact that most tools are windows based (most tools that have a company to support them instead of voluntary developers) will probably be enough to keep them out of linux. I have always seen linux as interesting and innovating, but perhaps releasing professional tools is a bit out of it's scope. Just to summarise, as a hobbyist producer I feel that linux is not a suitable direction unless more commercial software were willing to actively support the migration, so even though linux audio is interesting it will be a while before I use it, that's just my opinion.
Learn how to! Programming is not difficult, to say otherwise means that you have bought the lie which has made His Billness so wealthy. You need: literacy - which includes the ability to perceive the information in the transparent lines hiding on the last page in most computer books :-) - a reasonably logical mind; a good memory so you can remember the lore; the ability to organize your time; and to be a stickler for details.
There are so many really good books and papers, to say nothing of very high quality example source code, out there on the 'Net for free that there is no financial barrier either. Frankly it's just a matter of adjusting the self-confidence and putting the intellectual arse ( ass ) into gear.
Wow! I better start drinking Mountain Dew!
This is actually factually incorrect. You can't jump to the moon merely by wanting to. I'm sorry, but the rest of your post is thrown into sharp doubt by this foolish statement.
Edit with
hexedit file.raw
Who needs Ardour?!? Hexedit. That's real power.
*Every* professional audio interface that is worth laying out the money for is supported by ALSA. Between ALSA and jack, you can get stunning results even from crappy hardware. I can get below 5ms latency with an el-cheapo SB Live! card. I know a few people using ardour with extremely expensive cards, and getting a hell of a lot more for their money than with crappy ASIO drivers.
All I get from executing cat on my audio device is "meow!"
It's not at all a matter of you coding in the features you want. It's entitrely a matter of providing a giant step forward when you pay someone to give you a certain feature. If you hand the developer a check and say "Please give me this feature", you can bet your socks that they will hop-to. Try doing that to Microsquash.
If you decide you want a new feature in your office word-processer; say, [off the top of my head] you want on-the-fly translations to/from english. If you go to the open office team and wave a $10,000 check, what are the chances they will get you your feature in the next few months? Compare to what you would hear if you tried to ply Microsquash with a $10,000 check.
It's not at all about what you, yourself, can code. it's that much of the work has already been done for when you pay someone to do the work that you can't.
This proves that Linux is now simple and easy to use, because if the squirrels at Arstechnica are able to do things on it? Then, it most certainly has become easy to use. After all, the arstechnica crowd is just a pack of untalented cretins that spit back already known knowledge constantly.
this subject's a little over my head but this guy doesn't seem to be an amateur. you seen his resume & company website? particular emphasis on the resume...
I have looked for a "Basic" 4+ channel input card, (for security cams and simple audio streams); but i can only find expensive ones. Anyone have any ideas what is good and cheap?
Oh and it must work with Linux.
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
This sort of stuff has been going on in open software for a long time. For example one software company wished to use emacs as the configuration file editor for part of their package but it wouldn't work on X windows, so they paid a developer to get it to run on X windows and to fix some long standing bugs on what was then effectively an abandoned project. This pissed off the originator of the concept somewhat because the feature was missing for political reasons, but the work was ultimately to the benefit of everyone - and the GPL limited conflict to email flames instead of spending even a dollar on legal action.
1) Bus issues.
2) Most consumer sound cards aren't up to it.
3) Timing issues.
You don't know how to code? Fine, don't try to then. The point the author is trying to make here is that the software is not totally dominated by proprietary standards, so it's possible for different modifications to be made to by people who do code. It's not like everyone who uses it needs to be a 1337 coder, but there are those out there who will modify it.
I use Ardour on my Gentoo machine. I haven't done anything big with it yet (need more HD space), but I like it for the most part. And no, I don't code fluently enough to make any serious modifications to the program.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
This is one of those areas where Linux frustrates me the most. I would not use Windows at all if the audio/midi apps for linux were more mature. Ardour for example is great if all you want to do is multitrack audio, but even in this area it does not come close to say Cubase or Sonar. For example Ardour does not feature hitpoint detection, non-destuctive time stretching, audio warping, groove templates, offline per-clip effects, track freezing and on and on. MIDS is coming but who knows how many years that will take. I'd add it, but I'm not a good programmer and dont have the time. The features it does have work great but it still doesnt really compare to the commercial offerings. VST support.. This is a joke. Last time I checked there were three or four different alternatives for linux here, all using wine and all have dead for at least a year.. MIDI? Linux has some good midi apps which still dont have near the features of the windows ones. Some of these, namely Rosegarden and Muse, even have audio track support but these features are so primitive that they are nearly useless and really Ardour is the better choice here.. But someone will then say but Linux has Jack and you can hook together whatever apps you want. Jack is sort of like Rewire on steroids. So you load Qjackctl which is a nice app for connecting Linux audio apps. Ok. So you load up Muse for its midi capabilities, maybe load up some soft-synths in it, maybe the ones you want to are plugins for Muse, but probably not so you load up two or three external soft-synths and route muses midi output to those one at a time, then you hook the output of those soft synths into ardour via jack. So now there are 5 programs loaded, took you 30 minutes to load and connect everything. You make some changes to the patches in the soft-synths, write some midi tracks in muse and then record a bit of it into ardour. Then think gee I'd like to save my song so I can unload all these programs and do something else with my computer. So you save in muse, save in both synths, save your hookups in qjackctl, save your session in ardour, write a little note so you remember everything you need to do to load your song again. This takes you another 30 minutes.. But really whats more likely to happen is: you will hook everything up and one of the crappy soft synths will crash before you have a chance to save everything and take out the other audio apps forcing you to start over or your whole computer will crash because you were using the realtime-lsm patch to make the thing responsive. Or you will close Ardour before disconnecting it from muse and muse will crash. etc etc. There are nice proposals like LASH, formerly LADCCA which would let all Lash compliant apps be saved in their current states and then reloaded that way but most programs dont use LASH. Not to mention the time it takes to get all there programs and a proper kernel compiled and downloaded if you are not using some pre-made solution like CCRMA, Demudi or Studio to go. Many distro have these apps as packages, but something is always out of date. I have been watching Linux audio grow for years and years and really its going to take years more before all of the features I listed above exist in a single app. With Cubase I open one app with synthesis, sampling, Midi and Audio editing under one roof. When Im finished I save and close, done. I am a huge Linux fan, but I really hate Linux audio. Maybe next year.. Ardour really is awesome though..
The E-MU line (Which have some nice features and excellent converters), and the entire Digidesign range. Both refuse to open specs so others can write drivers.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
I find tools like Ardour and Audacity exciting because they let me, Joe Slob With No Money, play with the kinds of sound engineering concepts that have unavailable without an actual studio (or at least, a lot of gear in the closet). LADSPA plugins are awesome and, frankly, fun. Ardour is a great multitracker, and Audacity excels at editing single tracks. (I find Audacity too clunky for mixing lots of tracks together, but the keyboard shortcuts are easy and quick to use. YMMV.)
.)
If I may blatently self-promote for a moment, I produce a role playing game 'cast, Dice Make Bonk, that is 100% made with FOSS. I'm proud of what I've pulled off with it so far. I could not have done it without free open source. (Which may be a great counterargument, I know . .
The fact that I can put a fair-sounding, multilayered show like that together using the same computer I balance my checkbook on is pretty incredible to me.
I have no skill points put into Profession (Studio Engineer), so while DMB is not the most finely crafted example of what Hydrogen, Audacity, and Ardour can do, it is certainly more than I would have been able to do without buying lots of specialized equipment -- or at least a new iBook. Total equipment expenditures so far: ~$70 for the mics, another $40 for the mixer. Any more would have crushed my miniscule budget.
It's just a hobby, after all. With capable FOSS like Audacity and Ardour, though, it's a hobby I can take to a significant level of quality as I teach myself new skills.
As for sound editing, although Audacity is okay, I have to admit I still use SoundForge in Windows a lot. And I absolutely love Renoise, which I REALLY wish was available on Linux. (Yes I would pay for it, I even paid for the Windows version but I'd love to be able to run it without rebooting to Windows.)
There are several good hardware pieces out there that would be really nice if you could plug them directly into the open source audio software apps...
If we could get more cooperation from hardware vendors to plug into linux...would make for some cool sound editing/mixing.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Linux Format, July 2005, from the local magazine rack,
rated "Sweep" as the best sound editor.
Sweep development was funded by Pixar Studios,
although I believe sweep does very little development now.
While sweep seemed good for quick results,
I prefer "Rezound" over sweep, ardour, and audacity.
I use a sound editor to edit speeches and music from Ethical Society meetings,
previously recorded on cassette tape.
Both sweep and rezound have multiple undo/redo edits.
Rezound, like most sound editors has LADSPA and JACK.
One thing I'd like in rezound is a wave pattern while rezound records
-- I only get the wave pattern after I stop recording (I suppose this prevents
excess demand on the processor).
When I tire of using menus or the mouse, shortcuts like
ctrl-z
implement the infinite undo.
While a couple techniques weren't obvious, I found rezound more transparent than audacity.
I use mp3gain to adjust the gain/volume to a standard, rather than using tools in rezound.
I use a somewhat professional M-Audio Delta 66 audio card, which has 4 input and 4 output 1/4" plugs
in a break out box, although I had to compile "envy24control" on Debian Linux
to control this sound card.
I occasionally try other tools, because I use an audio editing tool over 100 hours a year.
Yet I keep returning to rezound.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Learn how to! Programming is not difficult, to say otherwise means that you have bought the lie which has made His Billness so wealthy.
I don't find programming particularly difficult, but then I've been doing it professionally for almost twenty years. Learning to code by itself isn't hard, but there's a WHOLE lot of background knowledge that you need for real-time applications, which pretty much locks a lot of people out that don't have that in-depth knowledge. Sure, you can get a guy to code, but does he understand how his code needs to interact with the device driver? Does he know what a device driver is? Does he even know what a kernel is, and what the difference between "kernel space" and "user space" are? Does he know of all the different situations where the OS could yank control of his process, possibly causing an audible glitch? There's tons and tons of info that every competent programmer knows without thinking that would take months at best to teach someone.
Coding isn't difficult if you're sticking with Windows and not writing anything particularly demanding of the hardware, but to tell someone with no experience "just do it" when they haven't the first idea how their computer really works is just asking them to heap a lot of frustration on themselves. It's rather like expecting some random guy to be able to pick up a violin and with a little bit of practice, come out sounding like Itzak Perlman. "What do you mean you can't do it? Learning violin is *easy*!" Yes, picking up the basics and getting a decent tone is pretty easy, but getting proficient at it is *hard*.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I love Audacity as a basic WAV editor/format conversion tool.
I love the concept of open source, and I wish I could do audio on Linux. I would even try some tinkering and developing to move it forward.
But, the competitive environment in proprietary audio software is so great, that some truly _amazing_ apps have been created in the past couple of years for Mac and Windows, like the realtime audio/midi sequencer Ableton Live, and hundreds of very good freeware/donationware VST/VSTi plugins being produced by the electronic music community. A lot of people have very good reasons to be enthusiastic about what they are already using (and what they have already paid to license).
But musicians are known to be occasionally a) poor and b) anti-authoritarian do-it-yourself-ers, so I see no reason why kids shouldn't be using some amazing LADSPA and DSSI hosting realtime open source sequencer instead of trying to crack the demo of Ableton to do their mash-ups and crazy masterpieces. It's just that from what I've read, that kind of all-in-one OSS sequencer hasn't come into existence yet (I'm echoing the previous poster who talked about the difficulty of setting up and saving sessions).
Now, if any sequencer using LADSPA and DSSI plugins were available on Mac or Windows, it would be great because some current VST developers might start making stuff in OSS formats. On top of that, there could be something like SynthEdit, only for LADSPA/DSSI, that would let people more easily use a graphical programming environment to create a plug-in.
Something that goes a long way to professional sound is good processing plugins. Things that do EQ, reverb, and so on for you. Well all that is available for Linux, but none of it even touches good plugins like Waves in terms of sound quality and ease of use (which makes it easier to get quality sound). Now of course Waves could be ported to Linux but it's not, and neither are other high-end plugins, and that makes a difference.
That would make for very very amature editing, though. Literally what a 16 year old does when he's bored. Honestly, a multi-input soundcard with a breakout box would be a much better (and cheaper, in the long run) option for garage-style sound editing and recording. But, i'm kind of a purist and very much against pedal modelers. If you're ging to do sound modeling on guitar, do it right and feed your effects into a MuRF or something similar. These multi-effect digital pedal modelers are just...they make me cringe.
Any why would you want to record a guitar directly into a computer anyway? MIC THE AMP, BOY, MIC THE AMP!
And for studio-type-stuff, you're not going to see anyone use something like a Pod XT, unless they're sponsored by Line 6. Even then, they'll use one of the more high-end digial amps, not a pedal. But then again, i'm a snotty biased bare-bones punk rocker.
Tracktion is a brilliant program -- I just switched over to it from ACID. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the best software apps of any kind I've ever used... easy to learn, elegantly designed, extremely powerful, extremely stable (except for one weird crash the first day I used it, it's been rock-solid). And it's made by a tiny little independent shop, not a giant corporate titan! A Linux port will greatly enhance the attractiveness and usability of Linux for musicians.
I've played with Audacity; it'll do in a pinch, but it's a toy next to Tracktion. Kudos to Jules for embracing Linux.
I'm buzy in media & other stuff. I can tell you one thing > 99% of the audio engineers, musicians don't want the abillity to program something if it doesn't have the necesarry function. they just want it to work easily, look good and is bundled in one screen&program like for instance sequoia and others. Still imho (i like usability) they can still be a lot easier to use and that my friends can also be the power of the flexibility of linux. Do like japan did with electronica. Mimic en become eventually waaaay better than the original!
While I haven't had to play with drum brakes, I could only assume they'd be more difficult to deal with given the sheer number of parts (at least according to HowStuffWorks). A disc brake system is pretty trivial, and really the only reason why drum brakes are still used is because they're cheaper (more parts, but none are as expensive as a big chunk of iron for the disc).
My truck has rear drums, so eventually I'll play with them. My car goes through pads and rotors much more quickly (mostly because I do the bulk of my driving in my car, and because I occasionally take it out to the track), so that's where I've had all of my experience.
I suspect that most people who have trouble getting the features they need into open source projects are trying bribery not with money/pizza/Mountain Dew, but with offers of nerd lovin', and that usually has the opposite effect...
Different musicians, different methods, different sounds.
I kind of like the sound of my Pod; it's missing something, yes, but in some cases I appreciate the hollowness. In today's artistic wasteland of boredom and redundancy, fake can be chic. Sometimes I'll plug my bass into the PC (with pregain of course), and concoct bastard mixtures of amp modelling and re-synthesis to yield a wholly new sound. I'm no guitarist or instumentalist, I just like sound.
It's fun.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Stability and commerciality are certainly an issue.
The original poster said "I can do it myself if I find it lacking". Now, how many people do you think can manage to improve the code for real-time recording (with your insert effects, sub-group mixing and monitoring, whatever) if it isn't stable enough?
Not that many, I bet.
You might want to try out http://www.dynebolic.org/. From the Features page, some of the included software:
"Mp4Live, lets you stream mpeg4 audio and video on darwin server | FreeJ, to perform on video livesets as a freejay | MuSE, to mix and stream your voice and sound files live on the net HasciiCam, to have a cool (h)ascii webcam, also on low bandwidth | TerminatorX, GDam, SoundTracker and PD, to perform with live audio | Kino, Cinelerra and LiVES, to edit video and publish clips | Audacity and ReZound, to edit audio and add effects on it"
I'm just starting as I said...and looking for ways to record and play with things....I've seen the breakout boxes, etc...and even with those...I don't see them very easily configured for use with a Linux DAW....I'd like to try the M-Audio stuff, but, can't find good support for Linux yet?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Some had the same prejudice against free software 20 years ago, insisting it would never be as good as the proprietary software they could purchase. This extended to telling those who worked on writing GNU that their operating system just could not work. Now, the best choices for mail and web server programs are free software and sysadmins who have the power to select what they want to run mostly pick the free software options to do these jobs.
If you have some evidence to back up your assertion that not many programmers can write this software, please present it. But history suggests that your bias is unfounded.
Digital Citizen
Over the past two weeks I have been discussing which route to proceed w/. This thread has been extremely helpful. I haven't messed around w/ linux in about 3 years, but about to embark again. Can anyone comment if audiocity, ardour, jack or other linux music apps work under Mandrake or SuSE? or just Debain and RedHat
Any why would you want to record a guitar directly into a computer anyway? MIC THE AMP, BOY, MIC THE AMP!
Because when inspiration strikes at 3:30am and your spouse is asleep in the next room, just about any amp is too loud. Even 5W kills at full-tilt distortion. Ten watts is more than enough to rattle doors. Sure, you could get a Weber MASS or something to bring down the volume, but then it's kinda hard to hear what you're doing.
I'm not saying that a modeler will sound better, I'm just saying that sometimes, DI'ing has its uses. And you can always stick that MuRF between your guitar and your DI / computer.
does linux run Sibelius? no.
does linux have drivers for either of the (good) audio cards i already own? no.
does linux run Finale? no.
does linux run Gigastudio? no.
does linux run ANY of the big three or four sequencers? no.
do i want to learn a non-standard sequencer, when the moment i step into a recording studio to do some work over expensive monitors, i'll be using cubuase, or logic audio, or maybe sonar or digital performer? NO.
will i use linux for audio? what the hell for?
Says gp:
Learn how to! Programming is not difficult...
Says NormalVisual:
It's rather like expecting some random guy to be able to pick up a violin and with a little bit of practice, come out sounding like Itzak Perlman.
Says I:
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I use the RME HDSP Multiface. Pardon the shouting, but
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Kick ass! You make me (and a lot of other people) happy.
[|]
True, if you have a toob amp. If you don't, what's the point?
Otherwise get a multi-effect pedal rig that does amp/cabinet modeling with S/PDIF out and plug it into your PC...
Always something new to try.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.