[LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Kjetil Matheussen]

William Light:
it's interesting to me that free (source and/or beer) music software 
on

OSX and windows has come further than it has on Linux. off the top of
my head:

http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php
http://www.buzzmachines.com/


I'm very interested in knowing what you're missing from Psycle and 
Buzzmachines

that Radium doesn't have...

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Brett McCoy]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

> I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic) commentary about the
> world of Linux audio development and applications. I won't bother to say
> where, just "the usual places" will have to suffice. Of greater interest to
> me is the commentary itself - it seems to boil down to the following plaints
> and lamentations (in no particular order) :

The only thing I find lacking in Linux audio are good sample
libraries. If we had something comparable to the big Orchestral or
ethnic instrument libraries like EWQL, VSL, Kontakt, etc., have, I
could do 100% Linux in my studio.

Otherwise, I love Linux audio and can't stand having to deal with
Windows for any kind of audio work.

-- 
Brett W. McCoy -- http://www.brettwmccoy.com

"In the rhythm of music a secret is hidden; If I were to divulge it,
it would overturn the world."
-- Jelaleddin Rumi
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Louigi Verona]

Hey Dave,

let me give you my opinion.

Too many distros - don't see it as a problem
Too many audio-optimized distros - don't see it as a problem
Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments. - agree, big problem, would
not speak of instruments only, effects as well
Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins. - don't see it as a problem if
we go for our own standard
Too many unstable/unfinished applications. - agree
Too many  "standards" (esp. wrt plugins). - agree
Poor external/internal session management. - agree
Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live). - agree
Lack of support for contemporary hardware. - probably, although I have no
data as to how big the problem is
Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits. - i am confused as to why that
would be a problem with linux audio
Too difficult to set up audio system. - don't agree
JACK is a pain. - don't agree
Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community. - don't
see it as a problem

I would have to comment more on the latter. I don't think it is bad or
unavoidable to have fragmentation and conflict. This is natural for most
human interaction. The problem, in my view, is that there are so few
developers (compared to, say, Windows Audio). And because there are so few
devs, fragmentation becomes a problem, since each developer is then just a
one man project with a small audience.

Cheers!



-- 
Louigi Verona
http://www.louigiverona.ru/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dave Phillips]

On 02/05/2013 10:29 AM, Louigi Verona wrote:

Hey Dave,

let me give you my opinion.


Hi Louigi, I was waiting for your input. :)

Some short replies:



Lack of support for contemporary hardware. - probably, although I have 
no data as to how big the problem is


I've found a simple metric. Just open a Sweetwater catalog to the pages 
for computer audio interfaces and count the ones with Linux support.



Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits. - i am confused as to why 
that would be a problem with linux audio


Problem for the developers, not so much for users.




I would have to comment more on the latter. I don't think it is bad or 
unavoidable to have fragmentation and conflict. This is natural for 
most human interaction. The problem, in my view, is that there are so 
few developers (compared to, say, Windows Audio). And because there 
are so few devs, fragmentation becomes a problem, since each developer 
is then just a one man project with a small audience.




Good point, thank you for the input.

Best,

dp

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Gabbe Nord]

Let's hope this turns into a productive thread and not a flamewar, because
I think this really has potential.

My comments will be the way I see it, and how I understand it from other
musicians I've talked to about Linux audio and music production in general.

Generally, what I think is that what needs to be bridged is the knowledge
gap that hinders people from making the music they want. There are upsides
and downsides to using Linux in this sense, I do think it attracts more
technically proficient users and that that's a good thing in the long run,
but there's only so many of them. Musicians want to record and mess around
with music. They do not want to compile applications or scour the internet
for countless hours looking for suitable plugins.

I think most things can already be done in Linux, even with newer more
MIDI-based musical styels as electronic etc. The issue in my eyes lies with
having something unitary that you can just hand over to people and let them
start messing around themselves with minimal effort.

So in short, what I think is the main issues currently is basically lack of
documentation and "established workflows" that people can just simply get
into using. There's 10 ways to do one thing, and there's rarely information
available to find out easily to use either of the ways.

I got some plans for a small project that will revolve around just
providing a workflow for making electronic music, kind of like gathering
alot of information and provide easy access to a set of plugins, synths and
instruments that people just can start using. The plug-and-play idea I
guess. But that kinds of efforts is what I think is needed more, we do have
alot of very capable technology, people just need to know how to use it.
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic) commentary about the
> world of Linux audio development and applications. I won't bother to say
> where, just "the usual places" will have to suffice. Of greater interest to
> me is the commentary itself - it seems to boil down to the following
> plaints and lamentations (in no particular order) :
>
> Too many distros.
> Too many audio-optimized distros.
> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
> Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.
> Too many unstable/unfinished applications.
> Too many  "standards" (esp. wrt plugins).
> Poor external/internal session management.
> Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live).
> Lack of support for contemporary hardware.
> Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits.
> Too difficult to set up audio system.
> JACK is a pain.
> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.
>
> I'm not so interested in comments on the commentary, I have my own, but
> say what you will about the list. I figure that most denizens of these
> lists already have ready replies and responses to these and other
> criticisms, many of which have been voiced here previously. What I'm more
> interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just plain wrong about
> the situation. Please, try to speak your piece without flames or dissing
> other developers and/or their work. Frankly speaking, I've had enough of
> that crap, and I'm most thankful these days for such forum amenities as
> "mute user" and autodiscard, along with the standard filters found in mail
> clients.
>
> 
> I'm reminded of John Cage's comments regarding the behavior of the NY
> Philharmonic when they destroyed his equipment during the premire of Atlas
> Eclipticalis, something to the effect that his concerns had ceased to be
> musical and had become social, i.e. that he had to figure a way to allow
> people to be free yet behave themselves with respect towards the common
> goal (e.g. Cage's music and property). I'm going to guess that he was still
> working on that up to his death.
> 
>
> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ? Please feel
> free to expand your remarks as you like. I'm planning an article on the
> topic and will likely use selected comments, subject to approval of course.
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Johannes Kroll]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 18:29:06 +0300
Louigi Verona  wrote:

> [...]
> I would have to comment more on the latter. I don't think it is bad or
> unavoidable to have fragmentation and conflict. This is natural for most
> human interaction. The problem, in my view, is that there are so few
> developers (compared to, say, Windows Audio). And because there are so few
> devs, fragmentation becomes a problem, since each developer is then just a
> one man project with a small audience.

That's kind of true. If there were a few thousand more developers, for
example the different session management interfaces wouldn't be a
problem. If you have, say, 3 session management interfaces, and each
app supports one it effectively divides the number of apps you can use
by 3 if you need session mgmt. If there were thousands of developers
and as a result thousands of apps, there would still be a lot of apps
left to choose... But I don't think this will happen any time soon, so
I think it would be better for the existing developers to focus a bit
more on compatibility with other apps. Conclusion: We are few, so we
really need to work together on this ;)


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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dave Phillips]

On 02/05/2013 11:12 AM, Gabbe Nord wrote:
Let's hope this turns into a productive thread and not a flamewar, 
because I think this really has potential.


Hear the voice. To all: In the interest of clarity, please avoid dialog. 
I want to know what the members of LAD and LAU think about the topic, 
not each other (or Microsoft or Apple or Steinberg or [your hobby-horse 
here]).


Best,

dp

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dave Phillips]

On 02/05/2013 11:20 AM, Dave Phillips wrote:


... In the interest of clarity, please avoid dialog.


Should have read "unproductive dialog", sorry.

Best,

dp

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dan]

I'm not saying anything, but if I wanted to troll LAD/LAU, this topic
would be one of my first choices.

On 2/5/13, Dave Phillips  wrote:
> On 02/05/2013 11:20 AM, Dave Phillips wrote:
>
>> ... In the interest of clarity, please avoid dialog.
>
> Should have read "unproductive dialog", sorry.
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

Hi Dave,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.

I think this is one of the key problems with Linux audio.  Part of the
problem is that there is no clear mechanism for (non-developer) users
to create their own instruments.  Many VSTs are constructed with
modular DSP programs like synthedit and flowstone (formerly
synthmaker).  There's probably an opportunity here for Ingen or a new
graphical DSP program based on Faust to fill this hole.

In general, I think that Linux audio has a lot of tools that help
users to create music, but not a lot of tools that help users create
their own tools (e.g. instruments, plugins, sample libraries, etc.) to
help others to create music.

On the development side, I think Aurélien and others like him have the
right idea in taking instruments/plugins that are specific to a Linux
audio application and porting them to LV2.  There's a lot of awesome
instruments that are specific to applications (e.g. ALSA Modular
Synth, LMMS, etc.) that would generally be more useful if they were
LV2 plugins.

> Poor external/internal session management.

Interacting with external hardware can be frustrating.  Commercial
programs like Renoise account for external hardware in their workflows
(e.g. latency management, MIDI clock, MMC, etc.).  Most Linux Audio
apps don't do this.

> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.

I've been trying to write something about conflict and fragmentation
for the past 10 minutes.  I think this is a complex issue.  I'm not
able to find the words to communicate about it right now.

> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ?

As a developer, I'm missing a couple things:

1.) User feedback.

I can't stress this enough.  I watch the download counts increase on
the applications I create, but I hardly ever get feedback.  I'm
discouraged and frustrated by the lack of feedback.

2.) Non-code developers

We have a lot of dedicated open source developers writing Linux audio
apps, plugins, etc., but I have yet to meet an open source UI
designer, or an open source graphic artist.  I think a lot of the apps
we create could benefit from the feedback of a user interface
experience expert.

There's probably more, but these are the two things that occur to me now.

Dave, this is an important topic.  Thanks for taking it on.

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Gabbe Nord]

Short reply to you Devin. I agree with everything you write. A couple of
thoughts on how to adress some of the issues you raise:

User feedback. I always try and provide feedback and suggestions for
whatever I use, and I enjoy doing it too. I think alot of users would like
to do this too, but two general things is kind of lacking in this sense.
These are all general thoughts and nothing to you personally. I remember us
talking about synthclone and I appreciated that very much, so any negatives
shouldn't be taken personally by you ;) :
  1. An easy way to provide this feedback, and encouragement to do so.
There's IRC, mailinglists and forums for this, but most apps actually lack
encouragement for feedback. Something as simple as writing "If you like
this software and have ideas/suggestions, please use [insert_method_here]
to contact us, all suggestions are appreciated!". The worst thing that
could happen is that the suggestion isn't used, but I think tons can be
gained by making the user feel more involved.

  2. Appreciation for the feedback. Some devs are better then others on
this, but I sadly think it's fairly common that users who try and provide
feedback either get treated as complete idiots, or that the dev takes it as
some form of personal insult.



On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:09 PM, Devin Anderson wrote:

> Hi Dave,
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips 
> wrote:
>
> > Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
>
> I think this is one of the key problems with Linux audio.  Part of the
> problem is that there is no clear mechanism for (non-developer) users
> to create their own instruments.  Many VSTs are constructed with
> modular DSP programs like synthedit and flowstone (formerly
> synthmaker).  There's probably an opportunity here for Ingen or a new
> graphical DSP program based on Faust to fill this hole.
>
> In general, I think that Linux audio has a lot of tools that help
> users to create music, but not a lot of tools that help users create
> their own tools (e.g. instruments, plugins, sample libraries, etc.) to
> help others to create music.
>
> On the development side, I think Aurélien and others like him have the
> right idea in taking instruments/plugins that are specific to a Linux
> audio application and porting them to LV2.  There's a lot of awesome
> instruments that are specific to applications (e.g. ALSA Modular
> Synth, LMMS, etc.) that would generally be more useful if they were
> LV2 plugins.
>
> > Poor external/internal session management.
>
> Interacting with external hardware can be frustrating.  Commercial
> programs like Renoise account for external hardware in their workflows
> (e.g. latency management, MIDI clock, MMC, etc.).  Most Linux Audio
> apps don't do this.
>
> > Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.
>
> I've been trying to write something about conflict and fragmentation
> for the past 10 minutes.  I think this is a complex issue.  I'm not
> able to find the words to communicate about it right now.
>
> > So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> > lack most and what can we do without that we already have ?
>
> As a developer, I'm missing a couple things:
>
> 1.) User feedback.
>
> I can't stress this enough.  I watch the download counts increase on
> the applications I create, but I hardly ever get feedback.  I'm
> discouraged and frustrated by the lack of feedback.
>
> 2.) Non-code developers
>
> We have a lot of dedicated open source developers writing Linux audio
> apps, plugins, etc., but I have yet to meet an open source UI
> designer, or an open source graphic artist.  I think a lot of the apps
> we create could benefit from the feedback of a user interface
> experience expert.
>
> There's probably more, but these are the two things that occur to me now.
>
> Dave, this is an important topic.  Thanks for taking it on.
>
> --
> Devin Anderson
> surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com
>
> blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
> midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
> psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
> synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

Hi Gabbe,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Gabbe Nord  wrote:

>   1. An easy way to provide this feedback, and encouragement to do so.
> There's IRC, mailinglists and forums for this, but most apps actually lack
> encouragement for feedback. Something as simple as writing "If you like this
> software and have ideas/suggestions, please use [insert_method_here] to
> contact us, all suggestions are appreciated!". The worst thing that could
> happen is that the suggestion isn't used, but I think tons can be gained by
> making the user feel more involved.

Excellent!  This is a start.  I can add something like this to the
'About' dialog of my applications.

Questions:

1.) What else can I do, as a developer, to make users feel more involved?
2.) On a similar note, what else can I do, as a developer, to make
developers feel more involved?

>   2. Appreciation for the feedback. Some devs are better then others on
> this, but I sadly think it's fairly common that users who try and provide
> feedback either get treated as complete idiots, or that the dev takes it as
> some form of personal insult.

I've seen developers do this.  It's really unfortunate.

Thanks for your feedback! :)

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Robert Jonsson]

Hi Dave,

2013/2/5 Dave Phillips :
> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ? Please feel free
> to expand your remarks as you like. I'm planning an article on the topic and
> will likely use selected comments, subject to approval of course.

These days I rely a lot on Addictive drums, it's great but the whole
setup using the VST through Wine is very volatile, it works just fine
on my main composition machine but not so good on others so I'm really
fearing the day when it's upgrade time..
So, in short: I'm missing a decent, native, drum plugin.

The second thing is sound interfaces, for the moment I'm all set but
for the long term there should really exist a _good_ sound card with
open design, thereby securing it's availability.

Just my two ören,
Robert
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

Hi Louigi,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 9:56 AM, Louigi Verona  wrote:

> "1.) What else can I do, as a developer, to make users feel more involved?"
>
> Hey Davin!
> One of the most responsive devs are those that
> a. respond quickly
> b. actively develop their software
> c. integrate suggestions quickly
>
> In Linux Audio excellent response I get from Rui on his Qtractor and on
> Giada.
>
> All in all, it is always best when software is developed actively. Real
> problems arise,
> when development slows down or comes to a halt.

Unfortunately, this leaves some developers with a chicken and egg
problem.  Developers can't respond at all if there's nothing to
respond to, and there's a real danger of software development coming
to a halt if users don't give feedback on how things can be improved.

I've seen this situation quite a few times:

1.) Developer releases software.
2.) Users download software.
3.) Users don't give feedback, or give very little feedback, on software.
4.) Developer doesn't continue to develop software because (s)he's
unmotivated to continue due to a perceived lack of community interest
and/or because his/her requirements for the software are satisfied.
5.) Bit-rot ensues.

On a more positive note, I think this thread is helping to open a path
of communication between users and developers about advancing our
community that really needed to be addressed.

Thanks again, Dave.

-- 
Devin Anderson
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Tuesday 05 February 2013 18:26:24 David Baron wrote:
> My main complaint is not really about Linux, per se, but the whole DAW,
> etc., scene: Lack of interoperability!
> 
> I have a lot of Cakewalk files from the Windows days. Cannot do anything
> with them besides play two tracks in Cakewalk-Express using WINE.

That is because you have been ignoring that KMidimon reads and plays Cakewalk 
WRK files. And my library drumstick-file is available under a free license, 
offering this functionality to any interested developer.
 
For me, this says everything about the worse problem in the Linux audio 
development community.

Regards

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Louigi Verona]

Devin wrote:

"
*1.) Developer releases software.
2.) Users download software.
3.) Users don't give feedback, or give very little feedback, on software.
4.) Developer doesn't continue to develop software because (s)he's
unmotivated to continue due to a perceived lack of community interest
and/or because his/her requirements for the software are satisfied.
5.) Bit-rot ensues.*
"

This is very interesting because it displays that Linux, as a hobbyist
operating system, has a very different motivational set. While on Windows
developers won't typically start writing software unless they have
researched the market and are sure it will be used, on Linux a developer
usually writes software for himself.

In fact, I think even bigger software, like Qtractor, is written as a hobby
(Rui, correct me if I am wrong).

In other words, software on Linux is usually developer-driven, not
user-driven. And this constructs a totally different community and attitude
and method of communication. Linux, at its core, is an operating system for
developers, for people who want to write their own stuff.

To rephrase it, I would also say that Linux Audio as an environment lacks
competition. You don't have to worry your software is out of date or that
someone else introduced a new feature. What is seen as duplicating features
by many is really a mechanism for quality and innovation. Here, on Linux,
there is no such thing as market competition. And thus - no natural
selection of software, so to speak.

L.V.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Devin Anderson]

HI Gabbe,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Gabbe Nord  wrote:

> An idea is to make a popup that comes up occasionally (maybe once a month or
> so) when starting/closing the application. This popup could do several
> things that could increase the participation of users, for example:
>
> a) Provide encouragement for involvement. Like "Do you like this
> application? Help improve it by visiting our forums and let us know what you
> think!".

I think this is a good idea. :)

> b) Provide direct links to ongoing user surveys. This is a golden one for
> any application I really think. In UI-design, contact and feedback from the
> end-user (the people that actually use your application) is golden.
> Especially for smaller development teams, where you've been
> developing/designing the same application for very long, which of course
> makes every part of the UI natural and intuitive to you
> Since it's free and open source, people hopefully/likely won't mind helping
> out this way. Not everyone has the economy to donate actual money to all
> projects around there, but anyone can sit down and state pro's, con's and
> perceived issues with the software. You just need an incentive (that the dev
> actually care about what you think, and the fact that you can use the
> software for free is probably usually very well enough) and an easy way of
> doing it. An ongoing, shorter survey (5-10mins maybe) can give tons of very
> very valid and good information form your actual users.

I hadn't considered this.  If I created such a survey, I would be
concerned that my own bias would be injected into the questions
themselves.  Can you suggest a few sample questions that might exist
in such a survey?

> c) Provide an easy way to donate. Some people actually have a good income
> and can without a doubt donate money. Nicely asking to donate spare cash if
> you're satisfied could probably generate some donations this way, if people
> also are somewhat frequently reminded of it.

I could add a mechanism like this to (a).

> I have some experience of both UI-design and the principles around that, and
> also constructing good surveys, and I would love to help out in any way I
> can. Like someone else in this thread said, not everyone can code, but that
> shouldn't stop them from being able to contribute.

I can't speak for other developers, but I find your suggestions to be
very helpful.

On a personal note, I would absolutely love feedback on the UI design
of both midisnoop and synthclone.  I don't have a problem with either
UI, but UI design is *not* my forte, and I have a bias about the
intuitiveness of both UIs, given that I built them.

Thank you for all your help and feedback. :)

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Paul Davis]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Louigi Verona wrote:

>  Here, on Linux, there is no such thing as market competition. And thus -
> no natural selection of software, so to speak.
>

if and when bitwig is released for linux, i suspect this will not be the
case anymore.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Louigi Verona]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 12:12 AM, Paul Davis wrote:

>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Louigi Verona wrote:
>
>>  Here, on Linux, there is no such thing as market competition. And thus -
>> no natural selection of software, so to speak.
>>
>
> if and when bitwig is released for linux, i suspect this will not be the
> case anymore.
>
>


Right, but question is - will the hobbyist software community be willing to
enter into a competition of that sort? Real competition will be when
several commercial enterprises compete, not when a commercial, well-funded
project competes with what people do in their free time.

-- 
Louigi Verona
http://www.louigiverona.ru/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Tim E. Real]

On February 5, 2013 08:18:03 PM Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 February 2013 18:26:24 David Baron wrote:
> > My main complaint is not really about Linux, per se, but the whole DAW,
> > etc., scene: Lack of interoperability!
> > 
> > I have a lot of Cakewalk files from the Windows days. 

Me too.

> > Cannot do anything
> > with them besides play two tracks in Cakewalk-Express using WINE.

I'm currently running CW in Wine and exporting the audio tracks
 one-by-one, and then save the file as midi.

This gives me the midi and audio files which I then import into MusE.
But it's tedious of course. I'm writing support for making it easier
 since I discovered I need to link imported midi controllers to the 
 audio tracks, which MusE currently can't do...

> 
> That is because you have been ignoring that KMidimon reads and plays
> Cakewalk WRK files. And my library drumstick-file is available under a free
> license, offering this functionality to any interested developer.

Wow. The drumstick lib reads wrk files?

Awesome. I had no idea, was looking for something. 
Having a look at the source now...

Can you tell me if it might be able to handle the audio tracks as well?

And (just a wish) is it possible to make a .bun bundle file parser?

Thanks very much Pedro!

Tim.

> 
> For me, this says everything about the worse problem in the Linux audio
> development community.
> 
> Regards
> 
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Wed, February 6, 2013 7:12 am, Paul Davis wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Louigi Verona
> wrote:
>
>>  Here, on Linux, there is no such thing as market competition. And thus
>> -
>> no natural selection of software, so to speak.
>>
>
> if and when bitwig is released for linux, i suspect this will not be the
> case anymore.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them
all and in the darkness bind them...

We already have market competition. AVID, Apple, Microsoft, AMD, Nokia and
even Google actively work against anything the open source multimedia
developers are throwing at them. Intel is on the fence. They have a large
Linux department but don't make many contributions round here. We don't
here from ARM much either but TI, Qualcomm do support their employees
supporting this community. The strange thing is how many movie studios use
our tools but are not actively contributing to the community. There is a
pickup in radio stations though. However the bulk of the work that is done
is privately funded or research projects.

What sucks about Linux Audio is the guys who print as much money as they
want don't like open source multimedia. They see it as an existential
threat and do everything they can to cripple wider adoption of the tools,
products and services that open source multimedia folks provide.

Given that the Linux Audio Community is not in a position to fight on the
same level we are always the underdog. If I had the ability to print
billions of dollars and rack up trillions of dollars of debt with my
Hereditary Bankster Elite Buddies things would be very different for Open
Source Multimedia. If we didn't have to compete with Government
organisations backed by unlimited funds to make a sale of our products we
would be very busy.

In the meantime I have to feed my kids and pay the rent like every other
Joe who is not a member of the 1% or working for them. I face the choice
of starving to death to make a rental payment so I can have a place to
work 90 hours a week or being forced out of business if I can't pay my tax
on time. Whereas the competition are able to borrow billions from their
mates, create unlimited reserves of cash and never ever have to pay it
back. That really sucks!

Even companies that are generating billions of dollars thanks to open
source multimedia solutions like the ALSA project don't even try to give
anything back to the wider community.  Where are the contributions from
the likes of Samsung and Google to Linux Audio and multimedia solutions?
Let alone all the smaller companies that are using our software for their
business products and refuse to chip in occasionally with some useful
contributions.There are many corporations that are quite happy to take the
work that has been done and profit from it but feel absolutely no
motivation to give anything back. That sucks!




--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[J. Liles]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic) commentary about the
> world of Linux audio development and applications. I won't bother to say
> where, just "the usual places" will have to suffice. Of greater interest to
> me is the commentary itself - it seems to boil down to the following
> plaints and lamentations (in no particular order) :
>
> Too many distros.
> Too many audio-optimized distros.
> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
> Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.
> Too many unstable/unfinished applications.
> Too many  "standards" (esp. wrt plugins).
> Poor external/internal session management.
> Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live).
> Lack of support for contemporary hardware.
> Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits.
> Too difficult to set up audio system.
> JACK is a pain.
> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.
>
> I'm not so interested in comments on the commentary, I have my own, but
> say what you will about the list. I figure that most denizens of these
> lists already have ready replies and responses to these and other
> criticisms, many of which have been voiced here previously. What I'm more
> interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just plain wrong about
> the situation. Please, try to speak your piece without flames or dissing
> other developers and/or their work. Frankly speaking, I've had enough of
> that crap, and I'm most thankful these days for such forum amenities as
> "mute user" and autodiscard, along with the standard filters found in mail
> clients.
>
> 
> I'm reminded of John Cage's comments regarding the behavior of the NY
> Philharmonic when they destroyed his equipment during the premire of Atlas
> Eclipticalis, something to the effect that his concerns had ceased to be
> musical and had become social, i.e. that he had to figure a way to allow
> people to be free yet behave themselves with respect towards the common
> goal (e.g. Cage's music and property). I'm going to guess that he was still
> working on that up to his death.
> 
>
> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ? Please feel
> free to expand your remarks as you like. I'm planning an article on the
> topic and will likely use selected comments, subject to approval of course.
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>

The biggest problem is that there are more people talking than there are
people doing. There are a 100 people to tell you this or that UI is shit,
but absolutely no-one to step up and do something about it. Users assume
that they're going to get the same level of integration and customer
support from free-software that they get from some $7000 commercial product
and get irate when it doesn't happen. With very few exceptions, LAD
software is not written for 'the users', it is written for the needs of the
developers and gifted to the community without warranty. I think the
conflict comes up more in LAD than other free-software arenas simply
because music attracts more novice/non-technical types (particularly
annoying Windows trolls) than does, say, forensic data analysis. So the
second problem with LAD is unreasonable expectations. Nobody said the goal
of Linux Audio was to replace Non-Linux Audio. The goal of Linux Audio is
simply to provide free-software alternatives for people who give a shit
(this group consists mostly of the LAD developers themselves). Yes, the
many standards/approches can be annoying.. But since when is diversity a
bad thing? This is a living, organic process driven by people with very
limited time and resources. If you want it to move faster or work better,
all you need to do is stop running your mouth and help.

And the problem of there being no such thing as an open source graphic
designer or UX expert applies to all free-software, not just LAD.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[William Light]

on Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 09:58:14AM -0500, Dave Phillips wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic) commentary
> about the world of Linux audio development and applications. I won't
> bother to say where, just "the usual places" will have to suffice.
> Of greater interest to me is the commentary itself - it seems to
> boil down to the following plaints and lamentations (in no
> particular order) :

i'd like to weigh in on some of these as well.
as i post here infrequently, a quick bit of background on me: i am an
electronic musician who also records real instruments, though
infrequently. i have been running Linux exclusively throughout my music
explorations.

i use renoise at the moment.

you can listen to my music at http://soundcloud.com/visinin if you'd
like.

> Too many distros.
> Too many audio-optimized distros.

i can't comment on these, having been using the same distribution (arch)
for the past 4 or so years.

> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.

absolutely an issue. my workhorse plugin is Loomer Aspect (a
semi-modular synthesizer), which is a native Linux VST. I own several
more Loomer plugins and have been considering picking up a license for
DiscoDSP Discovery.

extent of the jam recently released his Digits synthesizer VST for linux
as well (http://extentofthejam.com/ if you haven't seen it), which is
nice. regardless, though.

Linux audio has this problem of critical mass. when energyXT came out,
nobody really released much new stuff. it was all jorgen porting stuff,
and then jucetice. highlife, discovery, loomer plugs...all fantastic,
certainly, but there's not much of it.

it will be interesting to see what happens if and when bitwig is
released. a lot of people are using JUCE now, and that makes porting at
least possible.

> Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.

renoise's plugin support is pretty good. i would really like LV2 support
but that's not my decision to make.

> Too many unstable/unfinished applications.

in order, i've used beast/BSE, seq24 routed into a bunch of fluidsynths,
csound with blue, some toying with ardour, energyXT and finally renoise.

some software i just never got working. i never figured rosegarden out
(but for a long time it couldn't do instrument plugins), compiling MusE
was hit or miss, LMMS is good but I had XT and renoise by then...and
every time i use ardour i crash it somehow. it doesn't seem to like my
little micro-editing aphex-twin-wannabe style.

> Too many  "standards" (esp. wrt plugins).

i really like LV2 but the documentation is nigh-impenetrable. i've made
a few comments to this effect on drobilla's blog, and i agree that an
LV2 book would go a long way.

side note: did anybody else see pitracker? somebody wrote an LV2 synth
host that runs on the raspberry pi.
https://github.com/Joeboy/pixperiments/tree/master/pitracker

> Poor external/internal session management.

haven't tried any, i work entirely inside my host.

> Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live).

absolutely. everybody likes to use ableton live here, but i still think
we're missing a really good NLE. hell, i own a REAPER license and use it
through wineasio occasionally just because it's so comfortable. i've
tried ardour3 but i crash it every time.

> Lack of support for contemporary hardware.

i have to disagree here, actually! i would first like to shout out
daniel mack of caiaq for ensuring that all of the native instruments
audio interfaces work on linux, and fantastically well at that. i
recently picked up a focusrite saffire 2i2 and have had no problems at
all with it.

that said, the more pro it gets, the worse the support. i won't even
touch FFADO, i'm sorry, it's just never worked for me. i sold an echo
audiofire2 after i couldn't make it work and i have a secondhand
ultralite mk1 that just gathers dust.

it's interesting to me that manufacturers are starting to make
class-compliant devices just to make them work on apple's iDevices.

also, modern midi controller hardware works on a driver level but very
few programs support it.

> Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits.

as a dwm user, i will stay out of this one. i don't really like either
gtk or qt though, which sort of limits my options.

> Too difficult to set up audio system.

i don't have any issues and i generally run vanilla kernels. lately i've
been playing with the -ck patchset with BFS and have been very happy
with it. i'm comfortable playing live (both djing with xwax and doing
live monome sets with my own software, rove) with this configuration.
maybe i'll drop the JACK buffer size a little.

> JACK is a pain.

at least it's not pulseaudio. also, i haven't had any trouble setting
JACK up since i ditched my firewire interfaces. *that* was a nightmare.
but JACK on ALSA? buttery smooth.

JACK could perhaps be a bit better about autodiscovering soundcard
parameters. maybe my memory is failing me here, but i faintly recall
having issues w

Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Paul Davis]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:56 PM, William Light  wrote:

>
> you can listen to my music at http://soundcloud.com/visinin if you'd
> like.
>

some nice stuff in there. camphor and you was particularly appealing (to me)


> .and
> every time i use ardour i crash it somehow. it doesn't seem to like my
> little micro-editing aphex-twin-wannabe style.
>

once we get ardour 3.0 out, i hope you'll give it a chance and report back
on the experience.

--p
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Gabbe Nord]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 8:34 PM, Devin Anderson wrote:

> HI Gabbe,
>


> I hadn't considered this.  If I created such a survey, I would be
> concerned that my own bias would be injected into the questions
> themselves.  Can you suggest a few sample questions that might exist
> in such a survey?
>

Generally, it's all about thinking about what you're actually after. For
example, simple open questions can be good (Like: "Do you experience any
issues using the interface? Please briefly describe them.") for getting a
general knowledge of where problems might lie. Maybe you've been messing
around with MIDI for several years and take for granted that your users
know that just aswell, when the fact might be that this is one of their
first experiences with MIDI. Also, leading questions are to be avoided
under any circumstances. For example "Do you like feature X?" is a bad way
of trying to find out if your features are good, as it implies you should
actually like feature X. If feature X shows up automatically in a question
like "Are there features you like in the program? If so, please describe
briefly which and why." it's way more accurate. I think the potential
"please the experimenter"-bias is a bit bigger here aswell when users might
feel they owe you to like the software as it's free, which also leads to
more biased answers unless handeled right.

But generally, starting off with fairly open questions to get a general
idea of what people have issues with is a good idea, until you have some
actual knowledge about what the issues might be.


http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ <- that's also
something to take a brief look at. Those heuristics are frequently used
when doing quick training of evaluators for usability, and might be worth
looking into when looking over your own UI. Evaluation using this could be
very effective, and easily taught to people. Maybe we should look into
having a couple of people getting trained with that (resources available
online for free naturally, and training is fairly short) so we can aid
developers in Linux Audio if they want the help. I'll look into this, I'd
love to get some more experience with evaluation anyway.




>
> > c) Provide an easy way to donate. Some people actually have a good income
> > and can without a doubt donate money. Nicely asking to donate spare cash
> if
> > you're satisfied could probably generate some donations this way, if
> people
> > also are somewhat frequently reminded of it.
>
> I could add a mechanism like this to (a).
>
> > I have some experience of both UI-design and the principles around that,
> and
> > also constructing good surveys, and I would love to help out in any way I
> > can. Like someone else in this thread said, not everyone can code, but
> that
> > shouldn't stop them from being able to contribute.
>
> I can't speak for other developers, but I find your suggestions to be
> very helpful.
>
> On a personal note, I would absolutely love feedback on the UI design
> of both midisnoop and synthclone.  I don't have a problem with either
> UI, but UI design is *not* my forte, and I have a bias about the
> intuitiveness of both UIs, given that I built them.
>

I will for sure try and do some evaluation for you! I think I have enough
time for that this weekend even. I'll send you a personal e-mail about this
later today =) Love your enthusiasm/openness!.

Cheers



>
> Thank you for all your help and feedback. :)
>
> --
> Devin Anderson
> surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com
>
> blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
> midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
> psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
> synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Thomas Vecchione]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

>
> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ? Please feel
> free to expand your remarks as you like. I'm planning an article on the
> topic and will likely use selected comments, subject to approval of course.
>
>
Linux sucks often comes down to, I am not used to it so therefore it sucks
because I don't know it.  There are many reasons for this, which I just
won't cover here, but there are also legitimate reasons to dislike using
Linux, or to think it isn't as good as some of the alternatives.  To name a
few of my personal ones...

Documentation: I will come back to this.

Plugins:
  While we have plugins, it is very difficult to tell exactly what is
decent or isn't without spending a lot of time with it.  Some plugins sound
great, but seem to crash my session fairly often with little warning.  You
can say this is a problem on other platforms as well, and you would be
correct to an extent when talking about plugins developed in the spare time
of someone, or other 'free' solutions that aren't supported.  But I gotta
say, I can't think of the last time one of my commercial plugins crashed a
PT session.  Hell even running them through Wine with Festige they are
pretty dang stable(I have had two instances I think where i had to restart
everything, Jack, Festige, etc. as they weren't processing audio correctly,
which may be as much Wine, Festige or any number of things as the
plugins).  Many plugins sound horrible, but it is hard to identify these
without going through each of the hundreds of plugins available.  And then
you get those few gems that sound great and are stable.

Audio Hardware:
  Not just IO hardware, but that is huge as well.  And I don't mean to say
this is the fault of the Linux Community, in many cases it is the
manufacturers, straight up.  RME is good stuff, don't get me wrong, and I
love my RME interface.  I also know that courtesy of FFADO etc. we have
many more selections than we used to and have some solid mid range things,
Focusrite and Echo Audio come to mind especially.  I also found that with
little work I could get my Mackie Onyx-i series working if I cared to.  All
well and good, but then we have things like Dante, which is picking up
steam in the live sound world, especially for multitrack recording, and
interfaces with a lot of live processing/mixers/etc.  Or we have things
like a Metric Halo interface, or any number of interfaces coming out
nowadays that have onboard DSP effects or dynamics processing.  The MH
units are a great example because of their flexible nature, but even more
basic like the onboard DSP on many Focusrite or Lexicon interfaces are not
supported.  Or even more basic things like my Apogee Duet, which I see
there are reports of it working that doesn't seem to be to certain, I have
never bothered trying, or many interfaces without hardware controls that
depend on software control we just don't have software for.  .  And then of
course you get to the topic of things like Universal Audio's DSP cards, or
the SSL Duende, etc.  All of these would be great for running commercial
plugins on, except we can't use them of course.

Audio 'Drivers':
  This is still an issue, and it is an issue because the average user can't
download Ubuntu and install Ardour, and have it run without having to set
it up and tweak it.  This is in part due to the blessing and curse both of
'choice' in that for most of us here, we know standard Ubuntu probably
isn't the best choice, or we know that we have to add realtime permissions
to our user, or half a dozen other things.  But the average person from a
different OS that doesn't know Linux is going to download Ubuntu, or
Fedora, or whatever distribution they have heard of, or happen across first
in a Google search.  Contrast this to OS X, user installs the OS, Download
the app, and runs it, and all permissions, setup etc. are taken care of for
them.  Or on Windows where without tweaking at least the damn stuff
opens(Can't say that about the 'typical' Linux install with pro audio that
depends on Jack as it is looking for realtime permissions) even if it
doesn't run well.

Back to Documentation:
  We lack a good single reference we can point people to for information.
linuxaudio.org is a start I suppose but I gotta say, if I go there thinking
as a new user looking for information on what hardware works with Linux for
audio, I could go to the site and have no freaking clue where to go from
there.  It is set up much more for the people that already know Linux, as
opposed to the people that want to know more about Linux Audio because they
are interested in learning about it.  And to clarify, yes I personally know
that under 'Resources' there are some good resources there, but as a new
user, the typical kind I generally have to help in IRC, or elsewhere this
would mean nothing.  And even after clickin

Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Luis Garrido]

On 02/05/2013 11:56 PM, J. Liles wrote:



The biggest problem is that there are more people talking than there are
people doing.


That's not a problem, that's how things are. Talking is way easier, so 
it stands to reason that it happens more often.



So the second problem with LAD is unreasonable expectations.


This. EOD (End Of Discussion).

It is just a matter of realizing FOSS developers are normal people, too.

Maybe slightly more skilled in the ways of code and maybe a little more 
selfless or community-conscious than the average. But developers have 
bills, families, lives, they have to put up with their bosses/customers 
demands during their day job... They don't need more little-bosses 
telling them what they should do with their free time, thanks. One would 
think this would be just common courtesy.


Polite suggestions and feedback are always welcome, but statements like 
"Your software isn't as great as Ableton's and it should if you want to 
have as many happy users as them, which is surely what you must want 
(and, as a bonus, I get commercial-grade software for free, ain't that 
convenient?)" are open invitations for sarcasm, or even satire.


L

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Paul Davis]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Luis Garrido  wrote:

>
> Maybe slightly more skilled in the ways of code and maybe a little more
> selfless or community-conscious than the average. But developers have
> bills, families, lives, they have to put up with their bosses/customers
> demands during their day job... They don't need more little-bosses telling
> them what they should do with their free time, thanks. One would think this
> would be just common courtesy.
>

there's another dimension to this. Since the users of ardour pay me and
make my life possible, i certainly do want them telling me what to do. but
... there are limits on what i want to actually respond to. most days, i'm
actually really not interested in promoting the style of music creation
that Ableton Live enables. even if lots of people clamor for it, there is
always a chance that its something i just don't want to do. that could
adversely affect ardour's potential audience, and i have to decide whether
or not i care about that.

the same calculus goes on even without notable cash flows, i am sure.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dominique Michel]

Le Wed, 6 Feb 2013 08:09:01 -0500,
Thomas Vecchione  a écrit :

> 
>   These are just a couple of examples.  Documentation in general just
> needs to be rethought as a community I think.  But noone will ever be
> happy with it, so maybe I am just a grumpy old coot telling you
> youngins to get off my lawn as this has been gone around many times:)
> 
>Seablade

For the French speaking linux audio community, we have LinuxMAO
http://linuxmao.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php which is a community
driven site with a wiki and a forum. The wiki is for the
documentation. The forum is used both for linux (audio) related
questions which are not answered/understood in the wiki, and for
questions about the content of the wiki. The wiki is focused about
using linux to make professional audio, and it is a section into the
forum about audio development.

I think than to have both a wiki and a forum at the same place is the
best option. In practice, it work very well even if it is not perfect.

To have such a site is very valuable for the community. This is not the
first time we talk about documentation on the LAD, and I think it would
be very valuable for the community if an English or multi-languages
site with both a wiki and a forum could be made.

A solution can be to extend LinuxMAO with English sections on both the
wiki and the forum, and why not other languages. I contribute on a more
or less regular basis, but I am not a site admin. So I have no idea how
they would react to such a proposition, but they are open minded guys.
And someone that doesn't try is sure of only one thing: to get nothing.

I am also not sure if the LAD is the good place to talk about this in
the perspective of making such a site. Maybe lists like the LAU or
alsa-users are more appropriate. Or cross-posting to those 3 lists and
jack-devel too.

My 2 centimes,
Dominique

-- 
"We have the heroes we deserve."
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Michael Bechard]

I second the frustration on a lack of user feedback...

Michael





 From: Devin Anderson 
To: Dave Phillips  
Cc: linux-audio-u...@lists.linuxaudio.org; linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org 
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
 
Hi Dave,

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:

> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.

I think this is one of the key problems with Linux audio.  Part of the
problem is that there is no clear mechanism for (non-developer) users
to create their own instruments.  Many VSTs are constructed with
modular DSP programs like synthedit and flowstone (formerly
synthmaker).  There's probably an opportunity here for Ingen or a new
graphical DSP program based on Faust to fill this hole.

In general, I think that Linux audio has a lot of tools that help
users to create music, but not a lot of tools that help users create
their own tools (e.g. instruments, plugins, sample libraries, etc.) to
help others to create music.

On the development side, I think Aurélien and others like him have the
right idea in taking instruments/plugins that are specific to a Linux
audio application and porting them to LV2.  There's a lot of awesome
instruments that are specific to applications (e.g. ALSA Modular
Synth, LMMS, etc.) that would generally be more useful if they were
LV2 plugins.

> Poor external/internal session management.

Interacting with external hardware can be frustrating.  Commercial
programs like Renoise account for external hardware in their workflows
(e.g. latency management, MIDI clock, MMC, etc.).  Most Linux Audio
apps don't do this.

> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.

I've been trying to write something about conflict and fragmentation
for the past 10 minutes.  I think this is a complex issue.  I'm not
able to find the words to communicate about it right now.

> So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ?

As a developer, I'm missing a couple things:

1.) User feedback.

I can't stress this enough.  I watch the download counts increase on
the applications I create, but I hardly ever get feedback.  I'm
discouraged and frustrated by the lack of feedback.

2.) Non-code developers

We have a lot of dedicated open source developers writing Linux audio
apps, plugins, etc., but I have yet to meet an open source UI
designer, or an open source graphic artist.  I think a lot of the apps
we create could benefit from the feedback of a user interface
experience expert.

There's probably more, but these are the two things that occur to me now.

Dave, this is an important topic.  Thanks for taking it on.

-- 
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com

blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Gabbe Nord]

Like said before, I think alot of user feedback could be gained if just
there was a simple way to do it, and people got reminded.

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Michael Bechard  wrote:

> I second the frustration on a lack of user feedback...
>
> Michael
>
>
>   --
> *From:* Devin Anderson 
> *To:* Dave Phillips 
> *Cc:* linux-audio-u...@lists.linuxaudio.org;
> linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:09 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips 
> wrote:
>
> > Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
>
> I think this is one of the key problems with Linux audio.  Part of the
> problem is that there is no clear mechanism for (non-developer) users
> to create their own instruments.  Many VSTs are constructed with
> modular DSP programs like synthedit and flowstone (formerly
> synthmaker).  There's probably an opportunity here for Ingen or a new
> graphical DSP program based on Faust to fill this hole.
>
> In general, I think that Linux audio has a lot of tools that help
> users to create music, but not a lot of tools that help users create
> their own tools (e.g. instruments, plugins, sample libraries, etc.) to
> help others to create music.
>
> On the development side, I think Aurélien and others like him have the
> right idea in taking instruments/plugins that are specific to a Linux
> audio application and porting them to LV2.  There's a lot of awesome
> instruments that are specific to applications (e.g. ALSA Modular
> Synth, LMMS, etc.) that would generally be more useful if they were
> LV2 plugins.
>
> > Poor external/internal session management.
>
> Interacting with external hardware can be frustrating.  Commercial
> programs like Renoise account for external hardware in their workflows
> (e.g. latency management, MIDI clock, MMC, etc.).  Most Linux Audio
> apps don't do this.
>
> > Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.
>
> I've been trying to write something about conflict and fragmentation
> for the past 10 minutes.  I think this is a complex issue.  I'm not
> able to find the words to communicate about it right now.
>
> > So, in your honest and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
> > lack most and what can we do without that we already have ?
>
> As a developer, I'm missing a couple things:
>
> 1.) User feedback.
>
> I can't stress this enough.  I watch the download counts increase on
> the applications I create, but I hardly ever get feedback.  I'm
> discouraged and frustrated by the lack of feedback.
>
> 2.) Non-code developers
>
> We have a lot of dedicated open source developers writing Linux audio
> apps, plugins, etc., but I have yet to meet an open source UI
> designer, or an open source graphic artist.  I think a lot of the apps
> we create could benefit from the feedback of a user interface
> experience expert.
>
> There's probably more, but these are the two things that occur to me now.
>
> Dave, this is an important topic.  Thanks for taking it on.
>
> --
> Devin Anderson
> surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com
>
> blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
> midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
> psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
> synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
> ___
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> Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
>
>
>
> ___
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> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
>
>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Michael Bechard]

Yeah, I posted that before I read the rest of the conversation around that 
topic. Good points.

Michael





 From: Gabbe Nord 
To: Michael Bechard  
Cc: Devin Anderson ; Dave Phillips 
; "linux-audio-u...@lists.linuxaudio.org" 
; "linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org" 
 
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
 

Like said before, I think alot of user feedback could be gained if just there 
was a simple way to do it, and people got reminded.


On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Michael Bechard  wrote:

I second the frustration on a lack of user feedback...
>
>Michael
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Devin Anderson 
>To: Dave Phillips  
>Cc: linux-audio-u...@lists.linuxaudio.org; 
>linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org 
>Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:09 AM
>Subject: Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
> 
>
>Hi Dave,
>
>On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:
>
>> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
>
>I think this is one of the key problems with Linux audio.  Part of the
>problem is that there is no clear mechanism for (non-developer) users
>to create their own instruments.  Many VSTs are constructed with
>modular DSP programs like synthedit and flowstone (formerly
>synthmaker).  There's probably an opportunity here for Ingen or a new
>graphical DSP program based on Faust to fill this hole.
>
>In general, I think that Linux audio has a lot of tools that help
>users to create music, but not a lot of tools that help users create
>their own tools (e.g. instruments, plugins, sample libraries, etc.) to
>help others to create music.
>
>On the development side, I think Aurélien
 and others like him have the
>right idea in taking instruments/plugins that are specific to a Linux
>audio application and porting them to LV2.  There's a lot of awesome
>instruments that are specific to applications (e.g. ALSA Modular
>Synth, LMMS, etc.) that would generally be more useful if they were
>LV2 plugins.
>
>> Poor external/internal session management.
>
>Interacting with external hardware can be frustrating.  Commercial
>programs like Renoise account for external hardware in their workflows
>(e.g. latency management, MIDI clock, MMC, etc.).  Most Linux Audio
>apps don't do this.
>
>> Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development community.
>
>I've been trying to write something about conflict and fragmentation
>for the past 10 minutes.  I think this is a complex issue.  I'm not
>able to find the words to communicate about it right now.
>
>> So, in your honest
 and bold opinion as user and/or developer, what do we
>> lack most and what can we do without that we already have ?
>
>As a developer, I'm missing a couple things:
>
>1.) User feedback.
>
>I can't stress this enough.  I watch the download counts increase on
>the applications I create, but I hardly ever get feedback.  I'm
>discouraged and frustrated by the lack of feedback.
>
>2.) Non-code developers
>
>We have a lot of dedicated open source developers writing Linux audio
>apps, plugins, etc., but I have yet to meet an open source UI
>designer, or an open source graphic artist.  I think a lot of the apps
>we create could benefit from the feedback of a user interface
>experience expert.
>
>There's probably more, but these are the two things that occur to me now.
>
>Dave, this is an important topic.  Thanks for taking it on.
>
>-- 
>Devin Anderson
>surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot)
 com
>
>blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
>midisnoop - http://midisnoop.googlecode.com/
>psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
>synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
>___
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>Linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
>http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
>
>
>
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>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Louis Gorenfeld]

I'm late to this thread, but I'd like to shine some light on why I
switched from Linux to Mac OS for my personal music work, and things
which I believe may continue to hold back Linux development. Keep in
mind that I've only picked at Linux audio for the last 5 years, so
maybe some of these complaints have since been addressed.

- Make it easier for authors to support Linux: I'm the author of a VST
plugin. I decided to go with VSTGUI for my Linux port. However,
despite being an open-source project, VSTGUI is somehow not supported
on Linux. Due to time constraints, this resulted in me just yanking
the GUI support from my Linux version. Also due to time constraints, I
was not able to produce an LV2 version which some people wanted. I get
that VST is technically not a free-free standard. But it's also the
most widely-supported plugin format, with a staggering number of free
plugins. Unless there's something I'm not seeing, this seems perfectly
support-able on Linux (it's halfway there already!).

- Fragmented and not well-supported plugin architectures: It seems
that plugins on Linux have gone through several phases. When I used
it, it was all DSSI. Now I guess it's LV2. I think the most promising
time was when Linux VST was gaining momentum, but now it seems that
maybe this isn't an accepted format on Linux. And don't say JACK--
that's for sharing audio between applications. If I go to KVRAudio.com
and search for Linux plugins, there are only 50.

- Make Linux friendlier for closed-source/commercial devs: Open source
is great; don't get me wrong! But music software and DSP are
specialized areas and DAW and associated software is incredibly
complex. I think for Linux to really succeed in this arena, it will
have to attract commercial development. Easier said than done, I know.

- In the same vein: One thing I notice is that many music packages on
Linux seem to be by-and-for programmers. It's all very flexible and
modular, but this is not necessarily convenient when your brain is in
"music making mode". Ask electronic musicians what their work flow is
like and design applications around that kind of feedback. On the
other hand, coders always want everything to be a modular synth. It's
literally the first kind of synth project everyone I know who's a
coder has done!

- Is there a good all-in-one sequencer for electronic music styles?
This was the thing that really made me switch. I was using Rosegarden
at the time. And I don't want to call out Rosegarden because I do
believe it's a wonderful piece of software for music notation. It just
wasn't suitable for my uses. It had issues handling a
reasonable-but-large amount of MIDI data on my 1ghz machine (I use
pitch wheel for vibrato), and I wasn't ever able to render my song
down to disk in a non-realtime mode. People pointed me to using JACK
freewheel mode, but it seemed like at the time this wasn't supported
by synth developers. Finally, there wasn't a way to use samples other
than SoundFonts (which, IMO, are both squarely within the consumer
realm and are not easily editable) -- again, this was a few years
back, so maybe this has all been addressed.

The irony is that, shortly after, Renoise came out for Linux! :) And
maybe Ardour is suitable for electronic music; I dunno. Like I said,
I've been partially out of the loop.

- Not knowing if your sound card will be supported. It's hard to shop
for sound devices with Linux. "Supported" may mean all kinds of
things. For example, I found issues with the AudioBox 1818VSL which
were down to ALSA incorrectly implementing the UAC2 standard. I do
realize that a lot of hardware support is down to the hardware
developers being more enthusiastic about Linux. But the bottom line
for would-be Linux musicians? You never know how sound hardware will
react with Linux. To be fair, this is still true of Windows to some
extent where latencies are concerned (but not with basic
functionality).

- Clearer documentation for ALSA would help (pretty please :))

Hopefully this isn't too harsh or outdated. And I don't want to just
heap criticism on Linux, because I think it has amazing potential. The
realtime kernels offer amazing performance, and so does ALSA-- I got a
netbook I was using for Maker Faire down to an incredibly low latency
on Linux. It performed much better than ASIO did on the same hardware.
It can be lightweight and incredibly customizable.

Bring on the software!

-Louis



On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic) commentary about the
> world of Linux audio development and applications. I won't bother to say
> where, just "the usual places" will have to suffice. Of greater interest to
> me is the commentary itself - it seems to boil down to the following plaints
> and lamentations (in no particular order) :
>
> Too many distros.
> Too many audio-optimized distros.
> Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
> Inconsistent support for VS

Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[michael noble]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:58 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:

> What I'm more interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just
> plain wrong about the situation.



I started using linux for audio primarily for sooperlooper, which at the
time (over ten years ago i think) was the best if not the only EDP
emulation for any platform. It worked great then, and it still works great,
so from that perspective, nothing is wrong with linux audio for me, except
for the constant hand-wringing and complaining that something is wrong with
linux audio!

But of course, that is not the whole picture. Every now and then I wish
there was a native linux audiomulch equivalent, for example, but then I
usually get to thinking how wrong-headed such desires seem. Windows or OSX
never really evolved as audio platforms trying to emulate Windows or OSX so
much, they evolved as platforms for music creation in their own terms.
That's somewhat naive and an over simplification I realize, because for
sure different software packages emulated and influenced each other, and
even MS and Apple have always had their tensions about who truly innovated
various features (and even linux can stake a claim in that respect).

But my point is that expecting linux to be just like one of those platforms
seems dunderheaded to me. So one of the things wrong with linux audio (for
me) is the constant stream of expectations to replicate the experience of
other platforms. It may happen, but I don't think it is a worthy drive for
development. Yes, certain features may be worth emulating, but often times
I get the feeling that people have a working setup on another platform, and
then complain mostly because they have to give that up when they switch
platforms. They then  get increasingly frustrated as they realize things
will just not be the same as they were when they had a working setup on the
other platform. Which often makes me question why some people switch at
all.

A lot of the points raised in this thread are perfectly valid I'm sure from
the perspective of the individuals raising them, and that's what this
thread is about, but I'm going to take a stand against what seems to a
trend of slagging the "audio geeks". For me that is exactly what makes
linux unique, interesting, fun, and yes, sometimes frustrating. It is a
system where the whole system is available to play and learn and grow as
you grow as a musician or sound designer. Its never-ending openness and
diversity limits its effectiveness in emulating windows or OSX, but linux
offers an open palette of learning opportunities. Linux has taught me more
about system design and the bigger picture of digital audio than Windows
and OSX ever did. Of course, that's hard to quantify because who knows what
might have happened if I didn't switch all those years ago (for one thing I
might have made more music and spent less time learning about systems), but
linux is what it is and I'd rather spend time taking advantage of what it
is and then bemoaning what it isn't, as difficult as that can be sometimes.

2 minor units of currency
Michael
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[J. Liles]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 3:18 PM, michael noble  wrote:

>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:58 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
>
>> What I'm more interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just
>> plain wrong about the situation.
>
>
>
> I started using linux for audio primarily for sooperlooper, which at the
> time (over ten years ago i think) was the best if not the only EDP
> emulation for any platform. It worked great then, and it still works great,
> so from that perspective, nothing is wrong with linux audio for me, except
> for the constant hand-wringing and complaining that something is wrong with
> linux audio!
>
> But of course, that is not the whole picture. Every now and then I wish
> there was a native linux audiomulch equivalent, for example, but then I
> usually get to thinking how wrong-headed such desires seem. Windows or OSX
> never really evolved as audio platforms trying to emulate Windows or OSX so
> much, they evolved as platforms for music creation in their own terms.
> That's somewhat naive and an over simplification I realize, because for
> sure different software packages emulated and influenced each other, and
> even MS and Apple have always had their tensions about who truly innovated
> various features (and even linux can stake a claim in that respect).
>
> But my point is that expecting linux to be just like one of those
> platforms seems dunderheaded to me. So one of the things wrong with linux
> audio (for me) is the constant stream of expectations to replicate the
> experience of other platforms. It may happen, but I don't think it is a
> worthy drive for development. Yes, certain features may be worth emulating,
> but often times I get the feeling that people have a working setup on
> another platform, and then complain mostly because they have to give that
> up when they switch platforms. They then  get increasingly frustrated as
> they realize things will just not be the same as they were when they had a
> working setup on the other platform. Which often makes me question why some
> people switch at all.
>
> A lot of the points raised in this thread are perfectly valid I'm sure
> from the perspective of the individuals raising them, and that's what this
> thread is about, but I'm going to take a stand against what seems to a
> trend of slagging the "audio geeks". For me that is exactly what makes
> linux unique, interesting, fun, and yes, sometimes frustrating. It is a
> system where the whole system is available to play and learn and grow as
> you grow as a musician or sound designer. Its never-ending openness and
> diversity limits its effectiveness in emulating windows or OSX, but linux
> offers an open palette of learning opportunities. Linux has taught me more
> about system design and the bigger picture of digital audio than Windows
> and OSX ever did. Of course, that's hard to quantify because who knows what
> might have happened if I didn't switch all those years ago (for one thing I
> might have made more music and spent less time learning about systems), but
> linux is what it is and I'd rather spend time taking advantage of what it
> is and then bemoaning what it isn't, as difficult as that can be sometimes.
>
> 2 minor units of currency
> Michael
>

Very well put.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Michael Bechard]

I think others (most?) in this community want to see Linux audio 
flourish and not become relegated to an audio environment for 
programmers. Nobody's slagging audio geeks, really, we just want to see 
some effort put into making the platform more accessible to a wider 
audience, and in the process (hopefully) maybe free up that right side 
of the brain to do its own thing in our own music-making processes. I 
personally do not like to have to think about very technical issues when making 
music; I just want to create.

Michael




 From: J. Liles 
To: michael noble  
Cc: Linux Audio User ; Linux Audio 
Developers  
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 5:36 PM
Subject: Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
 




On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 3:18 PM, michael noble  wrote:


>
>On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:58 PM, Dave Phillips  wrote:
>
>What I'm more interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just plain 
>wrong about the situation.
>
>I started using linux for audio primarily for sooperlooper, which at the time 
>(over ten years ago i think) was the best if not the only EDP emulation for 
>any platform. It worked great then, and it still works great, so from that 
>perspective, nothing is wrong with linux audio for me, except for the constant 
>hand-wringing and complaining that something is wrong with linux audio!
>
>
>But of course, that is not the whole picture. Every now and then I wish there 
>was a native linux audiomulch equivalent, for example, but then I usually get 
>to thinking how wrong-headed such desires seem. Windows or OSX never really 
>evolved as audio platforms trying to emulate Windows or OSX so much, they 
>evolved as platforms for music creation in their own terms. That's somewhat 
>naive and an over simplification I realize, because for sure different 
>software packages emulated and influenced each other, and even MS and Apple 
>have always had their tensions about who truly innovated various features (and 
>even linux can stake a claim in that respect). 
>
>
>But my point is that expecting linux to be just like one of those platforms 
>seems dunderheaded to me. So one of the things wrong with linux audio (for me) 
>is the constant stream of expectations to replicate the experience of other 
>platforms. It may happen, but I don't think it is a worthy drive for 
>development. Yes, certain features may be worth emulating, but often times I 
>get the feeling that people have a working setup on another platform, and then 
>complain mostly because they have to give that up when they switch platforms. 
>They then  get increasingly frustrated as they realize things will just not be 
>the same as they were when they had a working setup on the other platform. 
>Which often makes me question why some people switch at all.  
>
>
>A lot of the points raised in this thread are perfectly valid I'm sure from 
>the perspective of the individuals raising them, and that's what this thread 
>is about, but I'm going to take a stand against what seems to a trend of 
>slagging the "audio geeks". For me that is exactly what makes linux unique, 
>interesting, fun, and yes, sometimes frustrating. It is a system where the 
>whole system is available to play and learn and grow as you grow as a musician 
>or sound designer. Its never-ending openness and diversity limits its 
>effectiveness in emulating windows or OSX, but linux offers an open palette of 
>learning opportunities. Linux has taught me more about system design and the 
>bigger picture of digital audio than Windows and OSX ever did. Of course, 
>that's hard to quantify because who knows what might have happened if I didn't 
>switch all those years ago (for one thing I might have made more music and 
>spent less time learning about systems), but linux is
 what it is and I'd rather spend time taking advantage of what it is and then 
bemoaning what it isn't, as difficult as that can be sometimes.
>
>
>2 minor units of currencyMichael

Very well put.

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[John Rigg]

On Thu, Feb 07, 2013 at 08:47:55AM -0800, Michael Bechard wrote:
> I think others (most?) in this community want to see Linux audio 
> flourish and not become relegated to an audio environment for 
> programmers. Nobody's slagging audio geeks, really, we just want to see 
> some effort put into making the platform more accessible to a wider 
> audience, and in the process (hopefully) maybe free up that right side 
> of the brain to do its own thing in our own music-making processes. I 
> personally do not like to have to think about very technical issues when
> making music; I just want to create.

I should point out that your requirements as a music maker and those of audio
engineers like myself are mutually exclusive in many respects.

I need flexibility and configurability, plus access to the source code,
in order to do my job effectively. Of course it should be possible to cater
to both sets of users, but I don't see how it can be done easily. Don't
Windows and OS X already offer what you describe?

John
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Niklas Klügel]

+1 on your comments regarding:

Too many unstable/unfinished applications.

in order, i've used beast/BSE, seq24 routed into a bunch of fluidsynths,
csound with blue, some toying with ardour, energyXT and finally renoise.

some software i just never got working. i never figured rosegarden out
(but for a long time it couldn't do instrument plugins), compiling MusE
was hit or miss, LMMS is good but I had XT and renoise by then...and
every time i use ardour i crash it somehow. it doesn't seem to like my
little micro-editing aphex-twin-wannabe style.





Poor support for certain modes of composition (think Ableton Live).

absolutely. everybody likes to use ableton live here, but i still think
we're missing a really good NLE. hell, i own a REAPER license and use it
through wineasio occasionally just because it's so comfortable. i've
tried ardour3 but i crash it every time.



it's interesting to me that free (source and/or beer) music software on
OSX and windows has come further than it has on Linux. off the top of
my head:

http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php
http://www.buzzmachines.com/



I actually have 3 other friends (2 of them work now at NI, degree in CS 
+ making music
for >= 15 years) who are avid linux users and made similar comments and 
are rather frustrated with the development
of LAD in the last 10 years. I don't want to comment on that topic too 
much because it kind of frustrates me myself,

I just wanted to point out that I share share your opinions/statements.

My main point would be -besides all the technical deficiencies that some 
LA-F/OSS apps have and the related issue of
entwined dev of toolchains/libraries-  that many applications lack a 
proper musical work flow for anything that goes beyond
*really* basic tasks. I know this comment pisses almost everyone off on 
this list, but I would love to see some projects and devs approach
music creation from a music related angle and not a technical one and 
analyze why some widely used tools have such huge *fan*bases...


because from the user perspective the issue is not "what sucks about LA" 
but something more along the lines of "what drives me to use my tools and

helps me articulate my musical expression" :)
this is certainly relevant to the development of *generic* audio tools 
(versus the specialized tools that developers create for their own needs).


so... please fire up ableton live/fruityloops/* from time to time make 
some music, watch some youtube video of a pubescent guy explaining "how 
to make basslines

just like skrillex" ;)

2c




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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[John Rigg]

Maybe someone should start new mailing lists for Linux music software
developers and users. I'm serious - there's clearly a demand for it.

John
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Dominique Michel]

Le Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:21:59 +0100,
Kjetil Matheussen  a écrit :

> William Light:
> > it's interesting to me that free (source and/or beer) music
> > software on
> > OSX and windows has come further than it has on Linux. off the top
> > of my head:
> >
> > http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php
> > http://www.buzzmachines.com/
> 
> I'm very interested in knowing what you're missing from Psycle and 
> Buzzmachines
> that Radium doesn't have...

This is not related to any of the software you mention, but what I am
really missing in linux audio is the ability to plug-in my guitar (or
another instrument), play some melody, and get the
corresponding MIDI notes messages in real-time. As the timbre will
differ from one instrument to another, and even from a player to
another, such a tool should provide a visual way to setup the
parameters, that in order to make it easily usable.

Is is a few applications that claim to be able to do that. By example
guitarix  http://linuxaudio.org/mailarchive/lau/2011/1/7/177338
but in practice, it is total unusable.
Quote: "Guitarix offers this, Given, you play with good intonation/a
well tuned instrument, it works OK."

I was never able to make it work even with a well tuned guitar.

In the past, I done such a rt conversion on a dsp. It was working very
well but need some parameters to be carefully chosen. The only way to
chose those parameters are with a visual signal analysis. The timbre of
an instrument is unique, vary with the time and with the play. I used a
memory oscilloscope to do this analysis.

I am a lazy bastard that also have a real life, so I never managed to
learn enough C/C++ in order to translate my dsp56k program into a
GNU/linux software. Some said this would be a piece of cake, but that's
not to me.

The algorithm is very simple. The incoming signal need to be rounded in
order to reject the false maximums that can arise (look at the signal
of a good simple humbuking microphone and you will show them) (this
will reject the high frequencies and is very simple and fast to
implement). This is done with a simple arithmetic mean on the successive
input samples. 1 parameter here: the samples number. Another and obvious
parameters is the input threshold level.

In order to easily adjust those 2 parameters, a visualisation GUI is
the best option. It have to show both the incoming signal and the
same signal after the average operation. It would be best if it would
work like a memory oscilloscope, that is define some threshold and
time period the user want to acquire when some incoming signal is
detected, acquire the samples into a ring buffer in a one shot way, and
display them with the ability to change the x axis period and offset.
As a bonus, this will be the best oscilloscope using an audio card on
linux. 

At that point, 2 separated software can even be made. And yes, I
am missing too a good memory oscilloscope using the audio card on
linux. I know an audio card will never provide the sampling frequency
of a LeCroy, but beside the sampling rate, a GNU/linux oscilloscope
using the audio card is able to provide a lot of the, if not all,
advanced features of a real memory oscilloscope.

After the average is done, and concurrently to it, the program find 2
consecutive maximums of same sign of the signal. A simple comparison (>
or < depending to the sign) of the consecutive samples is enough to do
that. The period of the signal is represented by the number of samples
that separate those 2 consecutive maximums. The program know the
sampling frequency, so, a table can be made with the values of the MIDI
notes for different sampling count intervals, and a simple read of
this table from the number of samples between 2 consecutive maximums
will give the corresponding MIDI note.

The worst case scenario depend on the lowest note that will be played.
The time to find the note = the period of the note + the time between
0 and the first maximum of the signal. I don't know any faster and
simpler algorithm to do that.

Dominique

P.S.: If you wait for me to adapt this software to GNU/linux, you will
wait much longer than if you, or someone else, do it. I try several
times, but I never managed to get enough time, to learn the C, and like
my life is going, both privately and professionally, this will
unfortunately not append in a foreseeable future.

> 
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-- 
"We have the heroes we deserve."
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[michael noble]

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Dominique Michel  wrote:

> In the past, I done such a rt conversion on a dsp. It was working very
> well but need some parameters to be carefully chosen. The only way to
> chose those parameters are with a visual signal analysis. The timbre of
> an instrument is unique, vary with the time and with the play. I used a
> memory oscilloscope to do this analysis.
>

To be fair, real-time pitch to midi is not a linux audio problem but a
general DSP problem that so far as I know, is far from solved on any
platform. If your solution works as well as you say then you need to put it
in a product and market it asap! This is something that I know people have
sought for a long time. Even purpose built high-end hardware units, like
the Axon series coupled with something like a Godin Synth Access guitar,
have limitations and require the player to adapt to those limitations.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[hermann meyer]

Am 09.02.2013 12:38, schrieb Dominique Michel:

Is is a few applications that claim to be able to do that. By example
guitarixhttp://linuxaudio.org/mailarchive/lau/2011/1/7/177338
but in practice, it is total unusable.
Quote: "Guitarix offers this, Given, you play with good intonation/a
well tuned instrument, it works OK."

I was never able to make it work even with a well tuned guitar.


To be clear, we never claim to be able to do that!
That is a quote from a user, not from us (guitarix developers).
This audi2midi converter was never mean to do what you expected, it was 
ever mean as a "Band in the Box" experience.
I had a lot of fun with it by driving (qsynth) some percussion, or a 
Bass, . . with it, when I play alone guitar.

However, this module is removed (from the releases) since a year or so,
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[hermann meyer]

Am 10.02.2013 12:25, schrieb Jörn Nettingsmeier:

On 02/05/2013 03:58 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:

Greetings,



I'm not so interested in comments on the commentary, I have my own, but
say what you will about the list. I figure that most denizens of these
lists already have ready replies and responses to these and other
criticisms, many of which have been voiced here previously. What I'm
more interested in is what *you* think is missing most or just plain
wrong about the situation. Please, try to speak your piece without
flames or dissing other developers and/or their work.


[drum roll, the following with at least 15% THD and the distinct sound 
of a 50s ribbon mike after long abuse:]


ask not what free software can do for you, ask what you can do for 
free software!


[enter brass band with some heroic yet totally cheesy hymn 
arrangement, think charles ives stealing frank zappa's reggae horn 
arrangement of the stairway to heaven solo.]




free software, my friends, is a natural resource. complaining about 
the lack of this or that is just about as clever or useful as 
complaining about the utter lack of oil or rare earth metals on your 
home turf, which unjustly prevents you from becoming the next 
rockefeller.
making linux audio more approachable to people who have not grasped 
this basic fact has no benefits at all, neither to developers nor to 
users.


personally, i find my days of linux audio evangelism are over. it 
suits my needs better than ever before, and i make very sure that 
people i talk to are made aware of the treasure trove of linux audio 
tools.
and of course i assume the lotus position and put on my most radiating 
smile when people who have just figured that i'm a sort of computer 
person then start complaining about their problems with operating 
system $FOO and how proprietary tool $BAR is just a millstone around 
their necks. but that's it.
if they need guitar rig or protools or garageband, we can't give it to 
them, so obviously they are better off on other platforms. that is 
good. it's even better than turning them into frustrated converts who 
then keep complaining how they can't run TDM or RTAS plugins or their 
VSTs keep crashing or whatever.


if somebody decides to take the plunge (which also implies some other 
basic skills, such as being able to use email in a constructive 
manner, learning what IRC is, aiming at learning to compile one's own 
software, and so on), i will try to share tricks and help out as best 
as i can.


but why press-gang perfectly happy users of proprietary software into 
linux, or put up with jerks who think the world has to support their 
personal way of composing? that's just the lamest thing i can imagine.


don't get me wrong, i think it's perfectly ok for non-programmers to 
try and nudge developers gently towards what you think are good ideas. 
i do it myself all the time, but i try to do it 
_from_the_inside_of_a_project. that means i try to make myself a 
little useful, subscribe to the mailing list, learn the software, 
build from the latest dev tree, lose some productive time dealing with 
crashes and try to provide useful feedback. only then do i sound off 
about what new stuff i'd like to see.


anything else is just bikeshedding.


my 200 €.


jörn



+me

Often it sucks me, that, with my limited knowledge of the English 
language, I wasn't able to put things right on the point, like you have 
done it here.

Gladly that others could do, and do it.
Many thanks for this.

hermann

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Kjetil Matheussen]

On 07.02.2013 21:21, Kjetil Matheussen wrote:

William Light:
it's interesting to me that free (source and/or beer) music software 
on
OSX and windows has come further than it has on Linux. off the top 
of

my head:

http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php
http://www.buzzmachines.com/


I'm very interested in knowing what you're missing from Psycle and
Buzzmachines
that Radium doesn't have...


And what about Beast? To me it seems like Beast outnumber the number of 
features

of psycle and buzz?


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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[gerald.mwangi]

Auto mode for JACK latency is a good idea. I have another proposition: a dedicated graphical front-end for jack session. It could help users setup their workflow , by providing a list of all the jack aware programs installed, categorized by type (sampler, daw, synth). The program should aid in setting up a project , eg firing up ardour with several tracks, firing up synths (lv2 instruments/hosts incl) with presets selectable from the front-end with a preview sound. The front-end could trigger the synth in question with a midi note when selecting a preset. Lv2 plugins, that is pure audio effects, could also listed with the ability to directly send a signal from the audio interface through the selected plugin to quickly hear what it does. One could then associate the selected plugin with, say a track in ardour, and another plugin with a track in hydrogen or so. This would just be for setting up a project. The fine tuning comes later. Such a front-end could give the linux audio ecosystem as a whole a face, just like qjackctl gives JACK a face, and it does not degrade the quality of the ecosystem. Now of course , one can't expose options of all programs in the session-front-end but just the most important ones to quickly set up the project. You may think, why not just create templates, scripts so on? Well my personal subjective answer: my musical projects vary . I simply can't create templates and scripts because the configuration changes immensely from song to song. So the proposed front-end should allow a quick start into the project so that one could rapidly record an idea.This front-end could also list audio programs, plugins which are currently not installed, so that they are discoverable within one central place, much like an app-store or specialized repo (it could be connected to popular linux audio repos, e.g kxstudio).As a developer in computer vision (I'm doing my PhD developing largely on ubuntu) I am aware technical nitty gritty detail problems (realtime video has a lot in common with realtime audio), but here I'm trying to portray a bigger vision/picture. I've ditched windows years ago, and I have never owned an apple product. But I strongly recommend to learn from the two, to cleanly analyze the good and bad aspects of propriety audio software. Then cherry-pick the good aspects. This can only benefit open-source in general. And to make it clear: it is not my intention to grow the userbase at any cost. I rather want enhance the user experience quality for us current users, devs. You heard it: devs too;-) but in a manner that people can opt in to do things the way they want (no one would have to use the proposed front-end) .I can go further: such a front-end only makes sense if jack-session support is made mandatory, which I've suggested before and earned a storm of negative replies. So let the storm come ;-)Cheers,Gerald-- Sent from my HP TouchPadOn 10.02.2013 17:58, Dan MacDonald  wrote: Hi Ralf!On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Ralf Mardorf  wrote:
On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 09:59 +, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> * JACK needs to become more plug-and-play. I think its a shame it
> still offers no way to auto-detect optimal settings on any given setup
> and instead the user has to find out what options to tweak then find
> the best settings through trial and error.

How should it be done to auto-detect the best settings? IMO it's
impossible.Surely its possible to get an optimized JACK setup working better than it does currently?I'm not advocating JACK lose any of its options but what I'm thinking is something like this. Lets call the way JACK gets started at present the manual mode and I want to see an auto ('low latency scanner') mode added. On first run, auto-mode would do something equivalent to running a stripped down ecasound that would run a series of tests to determine the best settings (for tracking) that your setup can currently achieve without xruns. It would likely be up to the user to re-run the auto tests when they change hardware unless auto mode scans for that too. Exactly what the test would comprise of I'm not sure but maybe something like simulating a tracking a few tracks w/ plugins added to each. JACK has a dummy audio device so I'm presuming here that it could simulate recording sound too else maybe this is impossible.

>
> * JACK can still fail to start and just leave the user with some
> pretty cryptic errors as to why it failed.

I experienced this very seldom, but it's true, I at least remember one
very strange example on jack devel mailing list a while ago. The output
lead into a completely wrong direction.

> * JACK can't hot swap audio devices and so if the user wants this
> feature they have to integrate PA with JACK which sadly still isn't
> straightforward under many popular distros and then the user has to
> learn about how ALSA, PA and JACK interact.

Are there many cases when users need to switch the audio device?I switch audio device several t

Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Paul Davis]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 5:05 PM,  wrote:

> Auto mode for JACK latency is a good idea.
>  I have another proposition: a dedicated graphical front-end for jack
> session. It could help users setup their workflow , by providing a list of
> all the jack aware programs installed, categorized by type (sampler, daw,
> synth). The program should aid in setting up a project , eg firing up
> ardour with several tracks, firing up synths (lv2 instruments/hosts incl)
> with presets selectable from the front-end with a preview sound. The
> front-end could trigger the synth in question with a midi note when
> selecting a preset. Lv2 plugins, that is pure audio effects, could also
> listed with the ability to directly send a signal from the audio interface
> through the selected plugin to quickly hear what it does. One could then
> associate the selected plugin with, say a track in ardour, and another
> plugin with a track in hydrogen or so.
>

what you are describing is basically the "monolithic app" experience (from
a user perspective) but created using a set of independent applications and
processes.

speaking personally, i think there are better things to do with our time.
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[gerald.mwangi]

Correction:"Now of course , one can't expose options of all programs in the session-front-end but just the most important ones to quickly set up the project. '"I ment: one can't expose all options of each program, but just the most important options of each program to quickly set up the project.Sorry,Gerald-- Sent from my HP TouchPadOn 10.02.2013 23:05, gerald.mwa...@gmx.de  wrote: Auto mode for JACK latency is a good idea. I have another proposition: a dedicated graphical front-end for jack session. It could help users setup their workflow , by providing a list of all the jack aware programs installed, categorized by type (sampler, daw, synth). The program should aid in setting up a project , eg firing up ardour with several tracks, firing up synths (lv2 instruments/hosts incl) with presets selectable from the front-end with a preview sound. The front-end could trigger the synth in question with a midi note when selecting a preset. Lv2 plugins, that is pure audio effects, could also listed with the ability to directly send a signal from the audio interface through the selected plugin to quickly hear what it does. One could then associate the selected plugin with, say a track in ardour, and another plugin with a track in hydrogen or so. This would just be for setting up a project. The fine tuning comes later. Such a front-end could give the linux audio ecosystem as a whole a face, just like qjackctl gives JACK a face, and it does not degrade the quality of the ecosystem. Now of course , one can't expose options of all programs in the session-front-end but just the most important ones to quickly set up the project. You may think, why not just create templates, scripts so on? Well my personal subjective answer: my musical projects vary . I simply can't create templates and scripts because the configuration changes immensely from song to song. So the proposed front-end should allow a quick start into the project so that one could rapidly record an idea.This front-end could also list audio programs, plugins which are currently not installed, so that they are discoverable within one central place, much like an app-store or specialized repo (it could be connected to popular linux audio repos, e.g kxstudio).As a developer in computer vision (I'm doing my PhD developing largely on ubuntu) I am aware technical nitty gritty detail problems (realtime video has a lot in common with realtime audio), but here I'm trying to portray a bigger vision/picture. I've ditched windows years ago, and I have never owned an apple product. But I strongly recommend to learn from the two, to cleanly analyze the good and bad aspects of propriety audio software. Then cherry-pick the good aspects. This can only benefit open-source in general. And to make it clear: it is not my intention to grow the userbase at any cost. I rather want enhance the user experience quality for us current users, devs. You heard it: devs too;-) but in a manner that people can opt in to do things the way they want (no one would have to use the proposed front-end) .I can go further: such a front-end only makes sense if jack-session support is made mandatory, which I've suggested before and earned a storm of negative replies. So let the storm come ;-)Cheers,Gerald-- Sent from my HP TouchPadOn 10.02.2013 17:58, Dan MacDonald  wrote: Hi Ralf!On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Ralf Mardorf  wrote:
On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 09:59 +, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> * JACK needs to become more plug-and-play. I think its a shame it
> still offers no way to auto-detect optimal settings on any given setup
> and instead the user has to find out what options to tweak then find
> the best settings through trial and error.

How should it be done to auto-detect the best settings? IMO it's
impossible.Surely its possible to get an optimized JACK setup working better than it does currently?I'm not advocating JACK lose any of its options but what I'm thinking is something like this. Lets call the way JACK gets started at present the manual mode and I want to see an auto ('low latency scanner') mode added. On first run, auto-mode would do something equivalent to running a stripped down ecasound that would run a series of tests to determine the best settings (for tracking) that your setup can currently achieve without xruns. It would likely be up to the user to re-run the auto tests when they change hardware unless auto mode scans for that too. Exactly what the test would comprise of I'm not sure but maybe something like simulating a tracking a few tracks w/ plugins added to each. JACK has a dummy audio device so I'm presuming here that it could simulate recording sound too else maybe this is impossible.

>
> * JACK can still fail to start and just leave the user with some
> pretty cryptic errors as to why it failed.

I experienced this very seldom, but it's true, I at least remember one
very strange example on jack devel mailing list a while ago. The output
lead i

Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[gerald.mwangi]

Hi-- Sent from my HP TouchPadOn 10.02.2013 23:30, Paul Davis  wrote: On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 5:05 PM,   wrote:
Auto mode for JACK latency is a good idea. I have another proposition: a dedicated graphical front-end for jack session. It could help users setup their workflow , by providing a list of all the jack aware programs installed, categorized by type (sampler, daw, synth). The program should aid in setting up a project , eg firing up ardour with several tracks, firing up synths (lv2 instruments/hosts incl) with presets selectable from the front-end with a preview sound. The front-end could trigger the synth in question with a midi note when selecting a preset. Lv2 plugins, that is pure audio effects, could also listed with the ability to directly send a signal from the audio interface through the selected plugin to quickly hear what it does. One could then associate the selected plugin with, say a track in ardour, and another plugin with a track in hydrogen or so. 
what you are describing is basically the "monolithic app" experience (from a user perspective) but created using a set of independent applications and processes.speaking personally, i think there are better things to do with our time.
 Well just for the initialization of the project. The diversity experience of the multiple programs , ecosystem shall still be preservedGerald
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Paul Davis]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 5:48 PM,  wrote:

> Hi
>
>
>
>
> -- Sent from my HP TouchPad
> --
> On 10.02.2013 23:30, Paul Davis  wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 5:05 PM,  wrote:
>
>> Auto mode for JACK latency is a good idea.
>>  I have another proposition: a dedicated graphical front-end for jack
>> session. It could help users setup their workflow , by providing a list of
>> all the jack aware programs installed, categorized by type (sampler, daw,
>> synth). The program should aid in setting up a project , eg firing up
>> ardour with several tracks, firing up synths (lv2 instruments/hosts incl)
>> with presets selectable from the front-end with a preview sound. The
>> front-end could trigger the synth in question with a midi note when
>> selecting a preset. Lv2 plugins, that is pure audio effects, could also
>> listed with the ability to directly send a signal from the audio interface
>> through the selected plugin to quickly hear what it does. One could then
>> associate the selected plugin with, say a track in ardour, and another
>> plugin with a track in hydrogen or so.
>>
>
> what you are describing is basically the "monolithic app" experience (from
> a user perspective) but created using a set of independent applications and
> processes.
>
> speaking personally, i think there are better things to do with our time.
>
>
> Well just for the initialization of the project. The diversity experience
> of the multiple programs , ecosystem shall still be preserved
>

(1) your HTTP-only email confuses even gmail, and is probably inappropriate
for a technically oriented mailing list like this one.

(2) i'm not really that interested in preserving the "diversity
experience". i think it is much more valuable for developers, who get to
work on their own custom, standalone apps rather than being forced into a
framework as happens with plugin developers. there are a LOT of "linux
audio apps" that would be much more useful as plugins than they are as
standalone JACK clients. but this is only helpful for users, and puts
limitations on developers. look around you to see the result 
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Adrian Knoth]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 11:48:26PM +0100, gerald.mwa...@gmx.de wrote:

> Hi
> 
> 
> 
> -- Sent from my HP TouchPad

This is the third visually offensive e-mail within ten minutes or so.

Could you please stop cross-posting with your totally misconfigured
e-mail client to technical mailinglists?

Come back when you've found the button that leads to a proper plain-text
part in your multipart/alternative mails, or even better, no HTML at
all.


Thanks.

-- 
mail: a...@thur.de  http://adi.thur.de  PGP/GPG: key via keyserver

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[josef . jurek]

Mr. Wang; please do not post HTML to the list.  Thanks.

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Dave Phillips]

Greetings,

I've spent this morning reading through the ~200 replies to the topic. 
IMO the thread has devolved gracefully and I have the information I was 
looking for.


I'll make a fuller reply after I get into my article, but it's clear 
that the most pressing need is for more skilled developers. This is in 
stark contrast to the scene in 2000 - at that time virtually every 
member of LAU/LAD was a developer and/or technically involved user. Few 
of us were "just musicians". Now it looks like the musicians outnumber 
the devs, a not entirely unhappy situation, despite evident problems 
rising from the imbalance.


A great "Thank you!" to everyone who replied. For the most part the 
thread stayed on-topic, and I hope that your time was not wasted. I'll 
notify the lists when the article is published and when it's publicly 
readable (LWN subscribers get first look).


Best,

dp

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Robin Gareus]

On 02/10/2013 03:43 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
> Greetings,

Hi Dave,

> I've spent this morning reading through the ~200 replies to the topic.
> IMO the thread has devolved gracefully and I have the information I was
> looking for.

I've been waiting for that to say: I can find nothing that sucks about
Linux Audio ('xept maybe ~200 w[h]ining users :))

Looking forward to your article,
robin
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Charles Z Henry]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Dave Phillips wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I've spent this morning reading through the ~200 replies to the topic. IMO
> the thread has devolved gracefully and I have the information I was looking
> for.
>
> I'll make a fuller reply after I get into my article, but it's clear that
> the most pressing need is for more skilled developers. This is in stark
> contrast to the scene in 2000 - at that time virtually every member of
> LAU/LAD was a developer and/or technically involved user. Few of us were
> "just musicians". Now it looks like the musicians outnumber the devs, a not
> entirely unhappy situation, despite evident problems rising from the
> imbalance.
>

It would be great if we could get more students involved in linux audio.  8
years ago, I picked up linux in order to program some DSP audio code that I
was thinking about.  It really lowered the barrier of entry into audio
programming.  I think more engineering students could get involved, knowing
some of the things you can do with linux.

My university didn't have an audio program--there were maybe just a few
engineers I knew that were strongly inclined to work on audio or
acoustics.  There is a lack of collaboration between engineering and
art/music students here and very little direction from professors
concerning art and technology--but I see some of that beginning to change.

I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever to get
started.  So--might I suggest to do something more for student outreach?
What do you think would make a difference?

Chuck
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Charles Z Henry]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine <
alexandre.prokoud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 1:52 AM, Charles Z Henry wrote:
>
> > I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever to
> get
> > started.  So--might I suggest to do something more for student outreach?
> > What do you think would make a difference?
>
> Off-top of my head, try to get involved with Google Summer of Code.
>

> The graphics folks are traditionally well represented there: Blender,
> GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, OpenCV et al. Less so for video, and
> even less for audio.
>
> Alexandre Prokoudine


How about sponsoring good ol fashioned senior projects?  Big and visible
events like Google Summer of Code will be good for some students who want a
summer project on their resumes, but there's a comparatively larger number
of students who need to do a senior project every year.  Likewise the art
and music students need to create some kind of senior year portfolio or
recital.

I'm sure many of you in academics can (and do) encourage your students to
work with Linux.  We may not need funding like GSOC, just some way to get
more recognition of using linux as a platform for academic projects.

Chuck
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[fls]

Hi Chuck and list

A few time ago I wrote in javascript some small code generator. A few
friends wanted to learn audio programming and I did it because it is not
easy to start with an API and sometimes the code wrap  takes to much time.
These things also help me in some fast prototypes.

http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/LADSPA-generator/LADSPA_generator.html
http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/PDExternal-generator/PDExternal_generator.html

The main idea of both is to have a ready-to-use wraper and so one can
spend time really coding audio DSP.

Best regards

F Schiavoni

> My university didn't have an audio program--there were maybe just a few
> engineers I knew that were strongly inclined to work on audio or
> acoustics.  There is a lack of collaboration between engineering and
> art/music students here and very little direction from professors
> concerning art and technology--but I see some of that beginning to change.
>
> I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever to
> get
> started.  So--might I suggest to do something more for student outreach?
> What do you think would make a difference?
>
> Chuck
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>

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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Charles Z Henry]

Flavio,

These are really awesome!  Looks like a great way for newcomers to get
started.  I usually start by copy/paste..find/replace from an existing
class, but have to remove anything that's specific to that class.  You have
a better approach here.

Chuck

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 6:04 PM,  wrote:

> Hi Chuck and list
>
> A few time ago I wrote in javascript some small code generator. A few
> friends wanted to learn audio programming and I did it because it is not
> easy to start with an API and sometimes the code wrap  takes to much time.
> These things also help me in some fast prototypes.
>
> http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/LADSPA-generator/LADSPA_generator.html
> http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/PDExternal-generator/PDExternal_generator.html
>
> The main idea of both is to have a ready-to-use wraper and so one can
> spend time really coding audio DSP.
>
> Best regards
>
> F Schiavoni
>
> > My university didn't have an audio program--there were maybe just a few
> > engineers I knew that were strongly inclined to work on audio or
> > acoustics.  There is a lack of collaboration between engineering and
> > art/music students here and very little direction from professors
> > concerning art and technology--but I see some of that beginning to
> change.
> >
> > I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever to
> > get
> > started.  So--might I suggest to do something more for student outreach?
> > What do you think would make a difference?
> >
> > Chuck
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>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[fls]

Chuck,

Thanks for your reply. Just a few cents about: how to get students
involved in Linux audio development. We used this code generator in a kind
of DSP course. With this "wrapper" was possible to take some classic DSP
algorythms and create LADSPA plugins. Some results can be seen here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jaimeffects/

I'm pretty sure that these plugins are not new, awesome or anything. But
it was good to develop them and see them running.

cheers

f schiavoni

> Flavio,
>
> These are really awesome!  Looks like a great way for newcomers to get
> started.  I usually start by copy/paste..find/replace from an existing
> class, but have to remove anything that's specific to that class.  You
> have
> a better approach here.
>
> Chuck
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 6:04 PM,  wrote:
>
>> Hi Chuck and list
>>
>> A few time ago I wrote in javascript some small code generator. A few
>> friends wanted to learn audio programming and I did it because it is not
>> easy to start with an API and sometimes the code wrap  takes to much
>> time.
>> These things also help me in some fast prototypes.
>>
>> http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/LADSPA-generator/LADSPA_generator.html
>> http://www.ime.usp.br/~fls/PDExternal-generator/PDExternal_generator.html
>>
>> The main idea of both is to have a ready-to-use wraper and so one can
>> spend time really coding audio DSP.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> F Schiavoni
>>
>> > My university didn't have an audio program--there were maybe just a
>> few
>> > engineers I knew that were strongly inclined to work on audio or
>> > acoustics.  There is a lack of collaboration between engineering and
>> > art/music students here and very little direction from professors
>> > concerning art and technology--but I see some of that beginning to
>> change.
>> >
>> > I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever
>> to
>> > get
>> > started.  So--might I suggest to do something more for student
>> outreach?
>> > What do you think would make a difference?
>> >
>> > Chuck
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>> > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev
>> >
>>
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Re: [LAD] [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ? OP reply.

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2013-02-12 at 17:56 -0200, f...@rendera.com.br wrote:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/jaimeffects/

--> http://compmus.ime.usp.br/en

A picture of a Fairlight instead of a Linux DAW? Bad boy ;)!

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