Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On a normal PC I can read data from the sound device by doing from the command line, - cat /dev/snd | od -x (Using od just for readability) On my XO I tried cat /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c | od -x and the error that I get is - cat: /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: File descriptor in bad state 000 I can't figure out why this is happening. (I vaguely remember being able to do this on an XO long back.) thanks Arjun -- Arjun Sarwal ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS emulation. It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp. For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4. -Ivo ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
victor writes: > What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works > OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new > IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on > the XO will have to be completely re-written. > > IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should > ideally use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there. Ideally, developers would use something appropriate for a resource-constrained system. Whenever you are tempted to burn CPU cycles on Csound and Python, picture a hungry little child cranking as hard as he can. Don't make him suffer any more. > As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for > Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more > reliable than OSS. OSS in general, or OSS on Linux? He did say "OSS 4", which is the current version of the API. Solaris and all *BSD use it, along with random SysV-like things. As far as sound on the UNIX-like platforms goes, OSS is the standard. Probably it ought to be proposed for the next POSIX/UNIX standard. You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This entry is particularly informative, but note that the code has since been released under the GPL. http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5 More on the ALSA defects: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/7/6/397 Basically we got swindled. ALSA has not been the utopia that it was claimed to be. ALSA sucks. It's not even documented. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: > As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS > emulation. It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs > affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp. > > For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really > like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4. I can't imagine why intentionally divorcing from the upstream sound model to a driver stack that is never going to the upstream kernel would be a *good* thing. Bill ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
How about just reenabling OSS emulation? It's included in alsa, so it should be no problem, maybe it's just a case of modifying modprobe.conf. I second Victor's suggestion for the csound api, though. I wonder if there is a major impact on performance by using it? Cheers, Andrés On Jan 18, 2008 5:24 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works > OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new > IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on > the XO will have to be completely re-written. > > IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should ideally > use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there. > > As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for > Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more reliable > than OSS. > > Victor > > > - Original Message - > From: "Jordan Crouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: "Arjun Sarwal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 9:02 PM > Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > > > On 18/01/08 20:57 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: > > As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS > > emulation. It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs > > affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp. > > > > For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really > > like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4. > > If thats the case, then we need somebody to volunteer to write the AC97 > driver for the CS5536. I don't think we would consider any sort of > change until the appropriate hardware controls are in place. > > Jordan > > -- > Jordan Crouse > Systems Software Development Engineer > Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. > > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 1/18/08, Bill Nottingham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I can't imagine why intentionally divorcing from the upstream sound > model to a driver stack that is never going to the upstream kernel > would be a *good* thing. ALSA is a kernel driver and should never have been anything more. A decent audio system should always be built in userspace. Does it not strike you as odd that most audio applications work better with ALSA when they are using OSS emulation? Emulation. Of a different sound system. -Ivo ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 18/01/08 20:57 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: > As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS > emulation. It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs > affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp. > > For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really > like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4. If thats the case, then we need somebody to volunteer to write the AC97 driver for the CS5536. I don't think we would consider any sort of change until the appropriate hardware controls are in place. Jordan -- Jordan Crouse Systems Software Development Engineer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on the XO will have to be completely re-written. IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should ideally use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there. As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more reliable than OSS. Victor - Original Message - From: "Jordan Crouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Arjun Sarwal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 9:02 PM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO On 18/01/08 20:57 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: > As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS > emulation. It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs > affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp. > > For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really > like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4. If thats the case, then we need somebody to volunteer to write the AC97 driver for the CS5536. I don't think we would consider any sort of change until the appropriate hardware controls are in place. Jordan -- Jordan Crouse Systems Software Development Engineer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 18, 2008 11:27 PM, Bill Nottingham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Albert Cahalan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: > > You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This > > entry is particularly informative, but note that the code > > has since been released under the GPL. > > http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5 > > It must be informative and unbiased. After all, he refers to > people who disagree with him as Borgs. Pay no attention to form. His arguments are solid. There really shouldn't be any doubt anymore that ALSA was a very bad path to go down. It's been a horrible mess since day one. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Albert Cahalan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: > You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This > entry is particularly informative, but note that the code > has since been released under the GPL. > http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5 It must be informative and unbiased. After all, he refers to people who disagree with him as Borgs. Frankly, if you want to ship ALSA's OSS emulation, it's just a few modules. But swapping out the entire driver stack to something that's not used anywhere else at the moment just seems silly. Bill ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 11:27:44PM -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote: > [...] if you want to ship ALSA's OSS emulation, it's > just a few modules. Therefore an activity that cannot be re-coded to use ALSA should simply include OSS emulation modules. snd-pcm-oss is available on joyride-1550. If it is defective, it could be looked into. I've just tried it. It loads fine, /dev/dsp is present, reading from /dev/dsp turns on the mic LED, piping /dev/urandom to it generates noise. ALSA also includes an OSS wrapper library, libaoss, which can be used by an application. If the application is not using the OSS interface in the correct manner, exposing a defect specific to the ALSA emulation, that would be interesting and worth fixing. -- James Cameronmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://quozl.netrek.org/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Hmm, if there are problems with Csound and MIDI (of which I am not aware), we need to fix them. Can you provide an example? Victor - Original Message - From: "Albert Cahalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 7:24 PM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > On Jan 19, 2008 3:40 AM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hannu's opinions are just that: opinions. The fact is that Linux >> audio developers have been using alsa much more than OSS. > > Hannu argues his points well. Do not discount him > simply because he created OSS. > > Linux audio developers have not been using ALSA. > They have been using ugly wrapper libraries to deal > with the incompatible mess we've gotten into. Those > libraries support OSS as well. > > There are far more OSS-only programs than ALSA-only > programs. This is partly because writing a native ALSA > program is overcomplicated, and partly because OSS is > portable to *BSD and Solaris. > >> Are you saying that Csound is not appropriate for the XO? > > As a general audio system, yes. Csound may have some > legitimate use on the XO. Shoving normal audio through > Csound is bad. Using Csound to generate synthetic audio > might be OK, though I note that Csound seems to have > some incompatibilities with the MIDI standard. The XO > should be able to function as both MIDI hardware roles, > over both USB and IP. (the XO has one USB port that can > act as a gadget-side device; MIDI has been standardized > over both USB and IP) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Ah, I thought you were saying there was some problem with Csound's MIDI implementation... (in which case we needed to fix it). No need for that, all's well. Yes, Csound can handle MIDI and it has done it for the most part of fifteen years. I can't speak for TamTam because I am not involved in their design details, but I can say this, Csound's standard score preceeds MIDI by at least a decade (or two if you consider where it came from). It is much more flexible to convey musical data than MIDI. There are MIDI to csound score converters, but that is beside the point, because Csound can play MIDI files directly, receive realtime MIDI data and even output it. There is no problem whatsoever, with the proper instruments, Csound will be a MIDI synthesizer like any other. The main thing is, that it is not limited to it (thank goodness...). (In fact, I am hoping that with the work on a sugar toolkit for Csound apps, things like MIDI players will be put together with minimal effort). If you think that a MIDI file output for TamTam is needed, then you should suggest it to them. So you'll be able to produce these and play them on the XO laptop with Csound! Perhaps we need to get more users from the Csound community involved in the OLPC effort, so that they can educate everyone in the ins and outs of the software. Victor - Original Message - From: "Albert Cahalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:00 PM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > On Jan 19, 2008 2:48 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hmm, if there are problems with Csound and >> MIDI (of which I am not aware), we need to fix >> them. Can you provide an example? > > I'll start with the user-visible thing which is probably > not entirely Csound's fault. Tam Tam is not using > MIDI for input, output, or saved work. It should be > using MIDI for all three, because MIDI is the standard > for everything from consumer toys to professional > performances. Even the selfish companies like Sony > and Microsoft support MIDI. > > From what I can tell, MIDI is not the native format for > Csound. Musical scores are stored in an incompatible > format. I can't play one with any normal MIDI player. > I can only use Csound to play one. This is bad. > > This isn't even like the *.mp3 or *.doc situation. There > is no legal barrier to being standard. There is no problem > with lack of documentation. Open source MIDI tools > even exist, which does bring into question the need for > having Csound at all. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 19, 2008 4:33 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I can't speak for TamTam because I am not involved in their > design details, but I can say this, Csound's standard score > preceeds MIDI by at least a decade (or two if you consider where > it came from). It is much more flexible to convey musical data > than MIDI. There are MIDI to csound score converters, but > that is beside the point, because Csound can play MIDI files > directly, receive realtime MIDI data and even output it. > There is no problem whatsoever, with the proper instruments, > Csound will be a MIDI synthesizer like any other. The main > thing is, that it is not limited to it (thank goodness...). How about showing some support for standards by dropping the non-standard stuff? You can #ifdef it. Maybe you can even save a few bytes. If you really must, you can embed the non-standard stuff into a MIDI file. It's better to avoid non-standard stuff entirely of course, and any extended MIDI file had better play decently on a standard MIDI player. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Albert Cahalan wrote: > On Jan 19, 2008 4:33 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I can't speak for TamTam because I am not involved in their >> design details, but I can say this, Csound's standard score >> preceeds MIDI by at least a decade (or two if you consider where >> it came from). It is much more flexible to convey musical data >> than MIDI. There are MIDI to csound score converters, but >> that is beside the point, because Csound can play MIDI files >> directly, receive realtime MIDI data and even output it. >> There is no problem whatsoever, with the proper instruments, >> Csound will be a MIDI synthesizer like any other. The main >> thing is, that it is not limited to it (thank goodness...). > > How about showing some support for standards by > dropping the non-standard stuff? You can #ifdef it. > Maybe you can even save a few bytes. > > If you really must, you can embed the non-standard > stuff into a MIDI file. It's better to avoid non-standard > stuff entirely of course, and any extended MIDI file > had better play decently on a standard MIDI player. > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > One of the main reasons I got an XO was because it has CSound. It's a ghastly API, but it's been around for years and there are thousands of working instruments! There's a huge book on it, and I doubt very seriously if anyone will ever come up with a digital sound analysis and synthesis tool set as comprehensive without investing a lot of effort re-inventing a bunch of wheels, levers, inclined planes and such. By the way -- I've been meaning to check to see if this is in Trac, but the csound-manual and csound-tutorial RPMs in the repository appear to be empty. I can install them, but there isn't anything on the machine after I do. I'm also attempting to get some of the Planet CCRMA software loaded on the system. At this point, all I really want is Common Music -- I don't need another synthesizer since I have CSound, and I don't need a music notation program. If anyone else has already done this, I'd love to hear about it. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
What you say does not make any sense to me. The MIDI standard is *one* of many, and in fact the poorest of them all. Besides Csound is probably the most used computer music language with composers of Computer Music and its score an integral part of it. But it is not the only way that can be used to run it: MIDI, OSC, API event calls, etc., are also possible. If anything we should promote better standards than limit ourselves to a very poor one. Victor - Original Message - From: "Albert Cahalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 1:29 AM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > On Jan 19, 2008 4:33 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I can't speak for TamTam because I am not involved in their >> design details, but I can say this, Csound's standard score >> preceeds MIDI by at least a decade (or two if you consider where >> it came from). It is much more flexible to convey musical data >> than MIDI. There are MIDI to csound score converters, but >> that is beside the point, because Csound can play MIDI files >> directly, receive realtime MIDI data and even output it. >> There is no problem whatsoever, with the proper instruments, >> Csound will be a MIDI synthesizer like any other. The main >> thing is, that it is not limited to it (thank goodness...). > > How about showing some support for standards by > dropping the non-standard stuff? You can #ifdef it. > Maybe you can even save a few bytes. > > If you really must, you can embed the non-standard > stuff into a MIDI file. It's better to avoid non-standard > stuff entirely of course, and any extended MIDI file > had better play decently on a standard MIDI player. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Perhaps you are referring to the language rather than the API, when you say it is ghastly. The API is quite neat. I don't have any problems with the language, but some people don't like it. Perhaps you might be interested in looking at the things I am doing to integrate Csound to Sugar a bit more. If so, drop me a note. Victor - Original Message - From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Albert Cahalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 4:25 AM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > Albert Cahalan wrote: >> On Jan 19, 2008 4:33 PM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> I can't speak for TamTam because I am not involved in their >>> design details, but I can say this, Csound's standard score >>> preceeds MIDI by at least a decade (or two if you consider where >>> it came from). It is much more flexible to convey musical data >>> than MIDI. There are MIDI to csound score converters, but >>> that is beside the point, because Csound can play MIDI files >>> directly, receive realtime MIDI data and even output it. >>> There is no problem whatsoever, with the proper instruments, >>> Csound will be a MIDI synthesizer like any other. The main >>> thing is, that it is not limited to it (thank goodness...). >> >> How about showing some support for standards by >> dropping the non-standard stuff? You can #ifdef it. >> Maybe you can even save a few bytes. >> >> If you really must, you can embed the non-standard >> stuff into a MIDI file. It's better to avoid non-standard >> stuff entirely of course, and any extended MIDI file >> had better play decently on a standard MIDI player. >> ___ >> Devel mailing list >> Devel@lists.laptop.org >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel >> > > One of the main reasons I got an XO was because it has CSound. It's a > ghastly API, but it's been around for years and there are thousands of > working instruments! There's a huge book on it, and I doubt very > seriously if anyone will ever come up with a digital sound analysis and > synthesis tool set as comprehensive without investing a lot of effort > re-inventing a bunch of wheels, levers, inclined planes and such. > > By the way -- I've been meaning to check to see if this is in Trac, but > the csound-manual and csound-tutorial RPMs in the repository appear to > be empty. I can install them, but there isn't anything on the machine > after I do. > > I'm also attempting to get some of the Planet CCRMA software loaded on > the system. At this point, all I really want is Common Music -- I don't > need another synthesizer since I have CSound, and I don't need a music > notation program. If anyone else has already done this, I'd love to hear > about it. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 20, 2008 3:27 AM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What you say does not make any sense to me. The MIDI > standard is *one* of many, and in fact the poorest of them > all. Besides Csound is probably the most used computer music > language with composers of Computer Music and its > score an integral part of it. I know every developer wants to believe that their own file format is a standard (and a good one too!), but come on now. I went looking for stuff that supports csound. I found **one** program, about 5 wrappers (at least one of which also supported MIDI), and **zero** hardware. The situation with MIDI is radically different; there are a tremendous number of MIDI programs and devices. Perhaps it will be more obvious this way: Notice that the XO ships with a paint program. Suppose that the author invented a nifty new image format. Would it be good to use this format? Notice that the XO ships with a word processor. This word processor could use RTF, OpenDocument, OOXML, TeX, *roff, XHTML... or a custom format that the authors just happen to have invented. What do you think, go with the custom format? Notice that the XO lets you record sound. The most popular unpatented format was used. The authors could have invented their own sound format and used that though. See any problems with doing that? > But it is not the only way that > can be used to run it: MIDI, OSC, API event calls, etc., > are also possible. Excellent. You're ready to drop the non-standard stuff. > If anything we should promote better standards than limit > ourselves to a very poor one. MIDI looks damn good to me. If you really think you have it beat though, go get an RFC and an ISO standard. Get multiple major hardware manufacturers to start building your new standard into their hardware. See if you can get Microsoft and Apple to follow. Then maybe it will be time to begin the process of slowly saying goodbye to MIDI. Only then does the format belong on the XO. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
It's not a matter of trying to get a non-standard format across. Not all; it is a matter of supporting more possibilities. Besides, as I pointed out, MIDI will play alright on Csound, even if it is a poor way of conveying musical data. But hey, if MIDI looks damn good to you, it is worthless trying to say anything else. Good luck. Victor - Original Message - From: "Albert Cahalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 10:18 AM Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO > On Jan 20, 2008 3:27 AM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> What you say does not make any sense to me. The MIDI >> standard is *one* of many, and in fact the poorest of them >> all. Besides Csound is probably the most used computer music >> language with composers of Computer Music and its >> score an integral part of it. > > I know every developer wants to believe that their own > file format is a standard (and a good one too!), but come > on now. I went looking for stuff that supports csound. > I found **one** program, about 5 wrappers (at least one > of which also supported MIDI), and **zero** hardware. > The situation with MIDI is radically different; there are > a tremendous number of MIDI programs and devices. > > Perhaps it will be more obvious this way: > > Notice that the XO ships with a paint program. Suppose > that the author invented a nifty new image format. Would > it be good to use this format? > > Notice that the XO ships with a word processor. This > word processor could use RTF, OpenDocument, OOXML, > TeX, *roff, XHTML... or a custom format that the authors > just happen to have invented. What do you think, go with > the custom format? > > Notice that the XO lets you record sound. The most > popular unpatented format was used. The authors could > have invented their own sound format and used that though. > See any problems with doing that? > >> But it is not the only way that >> can be used to run it: MIDI, OSC, API event calls, etc., >> are also possible. > > Excellent. You're ready to drop the non-standard stuff. > >> If anything we should promote better standards than limit >> ourselves to a very poor one. > > MIDI looks damn good to me. > > If you really think you have it beat though, go get an RFC and > an ISO standard. Get multiple major hardware manufacturers > to start building your new standard into their hardware. See if > you can get Microsoft and Apple to follow. Then maybe it will > be time to begin the process of slowly saying goodbye to MIDI. > Only then does the format belong on the XO. > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Sorry all - this thread re got me riled, I have to jump in on Victor's side here... On 20 Jan 2008, at 10:18, Albert Cahalan wrote: > I know every developer wants to believe that their own > file format is a standard (and a good one too!), but come > on now. I went looking for stuff that supports csound. > I found **one** program, about 5 wrappers (at least one > of which also supported MIDI), and **zero** hardware. > The situation with MIDI is radically different; there are > a tremendous number of MIDI programs and devices. Sorry Albert, but I think you may be *slightly* missing the point of Csound. - It *does* handle MIDI files really well - It's a very well established format that has been around decades, long before MIDI. - There is no hardware support for it, since it has always been a *software* sound design and manipulation tool and was designed for that job, unlike MIDI which was designed as a hardware protocol and had all manner of additional "responsibilities" foisted on it later. - Lots of computer music, at many levels from hobby users to serious research, gets done with Csound. It is a credible and viable option, and quite possibly the *correct* option for an *education focussed* platform. > Perhaps it will be more obvious this way: > > Notice that the XO ships with a word processor. This > word processor could use RTF, OpenDocument, OOXML, > TeX, *roff, XHTML... or a custom format that the authors > just happen to have invented. What do you think, go with > the custom format? Perhaps it will be more obvious this way: - MIDI is like a plain text format for music. - Csound is like a rich text, it allows considerably more subtle nuances. Subtle nuances are the heart of music. The Csound program can handle this rich text, but it can also read the plain text (MIDI) when it has too. Another point that people are skipping over here is the subtle cultural bias (maybe that should be Cultural Bias in a project like this, where it matters that we avoid bias!) that MIDI introduces. This *really* bothers me for a tool we are planning to deploy in large numbers in many different cultures. The basic MIDI design implicitly assumes a western style scale, with essentially equal-temperament, and a minimum interval of a semitone. [Of course, we grew up with music expressed with those constraints, and most western listeners hear equal-temperament as it if were correct (if they can hear it at all!) - but that's very much a learned response. To ears raised on more natural musical voicing, it sounds really artificial, forced and un-natural.] Now, it is *possible* to correct these problems in MIDI (e.g. by messing with the tuning on a per-note basis, that sort of thing) but it is non-trivial. So people will use the defaults, and that's probably a Bad Thing. Csound, on the other hand, is readily capable of true temperament, or micro-tonal scales, or etc.. That's got to be a good thing. > MIDI looks damn good to me. Sure - and plain text is The Way to code software. We all use it all the time. But for a more fancy-shmancy document you want some sort of fancy editor. Horses for courses - but if you have to choose just one, pick the fancy one, since it can work as the simple one when it has too. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 20, 2008 6:34 AM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It's not a matter of trying to get a non-standard format > across. Not all; it is a matter of supporting more possibilities. > Besides, as I pointed out, MIDI will play alright on Csound, > even if it is a poor way of conveying musical data. That sounds like an argument Microsoft would make. Common open standards are not good enough. > But hey, if MIDI looks damn good to you, it is worthless > trying to say anything else. Good luck. I guess you admit that MIDI is damn good? You've given no reason why it will not do. I don't believe there can be such a reason, because in the extreme you could just embed csound data. Obviously, doing that for normal music would be evil, but it's an ability you have to cover the corner cases. Anything normal should be fully standard MIDI. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Albert, (a) please refrain from dispersion--it is not productive. (b) as has been pointed out repeatedly, CSound is an open standard (which incidentally predates the MIDI standard). (c) Victor gave some very compelling reasons as to why CSound is a better choice, especially for a program that is reaching out to non-Western musical sensibilities. -walter On Jan 21, 2008 12:21 PM, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Jan 20, 2008 6:34 AM, victor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > It's not a matter of trying to get a non-standard format > > across. Not all; it is a matter of supporting more possibilities. > > Besides, as I pointed out, MIDI will play alright on Csound, > > even if it is a poor way of conveying musical data. > > That sounds like an argument Microsoft would make. > Common open standards are not good enough. > > > But hey, if MIDI looks damn good to you, it is worthless > > trying to say anything else. Good luck. > > I guess you admit that MIDI is damn good? You've > given no reason why it will not do. > > I don't believe there can be such a reason, because > in the extreme you could just embed csound data. > Obviously, doing that for normal music would be evil, > but it's an ability you have to cover the corner cases. > Anything normal should be fully standard MIDI. > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > -- Walter Bender One Laptop per Child http://laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 21, 2008 12:27 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (b) as has been pointed out repeatedly, CSound is an open standard > (which incidentally predates the MIDI standard). It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. I've only found one implementation, csound itself. There are no hardware implementations. Pushing this kind of thing is **wrong**. > (c) Victor gave some very compelling reasons as to why CSound is a > better choice, especially for a program that is reaching out to > non-Western musical sensibilities. MIDI does non-Western stuff, including unusual tuning systems. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Albert Cahalan wrote: > On Jan 21, 2008 12:27 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> (b) as has been pointed out repeatedly, CSound is an open standard >> (which incidentally predates the MIDI standard). > > It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. > I've only found one implementation, csound itself. > There are no hardware implementations. http://www.epigon.in/pdf/studyRoom1.pdf Might help a little to address your issues above ? As a musician, I don't know of anything else that comes close - and that includes some pretty expensive proprietary systems with pretty blinged-out user interfaces! Please don't make me have to go back to midi :) - antoine ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 1/21/08, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. > I've only found one implementation, csound itself. > There are no hardware implementations. See, just because a standard is less used than another standard it doesn't make it worse. It just turns out less people bothered to support it. Striving for the best should always be our goal, humanity's goal. So let's not use that as an argument against Csound, which by the way, I had never heard of until this thread. This thread started because 1) ALSA is awful, 2) There is no OSS emulation in the XO which breaks some programs, and 3) IMO, I would love if we could seriously discuss switching OSS for ALSA. See, ALSA is a worse standard for audio in Linux. Again, just because it's not the favored standard, doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered. Many reasons were already pointed out, but I would like in my last message to this thread, to point out the pratical reasons: * It's easier to maintain * It's easier to write software to work with it * It uses much less resources than ALSA, and we are trying to spare resources on this project * It is a bad idea to use workarounds, emulation, and frameworks all to go around problems in ALSA Take that as you will. -Ivo ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Mon, 2008-01-21 at 18:30 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: > On 1/21/08, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. > > I've only found one implementation, csound itself. > > There are no hardware implementations. > > See, just because a standard is less used than another standard it > doesn't make it worse. It just turns out less people bothered to > support it. Striving for the best should always be our goal, > humanity's goal. So let's not use that as an argument against Csound, > which by the way, I had never heard of until this thread. > > This thread started because 1) ALSA is awful, 2) There is no OSS > emulation in the XO which breaks some programs, and 3) IMO, I would > love if we could seriously discuss switching OSS for ALSA. See, ALSA > is a worse standard for audio in Linux. > > Again, just because it's not the favored standard, doesn't mean it > shouldn't be considered. > > Many reasons were already pointed out, but I would like in my last > message to this thread, to point out the pratical reasons: > > * It's easier to maintain > * It's easier to write software to work with it > * It uses much less resources than ALSA, and we are trying to spare > resources on this project > * It is a bad idea to use workarounds, emulation, and frameworks all > to go around problems in ALSA Except that it's completely insane to try to diverge from the upstream kernel and userland here. Plus, does OSS support software mixing so that multiple processes pumping out different bitrates and channels of audio can all talk to the same sound device at the same time? Granted, ALSA doesn't have that working as well as I'd like, but if OSS doesn't support that then there is no point in switching to OSS. Dan ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 1/21/08, Dan Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Except that it's completely insane to try to diverge from the upstream > kernel and userland here. Uh? You are supposed to costumize the kernel as you feel like it. Freedom of choice and all. Also, if it may bother you, why not bring the issue up to Mr Torvalds? > Plus, does OSS support software mixing so > that multiple processes pumping out different bitrates and channels of > audio can all talk to the same sound device at the same time? Granted, > ALSA doesn't have that working as well as I'd like, but if OSS doesn't > support that then there is no point in switching to OSS. Certainly. Just an extreme example I tried for fun in my system: YouTube (Flash) foobar2000 (Wine) Kaffeine (Xine) ogg123 (libao) All at the same time sending a bunch of different signals (audio cacophony but still understandable) to the speakers. Different bitrates and volume. Through OSS 4. The only problem with support for OSS in the XO is that there is no driver for the CS5536 yet (there is one for CS5530 though). I checked yesterday. That is the only reason why this may be a bad idea. But you know what, writing drivers for OSS is trivial for people who know how to write drivers. If people agree it may be a good idea to improve the audio system of the XO, then someone will certainly write the driver and spending one or two days doing it for the future benefits of OSS is certainly a good idea. -Ivo ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: > On 1/21/08, Dan Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Except that it's completely insane to try to diverge from the upstream > > kernel and userland here. > > Uh? You are supposed to costumize the kernel as you feel like it. > Freedom of choice and all. Sure. You could boot the kernel with an entirely separate sound stack, storage stack, networking stack, etc. Doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. > Also, if it may bother you, why not bring > the issue up to Mr Torvalds? You're the one with an issue with the status quo - I suggest *you* bring the issue of OSS4 up to the upstream kernel. Bill ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Mon, 2008-01-21 at 19:05 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: > On 1/21/08, Dan Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Except that it's completely insane to try to diverge from the upstream > > kernel and userland here. > > Uh? You are supposed to costumize the kernel as you feel like it. > Freedom of choice and all. Also, if it may bother you, why not bring > the issue up to Mr Torvalds? By diverging from upstream, you bear the entire responsibility for making sure your modifications work with later kernel releases. As the kernel moves forward, your custom code becomes harder and harder to merge with each new kernel release, because the upstream kernel people don't care what customizations you've done. The end result: divergence == lots of work There's already not enough people to do the work, therefore divergence is just an awful idea. Andres already has enough to do when merge times come around, and having two of him doesn't fix the divergence problem at all, it just punts the problem out another 6 months. Divergence is usually manageable for small patches, tweaks, and single drivers. But for something like the entire sound framework? That's just insane. Dan > > Plus, does OSS support software mixing so > > that multiple processes pumping out different bitrates and channels of > > audio can all talk to the same sound device at the same time? Granted, > > ALSA doesn't have that working as well as I'd like, but if OSS doesn't > > support that then there is no point in switching to OSS. > > Certainly. Just an extreme example I tried for fun in my system: > > YouTube (Flash) > foobar2000 (Wine) > Kaffeine (Xine) > ogg123 (libao) > > All at the same time sending a bunch of different signals (audio > cacophony but still understandable) to the speakers. Different > bitrates and volume. Through OSS 4. > > The only problem with support for OSS in the XO is that there is no > driver for the CS5536 yet (there is one for CS5530 though). I checked > yesterday. That is the only reason why this may be a bad idea. But > you know what, writing drivers for OSS is trivial for people who know > how to write drivers. If people agree it may be a good idea to > improve the audio system of the XO, then someone will certainly write > the driver and spending one or two days doing it for the future > benefits of OSS is certainly a good idea. > > -Ivo ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 21, 2008 1:31 PM, Antoine van Gelder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Albert Cahalan wrote: > > On Jan 21, 2008 12:27 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> (b) as has been pointed out repeatedly, CSound is an open standard > >> (which incidentally predates the MIDI standard). > > > > It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. > > I've only found one implementation, csound itself. > > There are no hardware implementations. > > http://www.epigon.in/pdf/studyRoom1.pdf > > Might help a little to address your issues above ? I think that is an excellent example what I suggested. They used csound code to implement 64-voice MIDI. No mention is made of using the csound data formats. > As a musician, I don't know of anything else that comes close - and that > includes some pretty expensive proprietary systems with pretty > blinged-out user interfaces! > > Please don't make me have to go back to midi :) You must mean "bad MIDI engines" or similar, because your csound example was in fact MIDI. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote: [snip] I gave up on OSS years ago, when I discovered that there were dozens of high-quality sound cards without free OSS drivers! Alsa was release < 1 back then, and there was very little documentation. That's been fixed, and I am not going back to OSS! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 21, 2008 1:30 PM, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This thread started because 1) ALSA is awful, 2) There is no OSS > emulation in the XO which breaks some programs, and 3) IMO, I would > love if we could seriously discuss switching OSS for ALSA. See, ALSA > is a worse standard for audio in Linux. > Hi, Please forgive me if I've misunderstood anything. But I believe the thread started because Arjun was looking for the oss compatibility /dev/ entries. As James Cameron pointed out, that is solved by loading ALSA's snd-pcm-oss which is loaded by default on most systems. I'm sure everyone participating and volunteering their time on this are trying to make this project more successful. After all, we all want better audio on Linux. So I think it'd be better if we could discuss specific problems and issues rather than making broad characterizations on particular implementations. If you have found bugs or problems or enhancement requests with the overall audio implementation on the OLPC, from apps all the way down to the drivers, please share the trac ticket numbers and initiate discussion around that. I think that'd be a great way to improve things. Thanks, jaya ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
Albert Cahalan wrote: > On Jan 21, 2008 12:27 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> (b) as has been pointed out repeatedly, CSound is an open standard >> (which incidentally predates the MIDI standard). > > It may be open, but it isn't much of a standard. > I've only found one implementation, csound itself. > There are no hardware implementations. > > Pushing this kind of thing is **wrong**. > >> (c) Victor gave some very compelling reasons as to why CSound is a >> better choice, especially for a program that is reaching out to >> non-Western musical sensibilities. > > MIDI does non-Western stuff, including unusual > tuning systems. > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > Well ... I can't speak for the children of the developing world, nor do I have much experience with Tam Tam as wrapped around CSound. But as someone who has devoted a fair amount of his spare time over the past few decades in pursuit of algorithmic composition and synthesis (henceforth abbreviated algocompsynth) of music, I think I'm qualified to lay down some opinions here. 1. MIDI is limited but more or less universally spoken. Serious algocompsynth *must* involve support of MIDI. CSound recognized this years ago. 2. There have been numerous attempts to improve on CSound, but nothing else has come forth that's as comprehensive. The orchestras read like assembler code and the scores like a 1960s FORTRAN input card deck, but just about every working algocompsynth practitioner has it and knows it. So, serious algocompsynth *must* involve support of CSound. 3. There are a number of specialized Linux distros for audio. The three that I know the most about are Studio64, Jack Audio Distribution (JAD) and dyne:bolic. Almost all of them have a patched low-latency kernel, and all of them use something called the Jack Audio Connection Kit. They may still have to support both OSS and ALSA, but as I noted in another post, ALSA had support years ago for sound cards that weren't supported by free-as-in-freedom OSS drivers. So, serious algocompsynth on Linux *must* have a low-latency patched kernel, ALSA, and the Jack Audio Connection Kit. 4. Finally, there are three languages now in common use in algocompsynth. In historical order, they are Lisp/Scheme, Java and Python. Forth was prominent at one time as well, but the major Forth algocompsynth codes have mostly been ported to one of the other languages. So, serious algocompsynth *must* provide Python, Lisp/Scheme and Java support. So the question in my mind is, "Should the XO be a platform for serious algocompsynth, or should it be what the project says it is -- an educational project for children to explore and discover?" Do children need MIDI, CSound, low-latency kernels, Jack, Lisp and Java? I don't really think so. The fact that Tam Tam has CSound and Python "under the hood" is only a convenience for the implementers. There are many fewer wheels that need to be re-invented as a result. By the way, one other note here. A number of the more advanced synthesis algorithms edge upon some rather well-defended patents by Yamaha and others. It's a similar issue to those around media codecs -- even though technically such things are "software" or "formulas" that can't be patented, once they get embodied in pieces of gear that you can buy in a music store, things change. By the way -- as far as microtonal and xentonal and "world music scales" are concerned, MIDI's pitch bends are an awkward hack. Serious *microtonal* algocompsynth practitioners either have to spend time working around MIDI or use something else. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On Jan 21, 2008 10:43 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 1. MIDI is limited but more or less universally spoken. Serious > algocompsynth *must* involve support of MIDI. CSound recognized this > years ago. I think that means file storage, input, output, etc. The keyboard produces MIDI, which is fed into a MIDI rendering engine (possibly csound) or saved to a file. > 3. There are a number of specialized Linux distros for audio. The three > that I know the most about are Studio64, Jack Audio Distribution (JAD) > and dyne:bolic. Almost all of them have a patched low-latency kernel, > and all of them use something called the Jack Audio Connection Kit. They > may still have to support both OSS and ALSA, but as I noted in another > post, ALSA had support years ago for sound cards that weren't supported > by free-as-in-freedom OSS drivers. So, serious algocompsynth on Linux > *must* have a low-latency patched kernel, ALSA, and the Jack Audio > Connection Kit. This is for live performance computer-in-the-middle effects processing and similar, particularly when multiple audio programs are in simultaneous use. It's not required for the production or playback of anything. > So the question in my mind is, "Should the XO be a platform for serious > algocompsynth, or should it be what the project says it is -- an > educational project for children to explore and discover?" Do children > need MIDI, CSound, low-latency kernels, Jack, Lisp and Java? I don't > really think so. Good point. It's easy to forget that. > By the way -- as far as microtonal and xentonal and "world music scales" > are concerned, MIDI's pitch bends are an awkward hack. Serious > *microtonal* algocompsynth practitioners either have to spend time > working around MIDI or use something else. You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
> By the way -- as far as microtonal and xentonal and "world music scales" > are concerned, MIDI's pitch bends are an awkward hack. Serious > *microtonal* algocompsynth practitioners either have to spend time > working around MIDI or use something else. I'm just a dilettante, not a musician. But once upon a time MIDI specifications formed my spare-time reading. The problem with using MIDI to express music is that the fundamental MIDI "atoms" are 'notes' (each representing a frequency). Thus in MIDI the sounds that occur need to be expressed as a series of 'notes'. This corresponds well with certain "Western" music that uses uniform "proportional frequency scales" (e.g, octaves) subdivided into 'notes' (e.g., the 12-tone system). If a sound does not fit the MIDI-assigned frequency of the nearest 'note', 'pitch bend' can be used to adjust that instance of the 'note' to the frequency desired. What I seem to recall was that the MIDI "tuning standard" (in conjunction with the "instrument" definition supplied to the MIDI-player) permitted the definition of a specific 'note-number' as __the__ "pivot frequency", with higher-numbered and lower-numbered 'note-numbers' being defined explicitly at proportional frequencies lower and higher than the "pivot frequency". As long as the 100+ possible 'note-numbers' (plus 'pitch bend') were enough to cover the frequency range of the musical composition, this MIDI notation would suffice to *express* that musical composition (even for "world music scales"). [Of course, if the __MIDI-player__ did not support this "pivot frequency" mechanism, the wrong sounds would be produced.] [Also, there is an __Organ__ project which uses SYSEX messages to define "custom" sounds, then uses MIDI-events to play them.] mikus ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 22 Jan 2008, at 3:43, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > By the way -- as far as microtonal and xentonal and "world music > scales" > are concerned, MIDI's pitch bends are an awkward hack. Serious > *microtonal* algocompsynth practitioners either have to spend time > working around MIDI or use something else. My worry is that a lot of the communities these machines will go to, will want to perform microtonal and xentonal music, but are a long way from being algocompsynth practitioners, and the MIDI tweaking involved is, well, lets say "non-trivial"... I saw Csound (presumably wrapped by TamTam or *something*) as the way to enable that facility transparently. Perhaps I am too optimistic? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
On 22 Jan 2008, at 4:11, Albert Cahalan wrote: > You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you > redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine > middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like. Mmm, well, yes, but... It's not so much the pitches that are the issue, it's the intervals, and MIDI kind of constrains what you can do about that, so you do kind of end up abusing pitch bend... And, whether we stick with Csound or go with something else, I do think we need to address the music issue, it is a big thing in a lot of cultures. We had a friend staying in the run up to Christmas, who's a Senegalese master drummer, and I spent a few evenings showing him some chops on the guitar (he'd expressed an interest... I'm not that good but...) His approach to intonation and pitching was quite "interesting" shall we say... This is a guy who's spent a lot of time in Europe, working as a professional musician. They key being, I think, the music he was exposed to as a child, and how it affects his musicality now. And that's the sort of thing that makes me worry about the musicality of the OLPC systems, and how they will work in other cultures. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO
imm wrote: > On 22 Jan 2008, at 3:43, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > >> By the way -- as far as microtonal and xentonal and "world music >> scales" >> are concerned, MIDI's pitch bends are an awkward hack. Serious >> *microtonal* algocompsynth practitioners either have to spend time >> working around MIDI or use something else. > > My worry is that a lot of the communities these machines will go to, > will want to perform microtonal and xentonal music, but are a long > way from being algocompsynth practitioners, and the MIDI tweaking > involved is, well, lets say "non-trivial"... I saw Csound (presumably > wrapped by TamTam or *something*) as the way to enable that facility > transparently. Perhaps I am too optimistic? > > > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > Let's get our own mailing list -- or appoint a "curator of world music" on the Wiki. I am on the "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" mailing list, which has the experts on xen/microtonality, world scales, etc. But as far as I know I'm the only one there with an XO. Let me see if I can get "scala" (the musical scale analysis program, not the programming language) up and running on my XO. That's pretty much required if you want to deal with world scales. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
MIDI does support non-Western music (was: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO)
imm ian writes: On 22 Jan 2008, at 4:11, Albert Cahalan wrote: >> You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you >> redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine >> middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like. > > Mmm, well, yes, but... No "but". You can redefine at will, for individual notes. If you need a player, try timidity. If you have obsolete equipment that can only do pitch bends, you can use Scalia to convert a MIDI file. Scalia can also convert back. > It's not so much the pitches that are the issue, it's the > intervals, and MIDI kind of constrains what you can do about > that, so you do kind of end up abusing pitch bend... Nope. (not that abusing pitch bend is a tragedy though) Since 1996, the MIDI tuning specification has allowed you to set the pitch to within 1/16384 of a semitone. Since 1999, the MIDI tuning extensions have made this a bit more efficient. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: MIDI does support non-Western music (was: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO)
Albert Cahalan wrote: > imm ian writes: > On 22 Jan 2008, at 4:11, Albert Cahalan wrote: > >>> You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you >>> redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine >>> middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like. >> Mmm, well, yes, but... > > No "but". You can redefine at will, for individual notes. > > If you need a player, try timidity. If you have obsolete > equipment that can only do pitch bends, you can use Scalia > to convert a MIDI file. Scalia can also convert back. > >> It's not so much the pitches that are the issue, it's the >> intervals, and MIDI kind of constrains what you can do about >> that, so you do kind of end up abusing pitch bend... > > Nope. (not that abusing pitch bend is a tragedy though) > > Since 1996, the MIDI tuning specification has allowed you to > set the pitch to within 1/16384 of a semitone. > > Since 1999, the MIDI tuning extensions have made this a bit > more efficient. > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > I'm still trying to get scala (not scalia -- he is or was a Supreme Court justice) to run on the XO. It requires some Ada run-time libraries and the GTK Ada bindings. It requires "gtkada" 2.8. Is that compatible with what's on the XO? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: MIDI does support non-Western music (was: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO)
On Jan 22, 2008 8:56 PM, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > imm ian writes: > On 22 Jan 2008, at 4:11, Albert Cahalan wrote: > > >> You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you > >> redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine > >> middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like. > > > > Mmm, well, yes, but... > > No "but". You can redefine at will, for individual notes. > > If you need a player, try timidity. If you have obsolete > equipment that can only do pitch bends, you can use Scalia > to convert a MIDI file. Scalia can also convert back. > > > It's not so much the pitches that are the issue, it's the > > intervals, and MIDI kind of constrains what you can do about > > that, so you do kind of end up abusing pitch bend... > > Nope. (not that abusing pitch bend is a tragedy though) > > Since 1996, the MIDI tuning specification has allowed you to > set the pitch to within 1/16384 of a semitone. Here we go. http://www.midi.org/about-midi/tuning.shtml "The standard requires that any of the 128 defined MIDI key numbers (or at least those MIDI key numbers covered by the instrument's playable range) be tunable to any frequency within the proposed frequency range." "The frequency range starts at MIDI note 0, C = 8.1758 Hz, and extends above MIDI note 127, G = 12543.875 Hz. " If I understand correctly, we could create a scale with more than 12 notes in an octave, but fewer octaves. I assume that you still have to use pitch bend to get microtonal shadings of the kind I learned to do in Korea. They are essential to many other kinds of music around the world. > Since 1999, the MIDI tuning extensions have made this a bit > more efficient. http://www.midi.org/about-midi/tuning_extens.shtml -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: MIDI does support non-Western music (was: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO)
Ed Borasky was suggesting scala as a useful thing to have working in this regard... Now, that got me wondering - I know it's freeware, but I'd never seen the source anywhere. Have I missed it somewhere? That is, is it open source? I'd always (somehow) assumed it was closed source. And if it is closed source (albeit freeware) does that put it "out of bounds" for this programme? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: MIDI does support non-Western music (was: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO)
imm wrote: > Ed Borasky was suggesting scala as a useful thing to have working in > this regard... > > Now, that got me wondering - I know it's freeware, but I'd never seen > the source anywhere. Have I missed it somewhere? That is, is it open > source? > I'd always (somehow) assumed it was closed source. > And if it is closed source (albeit freeware) does that put it "out of > bounds" for this programme? > > > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > It is free but I believe the author has placed a non-commercial restriction on it, which makes it incompatible with a number of open licenses. It is written in Ada, and if you ask the author for the source, he will usually send it to you. Once I get it running on my AMD64, I'm planning to see if he'd be willing to go with a more compatible license. The web site is http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/ if you want to write to him. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
