Browsing Freshmeat tonight, the premier online Linux software repository, I came across to these two great (and brand new) applications, ReBorn and ReZound. Reborn, a Rebirth clone that will soon become open source according to the developer, provides a software emulation of three of Roland’s most famous electronic musical instruments. It got me thinking as to how much more viable Linux is today as a professional (or semi-professional) audio platform than it used to be two years ago. Update: On a related multimedia notice, WinAMP 3.0 for Windows was released yesterday.While ALSA, and especially OSS, still have some limitations, it seems that a number of great audio apps are emerging. Unfortunately, with only 4-5 exceptions, the same do not apply for professional 3D/rendering/video/vector-imaging applications though. Linux still does not have something similar to Apple’s iMovie or personalStudio for simple users, or Adobe Premier, or Cinema4D/Bryce/etc or a really professional DTP system, or something with the power of Illustrator/FireWorks/Freehand.
However, let’s browse together these great audio apps that are available today. Some of them, might actually need a helping hand to get further developed.
- ReBorn – A Linux version of the Windows/Mac program ReBirth, providing a software emulation of three of Roland Corporation’s most famous electronic musical instruments: the TB303 Bassline, the TR808 Rhythm Composer and the TR909 Rhythm Composer. Also thrown in are four audio effects, individual mixers and a programmable sequencer. ReBorn is fully compatible with the ReBirth .rbs song file format. (UPDATE: The project is now dead due to legal issues.)
- ReZound -Aims to be a stable, open source, and graphical audio file editor primarily for but not limited to the Linux operating system.
- Anthem – An advanced open source MIDI sequencer which allows you to record, edit, and playback music using a sophisticated and acclaimed object oriented song technology.
- Ardour – A professional multitrack/multichannel audio recorder and DAW for Linux, using ALSA-supported audio interfaces. It supports up to 32 bit samples, 24+ channels at up to 96kHz, full MMC control, a non-destructive, non-linear editor, and LADSPA plugins.
- DAP – A comprehensive audio sample editing and processing suite. It currently supports AIFF and AIFF-C audio files, 8 or 16 bit resolution, and 1, 2 or 4 channels of audio data. The package offers comprehensive editing, playback, and recording facilities including full time stretch resampling, manual data editing, and a reasonably complete DSP processing suite.
- GNUsound – A sound editor for Linux/x86. It supports multiple tracks, multiple outputs, and 8, 16, or 24/32 bit samples. It can read a number of audio formats through libaudiofile, and saves them as WAV.
- Bristol – A synthesizer emulation package. It includes a Moog Mini, Moog Voyager, Hammond B3, Prophet 5, Juno 6, DX 7, and others.
- Audacity – A cross-platform multitrack audio editor. It allows you to record sounds directly or to import Ogg, WAV, AIFF, AU, IRCAM, or MP3 files. It features a few simple effects, all of the editing features you should need, and unlimited undo. The GUI was built with wxWindows and the audio I/O currently uses OSS under Linux. We recently reviewed its version 1.0.
- TerminatorX – A realtime audio synthesizer that allows you to “scratch” on digitally sampled audio data (*.wav, *.au, *.mp3, etc.) the way hiphop-DJs scratch on vinyl records. It features multiple turntables, realtime effects (built-in as well as LADSPA plugin effects), a sequencer, and an easy-to-use GTK+ GUI.
- LAoE – A graphical audiosample-editor, based on multi-layers, floating-point samples, volume-masks, variable selection-intensity, and many plugins suitable to manipulate sound, such as filtering, retouching, resampling, graphical spectrogram editing by brushes and rectangles, sample-curve editing by freehand-pen and spline and other interpolation curves, effects like reverb, echo, compress, expand, pitch-shift, time-stretch, and much more.
- MidiMountain – A sequencer to edit standard MIDI files. Its easy-to-use interface should help beginners to edit and create MIDI songs (sequences), and it is designed to edit every definition known to standard MIDI files and the MIDI transfer protocol, from easy piano roll editing to changing binary system exclusive messages.
- GNoise – A GTK+ based wave file editor. It uses a display cache and a double-buffered display for maximum speed with large files. It supports common editing functions such as cut, copy, paste, fade in/out, normalize, and more, with unlimited undo.
- MusE – A Qt 2.1-based MIDI sequencer for Linux with editing and recording capabilities. While the sequencer is playing you can edit events in realtime with the pianoroll editor or the score editor. Recorded MIDI events can be grouped as parts and arranged in the arrange editor.
- Rosegarden – An integrated MIDI sequencer and musical notation editor. The stable version (2.1) is a simple application for any Unix/X system. The development branch (Rosegarden-4) is an entirely new KDE application.
- KGuitar – A guitarist suite for KDE. It’s based on MIDI concepts and includes tabulature editor, chord construction helpers, and importing and exporting song formats.
- Swami – An instrument patch file editor using SoundFont files that allows you to create and distribute instruments from audio samples used for composing music. It uses iiwusynth, a software synthesizer, which has real time effect control, support for modulators, and routable audio via Jack.
- SoundTracker – A pattern-oriented music editor (similar to the DOS program ‘FastTracker’). Samples are lined up on tracks and patterns which are then arranged to a song. Supported module formats are XM and MOD; the player code is the one from OpenCP. A basic sample recorder and editor is also included.
- Tutka – A tracker style MIDI sequencer for Linux (and other systems; only Linux is supported at this time though). It is similar to programs like SoundTracker, ProTracker and FastTracker except that it does not support samples and is meant for MIDI use only.
- amSynth – A realtime polyphonic analogue modeling synthesizer. It provides a virtual analogue synthesizer in the style of the classic Moog Minimoog/Roland Junos. It offers an easy-to-use interface and synth engine, while still creating varied sounds. It runs as a standalone application, using either the ALSA audio and MIDI sequencer system or the plain OSS devices.
- Cheese Tracker – A program to create module music that aims to have an interface and feature set similar to that of Impulse Tracker. It also has some advantages such as oscilloscopes over each pattern track, more detailed sample info, a more detailed envelope editor, improved filters, and effect buffers (chorus/reverb) with individual send levels per channel.
- SpiralSynth Modular – An object orientated modular softsynth / sequencer / sampler. Audio or control data can be freely passed between the plugins, and is all treated the same.
- gAlan – An audio-processing tool for X windows and Win32. It allows you to build synthesizers, effects chains, mixers, sequencers, drum-machines, etc. in a modular fashion by linking together icons representing primitive audio-processing components.
- Xsox – An X interface for sox. Record or play many types of sound files. Cut, copy, paste, add effects, convert file types etc.
- Voodoo Tracker – A project that aims to harness and extend the power of conventional trackers. Imagine self contained digital studio; complete and ready for your modern music needs. Additionally Voodoo will provide an interface that is designed for live performances.
- SLab – Direct to Disk Audio Recording Studio is a free HDD audio recording system for linux operating systems, written using Tcl/Tk. SLab can record up to 64 tracks.
- BeatForce – A computer DJing system, with two players with independent playlist, song database, mixer, sampler etc. It was planned as a feature enhanced Linux replacement for BPM-Studio from Alcatech.
Do you know any more professional or simply fully working audio applications for Linux? Share your knowledge with us (but do not mention plain audio players please). Dave Philips has a web page with many projects mentioned too.
>or Maya/Cinema4D/Bryce/etc or a really professional DTP >system, or something with the power of >Illustrator/FireWorks/Freehand.
AFAIK Maya is also available for Linux
Yep. Maya has been on Linux since Maya 3.
According to their store, they do not sell the Linux version via it (can’t find it anywhere). I found an updater for Linux, for an older version of Maya though, and that’s all I could find for it. The new version, that also distributes freely as “personal learning edition” is only available for OSX and Windows. Not sure what is the deal with Linux and Maya these days. They do not seem to be proactive anymore about it.
Linux is being picked up more and more in studios (Pixar, Dreamworks, even Lucas)…
However, I don’t think Maya is that serious about Linux. I don’t know why, but for Mac OS X and Windows, it has ample information. Even though Mac OS X has 3.5, while Windows 4.5. Personally, I think AW should take their money from OS X and put it in Linux because there would be more investment returns – Macs as they are right now aren’t suitable for professional 3D graphics (e.g. Do they have Quaddro4 or Matrox cards available for the PowerMac?)
Well, Linux can be seen as a good platform for network or 3D. But not audio AT ALL ! It’s deeply missing 2 key elements of modern audio programs : an equivalent to DirectShow and an equivalent to VST.
So all these guys are always reinventing the wheel, and not concentrating on a real multimedia API that everyone will use…
Gstreamer could be that but relys on GTK too much (who needs a screen for audio
. I also have good faith in what OBOS could be : the open multimedia platform. Maybe later the superior API (sort of) could be ported to Linux.
At least it’s good to see all these code resources that could be used in a bigger thing someday
I’m not sure if I would consider Rebirth the epitomization of “professional audio.” Linux needs better support for pro sound hardware and a lot of work on the software side of things – i.e. a real competitor against Pro Tools, Logic, and Cubase. Audacity and ProTux etc. really don’t cut it – they’re fine for recording onto a Sound Blaster or whatever, but not for laying down 16 simultaneous tracks of no-latency 24/96 audio along with 8 tracks of MIDI. Linux would make a great audio platform if it had better vendor support; there’s no technical reason it couldn’t be better than the Mac. But it appears that Digidesign/Steinberg/(Apple/Emagic)/etc. are too busy porting to OS X to give Linux much notice. The lack of pro sound hardware for Linux also leads to a chicken & egg problem: No hardware support means no software to run on that hardware, which means no hardware. Without vendor support, I don’t think Linux could ever be a viable option in this field except for the price-conscious. (Of whom there are admittedly many… but they are not the pro users.)
Alex
What exactly are the limitations Of alsa ?
Check out Ardour, that one’s supposed to be capable of multitrack 24/96 recording.
The forgotten ones: There are some more MIDI sequencers of different flavors like Brahms or Jazz, aRts is a modular Synthesizer and then there are of course CSound and PD.
As always, I am a little surprised as why those developers don’t join their efforts and work on one sequencer instead of ten and why everyone’s so focused on Linux when one could write free audio software also for Windows or MacOS, where you already have decent hardware support and software around it (those MIDI sequencers would be a lot more fun if I could use Dynamo with it).
In related news: SuperCollider for MacOS is freeware now, see http://www.audiosynth.com/
robUx4 I think you need to read up on GStreamer. GStreamer uses GObject and the signal/slot mechanism of GTK+ to construct a directed graph where media data is processed.
Not sure what is the deal with Linux and Maya these days. They do not seem to be proactive anymore about it.
Don’t jump to conclusions that fast. Maya is definitely getting bigger on Linux. Just check out the Maya 4.5 Preview page:
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/products/maya/whatsnew/v4.5/index….
Of course you should not expect any mention of this on Freshmeat 😉
fooks
A VST equivalent is LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer’s Simple Plugin API)
ProTux is an interesting Multitrack recorder. http://protux.sourceforge.net
And the mother of all Linux sound apps page http://sound.condorow.net
The app is called Premiere, not Premier.
see http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html
The shaketracker program provides a similar interface to cheesetracker (in fact, they’re both written by the same developer), but outputs MIDI files.
Unfortunatly, they don’t seem to be standard MIDI files, and Windows Media Player doesn’t like them. TiMIDIty renders them perfectly, though.
Don’t forget The JACK Audio Connection Kit,
mighty handy
http://jackit.sf.net
If more people donate to blender it could get gpl’d. Sure, blender isn’t the best 3D-design app in the world, but it’s not bad.
http://www.blender3d.com/
Only 40k to go.
I noticed one glaring omission, glame the GNU/LINUX Audio Mechanics. Never used it myself but i dont see how it could not be included in this list.
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linuxsound/
I have used snd for Linux – a bit of a learning curve,
but very powerful.
A lesser known, but truly professional sound creation and manipulation tool is Cecilia – http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/electro/CEC/. It provides a GUI for CSound but goes much much farther than that.
It is suited equally well for “scientific” sound engineering and for Aphex-Twin style mutilations of sampled sound.
Thanks for writing an article that brings some focus to Linux audio matters, but:
No mention of LADSPA, no mention of the Linux Audio Developers and Linux Audio Users mail lists, no mention of the Linux Sound & Music Applications Web site. No mention of the Ultramaster RS101 or the (alas, defunct) Freebirth. I’m glad to see some news on the state of Linux audio, but it saddens me to consider how much you missed. A simple Google search on “Linux sound” would have turned up my site very quickly, and you could have been led to considerably more information for your article. A ReBirth clone is hardly the revolution in Linux audio it’s touted to be, but you might think so if you’re not doing deep enough research. Ardour, ecasound, Jack, Pd, ALSA itself… all these are far more serious developments.
Sorry if I’m coming off harsh, but I’m annoyed when I see no mention of LAD or LAU. We’re not invisible, but it seems like a lot of journalists who write on this really don’t do much background research. Btw, there’s also no mention that I’ve already written one book about Linux sound software. A review of that book sits on Freshmeat. I should also point out that I wrote the audio category review for Freshmeat too. I’d like to think you at least noticed those items when you were browsing the site.
So, thanks again for bringing some attention to the Linux audio software scene, but maybe in your next article you’ll look a bit further into the community behind it. We’d be happy to point out the software of greatest development and interest.
Don’t forget about the linux distro being built from the ground up with pro-audio in mind…
http://www.agnula.org
> Btw, there’s also no mention that I’ve already written one book about Linux sound software.
No, there is not a mention of any books, neither I will mention projects that half-work or do not work at all, like FreeBirth.
Also, I tried to cover *applications*, NOT libraries, or architectures like ALSA. Also, I do mention Ardour.
>No mention of LADSPA, no mention of the Linux Audio Developers and Linux Audio Users mail lists
Even if I knew about these, I would still not mention them in that specific article. This article was just a mentioning of applications that someone could download and install and play with them immediately.
This web site is not about audio, it is about operating systems, therefore, when I want to get a bigger breath and do something fun, like this article, you don’t have to stick it in my ass. You should even be happy that I did wrote as much as I wrote there, and made the Linux audio more known to a wider audience.
You need to go out more.
You neglected to mention GDAM, an OSS digital dj mixing software package.
http://gdam.sf.net/
You seem to have forgotten glame at http://glame.sf.net . It is one of the better editors for GNU/Linux. One of the nifty features is that it uses 32 bits per sample instead of 16 (this is supposed to be faster because it doesn’t have to split words apart), so when you edit you are editing a copy with more range, so when you down sample you lose less quality from the filters. You can also have an arbitrary number of channels per track and other nice stuff like excellent plugin support (native plugins, LADSPA plugins, and Scheme plugins [yes, it _will_ work with Guile 1.5/6.x and 1.7.x because I sent patches that were accepted a while ago that made it compile and run with Guile 1.5.6 and 1.7.0, while still working with Guile 1.4]). The biggest weakness right now is the timeline–it is basically useless right now. But the rest of it works very well.
You also seem to have left off snd ( http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/software/snd/ ), one of the most powerful audio editors available (it is really difficult to use, although there is a person working on set of Scheme scripts to make it more friendly).
> neither I will mention projects that half-work or do not
> work at all, like FreeBirth.
Freebirth does work. Alas, it isn’t maintained and it could definitely use a File Save function. But it has great sound and is very easy to use.
> This web site is not about audio, it is about operating
> systems, therefore, when I want to get a bigger breath
> and do something fun, like this article, you don’t have to
> stick it in my ass. You should even be happy that I
> did wrote as much as I wrote there, and made the Linux
> audio more known to a wider audience.
>
> You need to go out more.
My apologies, I thought I had written “Thanks” in there somewhere… I also didn’t think my message was an ad hominem attack, I’m sorry you took it like that. So, following your advice, I’m going out now.
I don’t think the author even tried to run all of the applications that are listed. If he did he would of realized that many of them are not usable. For example:
* Ardour is wonderful in concept but it fails as an end user application. Ardour doesn’t really work and it is a major pain to compile and install it. The author of Ardour basically admits that “this is a feature”, that the program is in beta, if you aren’t leet enough to install it you don’t deserve to use it. Talk about serious attitude.
* LAoE doesn’t work on my machines. It is a Java program and it fails to even startup on my Linux box with Sun’s Java. I’m sure it works for someone but none of my friends can get it to run either.
I think there is a serious problem with the quality of Linux software reviews. I think since most everything is open source and free the journalist’s feel bad if they criticize. So we end up with fluff and vapor that really don’t help Linux win over users.
>>
Don’t forget about the linux distro being built from the ground up with pro-audio in mind…
>>
It seems like AGNULA is not an standalone Linux distro, but a RedHat based one ——> the RedHat ReHMuDi Linux distro.
Quote (http://www.agnula.org/news/project/deliverables_and_documents/1.2.2…):
“The ReHMuDi distribution will stick as close as possible to a standard distribution, and the set of AGNULA tools will be bundled in an Anaconda.
The installation will therefore be performed thru the classical Red Hat graphical interface, and the default/recommended installation mode will imply the default selection of the AGNULA – Anaconda package.
Selecting the ‘choose packages’ option will allow the more experienced user to individually select specific components, having inter application dependencies still
automatically resolved.
…
Kernel
Some patches have to be applied to the kernel, in order to get the low latency capabilities.
Sound processing applications require a high degree of real time performance.
This is done by reducing the time interval at which interrupts are checked and granted, so that system/kernel critical tasks gain access to ressources more quickly
and see an increase in their effectiveness.
A known problem of stock Linux kernels with respect to real-time performance is the latency peaks that can occur under heavy load condition. This is highly problematic within the context of AGNULA because it prohibits efficient use of the real-time audio applications that will be packaged (JACK, Ardour, jMax, PD…).
A solution to this problem have been developped and exists as a number of patches to the Linux kernel, known as the ìlow-latencyî patches.
A whitepaper (written by Clark Williams) exists on this very specific topic, and many contributors to this feature are Red Hat employees.
This whitepaper is attached after this document in the email.
Patched kernels have already been packaged as RPM and will be included in ReHMuDi.
The ReHMuDi installer will install low-latency patched kernel as well as standard kernels. The GRUB boot loader will be configured in order to propose at boot time
choice between the low-latency patched kernel and the standard kernel.
The inclusion of low-latency patched kernel in the distribution will require carefull
tests of this kernel, as it has not been used yet as a base for Linux distribution.”
So if I haven’t missunderstood, the AGNULA distribution is more exactly the RedHat ReHMuDi distribution with the AGNULA packages in. Not an OS by itself but another RedHat flavour, though all opensource projects will benefit:
Libre Software Copyright/Licensing recommendations (http://www.agnula.org/news/project/deliverables_and_documents/1.3.1…):
“2 Rules in the AGNULA distribution.
Software licenses may vary radically with regard to issues of copyright, distribution, and even usage. Therefore the AGNULA project distinguishes between four softwarelicensing
categories:
1. Free Software under a GPL-compatible Copyleft license approved by the Free Software Foundation.
2. Free Software under a GPL-compatible non-Copyleft license approved by the FSF.
3. Free Software under a GPL-incompatible license approved by the FSF.
4. Proprietary Software.
…
2.1 Rules for including software in the AGNULA distribution.
AGNULA’s primary definition of Free Software is that of the Free Software Foundation.
Software licensed under categories 1 to 3 may be included without legal issue in the core AGNULA distribution although category 1 will be preferred. For documentation,
categories 1 and 2 are acceptable for inclusion in AGNULA.
3 Copyright Rules
The aim of the AGNULA project is to provide two GNU/Linux distributions, entirely based on Free Software. To ensure persistence and longevity of the work within the AGNULA IST project, it will be important to provide adequate measures to protect this work.”
——————————————-
CONCLUSIONS (1 out of 5?)
——————————————-
– RedHad+AGNULA=ReHMuDi
– ReHMuDi=mostly GPLed software
– Mostly GPLed software=That is always Free Software
– Free Software=only RedHat can figure out how to make that profitable.
– Only RedHat can figure out how to make that profitable=I’m downloading ReHMuDi 1st day it’s released.
AGNULA will be shipped with RedHat’s ReHMuDi as the project test base distro, but looking at the software licensing rules nothing prevents any other distro from taking the AGNULA packages and directly make their low-latency Linux media OS with those: MaNMuDi?, SuSuDi? (hey, Sushi Linux), …
>>>robUx4: “Gstreamer could be that but relys on GTK too much (who needs a screen for audio
.”
Wrong! Gstreamer relies on glib which is the foundation of gtk+ as well but has by itself nothing to do with a “screen”.
BTW if you want to do audio processing with a computer you better think twice if you ommit the screen 8)
> AGNULA will be shipped with RedHat’s ReHMuDi as the project test base distro, but looking at the
> software licensing rules nothing prevents any other distro from taking the AGNULA packages and
> directly make their low-latency Linux media OS with those: MaNMuDi?, SuSuDi? (hey, Sushi Linux), …
I don’t see why one could not take all the appropriate packages and a low-latency kernel and beat AGNULA
to the punch. In fact, the AGNULA team has another test base distro, DeMuDi (based on Debian) for those
who prefer debs over rpm. What might be really interesting would be if someone could get some of this software
running on the so-called hobby os’s, such as Atheos or Cosmoe.
> AGNULA will be shipped with RedHat’s ReHMuDi as the project test base distro, but looking at the
> software licensing rules nothing prevents any other distro from taking the AGNULA packages and
> directly make their low-latency Linux media OS with those: MaNMuDi?, SuSuDi? (hey, Sushi Linux), …
I don’t see why one could not take all the appropriate packages and a low-latency kernel and beat AGNULA
to the punch. In fact, the AGNULA team has another test base distro, DeMuDi (based on Debian) for those
who prefer debs over rpm. What might be really interesting would be if someone could get some of this software
running on the so-called hobby os’s, such as Atheos or Cosmoe.
ok, enough is enough. why are people constantly talking about how linux is for this, or how rad it is for that. something tells me that you could run audio software on linux, bsd, macos, windows, whatever, and it would sound exactly the same. what makes linux so awesome? i think that linux has turned into more of a buzzword than anything else, OH MY GOD IT’S LINUX IT MUST BE GOOD. REVERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! give me a break. linux is an operating system. one might argue that it’s better for server’s than it is for desktops (and i would agree) or that it’s the os of the future, but in the end, there’s a reason that windows has almost a 100% market share. no, it’s not because of the EVIL EMPIRE or because bill is greedy, it’s because anyone can install windows, and anyone can get online and check their e-mail using it. it just works, you don’t need to read binary and sh*t c++ to get it to boot. linux has it’s place, it really does make a nice server. IF you know how to get it going.
I never said that Linux is great. I am not a great fan of Linux anyway. I personally preffer FreeBSD. And for audio in general, I like BeOS much better, thank you very much.
The article is called “Professional Audio Closer to Linux” not “Professional Audio is better on Linux”.
You are way off topic and out of sync in your comment and I suggest you take a big breath.
kyle, Linux is hackable to the maximum >> it is mostly opensourced, some distros a 100%. It’s getting quite usable in more platforms than you may know. And sometimes free of any charge.
No one here has said about Linux any of the things you have pointed out so histerically. People here use Linux, Windows, DOS, BSDs, BeOS, Amiga, MacOS, OSX, …any OS. So clear your ideas, read the topic and ***most*** important: cool yourself a bit.
Hey dude,
you are missing the point. ALSA is by far a better system than let’s say VST or DirectX. Just that you don’t know it can’t be an excuse…
(ever done some audi programming yourself? – never seen Qbase crash?)
Steinberg has never been known to ship rock solid software.
Well, maybe Cubase on the Atari ST was pretty solid, back when programmers were intelligent.
I haven’t heard anything about Cubase SX yet.
#m
How is it that they are getting away with this. I recall that a few years back there was another app (Bamboo) that was also a ‘clone’ of rebirth and the company threatend to sue them if the released it.
If i remember right bamboo was pritty much full featured but never released.
Ive tride Rebirth and done some professional work on the Windows platform, and the BeOS Platform. What ive heard about the linux system is that all the servers can make you cry.
There is a really neat tool for BeOS called XRS, its actually better then Rebirth (Dont look that nice though).
But you can load drumsamples(or any samples) and add effects, change tempo etc. You can also use VST 2 plugins, a VST instrument (Very nice sounding, and free)..
If you want to play/make some nice music Try XRS on the BeOS Platform.
/Konrad
>>>Eugenia: “I am not a great fan of Linux anyway. I personally preffer FreeBSD.”
I can’t see how you could make a difference between these two unless you’re doing systems programming. Most user apps are available under both–so for the user it doesn’t matter much. In my opinion a statement like this is ridiculous here.
Linux needs better support for pro sound hardware
The finest digital multitrack interface known to the computer world is *fully* supported under linux (even can with linux drivers in the box)….
The RME Hammerfall DIGI96/52.
24 simultaneous tracks of 24/96 input, full AISO support, realtime monitoring…..
It’s great. I have one. I have been forced to install Win2K on another partition, just to run Nuendo (a superior product to ProTools IMO.. it’s just a computer-mixing-board and nothing else) and the RME card + Nuendo is amazing.
In Linux, where I live 95% of the day, I have the kernel module installed, I can get and recieve data from the card perfectly… but there’s really no app that can even touch Nuendo’s excellent abilities.
I’ve tried every linux multitracker/mixer I can find (about 25-30 apps) and they are all ok for amateurs, but certainly none of them would be fun to use after you have seen Nuendo.
So, the hardware support is there. We need multitracking apps! Ardour is looking good, but it’s got a long way to go… Broadcast (now it has a new name) was ok for assembling pre-existing tracks, but it definitely didn’t make the process much easier… ProTux has potential, but I can’t get it to do anything really useful yet…
I would spend the $1,000 *again* on Nuendo if they had a Linux version.
I would spend the $1,000 *again* on Nuendo if they had a Linux version.
Why don’t you just get over it and use it on Windows? What would be the benefit of running Nuendo on Linux that is worth $1000 to you?
>I can’t see how you could make a difference between these two unless you’re doing systems programming.
KDE launches and behaves faster on FreeBSD 4.5 than on any of my Linxes on the same machine. That is enough for me to know which one I want to use each time.
> In my opinion a statement like this is ridiculous here.
Not in my experience.
Perhaps $1000 would make Ardour more competitive more quickly, if you put it in a brown paper bag and give it to the right person. (Not me, I’m too busy and too expensive)
You were kind of vague about why Ardour falls short. Were you just concerned that it’s not finished ? Or are there things Nuendo does for you that aren’t on Ardour’s TODO list ? I personally don’t know much about audio, I spent a few hours tinkering with CE2K to get a feel for what’s expected at the low end, but the high end is mostly a mystery to me.
If Linux want to succeed in the (pro) audio field, there definitely should be some unification of a multimedia architecture. The OBOS Media Kit could be an option soon (but hardcore Linux fans won’t like it since it’s sh*t C++).
Also keep in mind that no developper has the time/money to do a plugin for DirectShow, VST and 10 other incompatible architectures. So until someone gets done in the audio community (someone mentioned some mailing lists), nothing will come from the big names. And so the “progress” in audio softwares will be done out of Linux. (while all the rest is focusing on Linux now)
That’s what is badly needed. In the list there’s only a mention to alpha projects like Rosegarden 4. In these comments people mentioned Jazz++ (defunct project), Brahms (dead at release 1.0.2, nobody is answering to the mailing list for months) – Anthem, muse etc. is all in pre-development stages.
A good solid unified project for a serious MIDI sequencer will pose the foundations for the Linux audio. Without this, why anybody doing music with a PC should even think of Linux for his work/hobby ?
This is the sad reality – not to mention the fact that it’s even hard to find a good MIDI player, not a sequencer … In fact, only PMIDI, a command line utility, until now gives me full access with good quality to my MIDI devices:
Port Client name Port name
64:0 External MIDI 0 MIDI 0-0
65:0 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 0
65:1 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 1
65:2 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 2
65:3 Emu10k1 WaveTable Emu10k1 Port 3
72:0 External MIDI 1 MIDI 1-0
73:0 Emu8000 WaveTable Emu8000 Port 0
73:1 Emu8000 WaveTable Emu8000 Port 1
73:2 Emu8000 WaveTable Emu8000 Port 2
73:3 Emu8000 WaveTable Emu8000 Port 3
74:0 OPL3 FM synth OPL3 Port
80:0 External MIDI 2 MIDI 2-0
something tells me that you could run audio software on linux, bsd, macos, windows, whatever, and it would
sound exactly the same. what makes linux so awesome?
something tells me that you haven’t tried making music in windows.
while it probably _sounds_ the same on all of the systems (given it’s the same app and identical driver) it doesn’t work the same in practice.
Why do you think that workarounds like GSIF exists on the windows platform? Because the OS couldn’t provide latency low enough. Fine, so they got a workaround. well, the problem is that the driver for your card has to support it, which can make it troublesome to use many apps with the same outputs. It’s also a pain for the driver developers that has to support several different interfaces, which for the user means that he has to wait longer for drivers.
To me, making music in Windows is pure hell. Even something as simple as MIDI can make me bash my head into the wall because it just doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.
That said, there is currently no other OS on the x86 platform that will let me make good recordings. But I’m trying to do something about it, because I can’t stand working in windows. I want something that “just works” and to me, that’s BeOS (and please don’t tell me that BeOS is dead, bla bla, we’ve all heard that too many times). Linux still has to many issues to be a good system for audio production in my opinion. But it has potential. If someone could make and easy-to-use distro with quality apps and no xfree then I’m all for it.
But for now, I’m trying to make BeOS (and later on OBOS) my OS for audio production. It’s been my dream since R4 and I’m not going to let it go to easily. unless something better comes in my way. (yes I’m keeping an eye on Amiga)
Anyway, the OS matters a whole lot when it comes to audio production. And that’s a fact. Everything from the kernel, driver interface and filesystem to the user interface matters. Not to mention the stability.