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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."
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.
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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.
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.
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!