[linux-audio-dev] What parts of Linux audio simply suck ?

[Juan Linietsky]

Dave Phillips wrote:

> Greetings:
>
>  The subject says it all.
>
>  My own "Linux audio sucks" hobbyhorse:
>
>    No way to recall a complex configuration of apps and plugins with 
> all settings intact. If I use a complicated setup with multiple synths 
> and plugins I have no way to recall these applications to their 
> previous settings. LASH/LADCCA was supposed to address this situation 
> but I don't know where that project stands at this point.
>
>  And your favorite is... ?
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
>
>
As I said many times It's not that I hate Linux Audio, but mainly that I 
believe that it is too poor
in features/API for my taste. I tried very hard for several years to 
make my apps play together
with jack/alsa, but I find myself very limited in many areas as a 
programmer and user:

-Alsa/Jack integration in timestamping is poor, syncronizing audio to 
midi is a pain
-I have no way to ask from a sequencer, the patch names available in a 
softsynth to list them
-Jack lack of midi
-Jack lack of OSC or any way to do parameter automation from the sequencer
-It is Impossible to do any sort of offline render, or high quality 
render of a song (like, in 32/192khz) using JACK/Alsa
-Saving/Restoring your project is just painfully hard. LASH doesnt help, 
and even when I came up with the idea of it in the first place.
-Adding/Removing softsynths, linking connections, etc takes a while 
having to use qjackctl, etc
-Lack of send%.. I just cant have a jack client doing a very high 
quality reverb, only as wet processing and have clients send different 
amounts of the signal to it, thus saving CPU
-Lack of tempo-map based transport, I cant adapt my midi-only sequencer 
, which works in bars,
beats, etc to a frame-based transport.  Say I want to run my sequencer, 
then go thru softsynths
and record/edit in ardour.. no go.

But overall, what mostly annoys me of linux audio is that most API 
programmers just implement
the features THEY use and need, and not what others may need. And since 
they mantain the thing,
even adding them yourself is pointless, as they will most certainly not 
accept patches. Ok, that's
fine, they are on their right to do it, after all i'm not paying them to 
do it, they work for themselves.

All this has simply led me to decide to not use such APIs anymore and 
integrate everything I do
in big, and monolithic apps, such as reason, cubase, etc and not care 
about the outside world anymore.
After all, it takes me less time to write the features I need for 
myself, and into my own than dealing with people's religious software 
views to get them integrated into other projects.

Cheers!

Juan