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MusOpen Releases Open Source Classical Music As Pro Tools Files
VVrath writes "Following Tuesday's story about MuseScore releasing its open source recording of the Goldberg Variations, the Musopen project has released ProTools files from its open source recording project. The final edited recordings are still being worked on but it seems we're living in very interesting times regarding open source classical music."
What open source software reads Protools files?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
ProTools
- Works only with other Pro Tools stuff
- Ridiculously overpriced and lacking features compared to every single other piece of pro and semi-pro DAW software.
.
You forgot:
- produces files that largely act as pointers to independent audio files.
The .WAV files are all right there for you to use in whatever tool you like.
I've wondered about this, and I don't know. My guess is that it would give a result that's better than mediocre orchestras but not as good as a top tier orchestra, but that's just a guess.
The problem is that if you record instrument-by-instrument you lose a lot of feedback in terms of how to balance different volumes and sounds and articulations and stuff like that. And the problem would become even worse if you just passed out sheet music and a click track and said "go record this" because then you're losing the overall interpretation of the conductor and section leaders as well.
Now on the other hand, there are definitely commercial recordings that aren't done all together; I've got a recording of the 1812 overture with some added chorus parts where the orchestra, cannons, and chorus (maybe even two choruses) were all recorded separately. But that's still far from recording each instrument, and still has someone with an overall vision.
I suspect to get really good results from something like that you'd have to have a strongly iterative process: everyone records revision 1, some de facto leader or small group of leaders distribute those recordings with comments and additional instructions, everyone records revision 2, etc. and repeat for a few more cycles.
The pieces are out of copyright, but (until now) there weren't any copyright free recordings of performances of these works.
Regarding musical periods, "classical" was me playing a bit fast-and-loose: Bach was a late Baroque composer, Beethoven is arguably Late Classical/Early Romantic. Still I bet you'd find their work in the classical section in your local record store.
What format would you prefer?
Sadly so perhaps, but ProTools is the de-facto standard for professional audio recording.
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The strict definition of "Classical" music is music produced between 1750 and 1820. That includes Mozart. Bach is in the "Baroque" period - 1600-1750, and Beethoven (certainly his later works) is in the "Romantic" period 1820-1910. A slightly looser definition of Classical includes all three.
What is the definition of "Classical" music?
There are actually 2 -
classical music
noun
1. Serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition
2. (more specifically) Music written in the European tradition during a period lasting approximately from 1750 to 1830, when forms such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata were standardized.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
All the wav files I've downloaded so far are named sensibly enough that you can work out the instrument, take etc. which provides the context. They all sync up fine, so layout isn't a problem either.
I wouldn't say importing them into an open source DAW will be trivial, but they're not as worthless as you seem to think they are.
Yet many of the more trained musicians know their part, and can play it to a proper tempo regardless of surrounding.
It's not just a matter of tempo; that's easy to fix (though I really do think it'd be hopeless without either a standardized click track or, later on, using recordings from previous iterations). Similar with raw dynamics; you can change the volume of a recording pretty well.
What I'm... concerned?... about is stuff like phrasing, articulations ("how staccatto is this stacatto?"), breaths/bowings, swells, string fingerings, etc. There's a [i]lot[/i] of interpretation possible even within the confines of a written score, especially in some kinds of classical music. (Broadly speaking, the older a work is the less spelled out is the score. Nowadays you'll see specific tempo markings ("quarter note = 90"), but in Beethoven's time you'd just see "moderato" or whatever.)
I feel like even if you took the score and wrote pretty detailed instructions (e.g. notated most of the bowings explicitly) throughout, gave out a click track, etc. but didn't go through the iteration process I mentioned before, the result you'd get would be technically good but musically mediocre.
But like I said, this is just speculation.
You won't be waiting long. FTA:
Please remember these are unedited raw recordings, so they will not sound nearly as good as the final music that will follow very soon.
It's modifiable in that you have access to all the individual channels as they were recorded. This makes it much easier to extract individual instruments, put together your own mix, add or even replace parts with your own recordings (this recording of Eroica needs more cowbell...)
That is the exact situation. An an amateur audio engineer, Pro Tools is my tool of choice. I'd much rather have the files be in Pro Tools format than any of the open source audio tools' format.
Also, to compare with the Photoshop - Gimp analogy, Pro Tools is cheaper than Photoshop. $699 full box, $295 full box Student Version (same as regular). You no longer need to use Digi hardware - it works with any audio interface these days.
The student version can be found on Ebay, no student needed. :)
I'm not much of a programmer, so the Linux kernel is all-but-worthless to me too.
Oh, wait, nevermind. I run the Linux kernel because a bunch of people who are way better programmers than me packaged it up into an idiot-proof finished product for end-users because the open source license permitted them to do so.
Be patient; the people who can give you the nice polished audio files you're hoping for, have just been given the tools they need to do that. And given the chance, they probably will.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
As someone who's written what's sometimes called "Classical" music, here's the complexity of it:
1. As sibling posters have pointed out, it strictly speaking means basically music produced in and around the 1700's.
2. Another definition would be more cultural: Classical music is the stuff where if performed live by professionals, they'll be wearing tuxes or elegant dresses and using primarily acoustic instruments, possibly with a guy in front waving his arms around but not performing. There's a strong tendency towards unnecessary poshness.
3. A third definition: Classical music features each performer having a carefully written part in advance which they learn and execute to the letter. This is in contrast to jazz (improvization is typical), folk (often no written part, and often not followed if there is one), or pop songs (again, not written down by the performer)
I am officially gone from
"Upright pianos with unusually tall frames and long strings are sometimes called upright grand pianos."
A Message From Paul
a picture of Paul Davis, Ardour's lead developer
Hi, I'm Paul Davis, Ardour's lead developer.
Last month, Ardour failed to even get close to the monthly target income, and things look equally dim this month. Over the last seven days, just 83 people paid for Ardour (an average of $10 each), out of a total of 185 downloads.
Unfortunately, this means that for the rest of this month there are no cost-free downloads of pre-built versions of Ardour.
Rather than copy/paste something like this (which makes it look like you wrote it yourself) would you please provide a link to where you found this, or at least a bit more citation context, including, oh say, a date?
From what I can see on Ardour's support page, the goal of $4,500 for this month (now ending) has not been reached, but at over $3,900 received so far, the donated amounts are not that far off.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
What is the definition of "Classical" music? I thought that the works composed by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and so on were out of copyright anyway.
the problem is that the vast majority of recordings of classical music are under copyright (to the orchestra or whatever). anything old enough to be public domain by sheer age is going to sound terrible (mono 78s at best, and almost certainly recorded "acoustically" through a horn) and there's not going to be much because of the format limitations of the time. (10-inch 78s hold 3min a side, that's about right for a piano etude. hard to put a symphony on those....)
there's a similar issue actually with sheet music--most of the good sheet music for those same pieces is under some degree of copyright control. i wonder if anyone's looking at doing the same thing there? you could transcribe whole swaths of the canon to MusicXML or ABC and release them under CC-SA or GFDL pretty cheaply, i'd think.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
there's a similar issue actually with sheet music--most of the good sheet music for those same pieces is under some degree of copyright control. i wonder if anyone's looking at doing the same thing there? you could transcribe whole swaths of the canon to MusicXML or ABC and release them under CC-SA or GFDL pretty cheaply, i'd think.
There is a very large collection of scans of existing pieces at the International Music Score Library Project. The Mutopia Project has a relatively small collection of scores, but theirs are typeset using Lilypond with source freely available.
You don't need Protools to edit it. Heck, even the guy doing the editing isn't using Protools, that's just what the studio used. From the comments on the release:
you do not need protools, these are wav files, i imported them into Logic Pro, but it takes some patience.
Now, I'm sure you wouldn't use Logic Pro either, but his point is that it should work with whatever you choose. The whole point here is that you get exactly the same thing that was delivered to the project, under a CC0 license. If you want to make it available under another format, feel free. Otherwise, wait for the project to do it for you.