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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."
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
Don't bother. Trust me. Ardour is shit. Audacity is good, but giving up Sonar for some e-penis extension would be fucking stupid.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
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.
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'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.
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'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 *
Hammerfall is top notch and I didn't realize it had solid Linux support, so I'll look into it. I know numerous people who had problems with alsa and HDSP even very recently.
M-Audio Delta I know has been supported for years (4Front? Can't look it up easily from my PDA) but I didn't think it was pro quality. Did they get ADAT support stable yet? I figured they lost the battle with PT at the highend and were going to chase the LT market. I've seen numerous studios dump Midiman over the years due to product constraints and limited end user support.
AudioScience seems very friendly for the not-for-profit studios (and churches) on a budget, but I think the higher end hardware is priced out of the picture. Radio stations and high budget companies seem to love it. I don't know anyone in my area using it in the studio, Win nor Lin.
I guess that's my problem with many of the companies I've seen supporting Linux: end user support problems. PT's end user support is fantastic even for small budget studios. The interface is known by every producer and engineer.
For me, initial cost means little. Low training costs, good support, and user friendliness are just as important as sound quality.
Ardour is a good product with, IMHO, the brightest future. We've screwed with it, and I believe are integrating it in a cheap portable studio.
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.
*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.
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.