Thanks for such a detailed answer, Mark. This is tremendously useful. Could be a FAQ or an article, I imagine.
Truthfully I have almost no electronic music background but am trying to
learn on a budget. Inexpensive interfaces like the MidiMan and free
Linux software are me to do this. Helpful people like you are the glue that make it possible.
I will definitely check out the software you recommend.
Michael
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Mark Knecht wrote:
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 06:44:16 +0000 (UTC), [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Hi Mark,
I'm curious what software you're using with the MidiMan 2x2. Any recommendations, positive or negative?
M
Michael, Hi. First, you'll have to understand that I go back and forth about the value of audio programs running on Linux at all in my little recording studio at home. Right now I'm sort of neutral - neither positive or negative overall - so take this with a grain of salt. Also I'm more focused on composing and recording other musicians live so that colors my views significantly.
Things I use to varying degrees:
(NOTE - Mark's ratings are not meant to imply anything about the program's value other than how much use I get out of them and my views on their future value to me and me only. How selfish, right?!) ;-)
1) Ardour - arguably the most powerful and well developed audio recording program under Linux. A really a good program for what it's designed for and a great developers team. I use Pro Tools under Win XP day in and day out. I can see Ardour possibly replacing that one day, but not soon due to it's lack of MIDI support. That's planned for either 2.0 or 3.0. Not sure anymore. Anyway, it's a ways away. Mark's rating - 3.8 out of 5 stars and rising fast.
2) Rosegarden 4 - A very capable program for MIDI musicians. I have some trouble with it's studio management philosophy seemingly conflicting with more standard Alsa mechanisims. Shame on me as a new Alsa user 2 years ago being one of the people pushing to get them to do something like this. Be careful what you ask for. RG is really fun and does pretty good music notation to boot. If it had a real audio side to it then it would get more use. Today it's not getting any by me. Mark's rating - 3.5 stars for the underlying technology.
3) LinuxSampler (and by association QSampler on day soon.) - This is an often overlooked MIDI-based sampler. It's been around for a long, long time, has been slowly developed and actually isn't 'released' yet. Anyway, I've been a tester on this program for a couple of years now. The latest release is very, very good and with only one semi-major bug is just about ready for prime time. I'll be using this almost every day along side its for pay competitor GigaStudio 3.0 since in some ways it actually works better than GSt. Mark's rating - 4.3 stars and rising.
4) Aqualung - An almost completely unknown but amazingly friendly ogg/wave player. It runs all day long playing music in my home. We are in the process of ripping our CD collection to ogg. Everyone in our family (me, wife and son) use Linux and we all use Aqualung from the same ogg database over wireless NFS connections. This has just come up and really started working well for us in the last few days but the program suits our needs almost perfectly. Supports OSS, Alsa and Jack. Able to run multiple copies and stream to different sound systems, etc. The developers are two brothers (I think) who really take care of their users. Love 'em. Mark's rating - 4.8 stars.
5) Various support programs - Jack-Audio-Connection-Kit, hdspmixer, hdspconf, QJackCtl. Things wouldn't work without this stuff. Nothing like Jack even exists in Windows. Mark's rating - 5 stars.
6) jack_fst (coupled with older Wine versions) - Allows me to run Windows VST's whne I need to. Not really important but shows the value of Wine and how far that has progressed.. Mark's rating - 2 stars for value - 4.5 stars for wow factor.
There are many, many more programs that I play with occasionally - freqtweak, tapiir, ZynAddSubFx, AmSynth, Jamin, etc. Very notible Jamin is, but it hasn't become something I use that much as my mastering work is done primarily under Windows.
Anyway, there's a reasonable list and my views on it, for what little that's worth. Hope you found it somewhat interesting and not too laughable! ;-)
Cheers, Mark
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