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

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Mon Jun 20 13:50:53 UTC 2005


> -Alsa/Jack integration in timestamping is poor, syncronizing audio to 
> midi is a pain

i suspect that you don't understand (or perhaps even know about) the
DLL-driven jack_frame_time().

> -Jack lack of midi

as noted, released and undergoing subtle revisions as it moves towards
CVS.

> -Jack lack of OSC or any way to do parameter automation from the sequencer

name one platform that allows this. just one.

> -It is Impossible to do any sort of offline render, or high quality 
> render of a song (like, in 32/192khz) using JACK/Alsa

i think you don't understand jack_freewheel().

> -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.

that's because LASH's initial implementation was wrong and that
following Bob's description of how to do it "right", nobody has found
time to do it right.

> -Adding/Removing softsynths, linking connections, etc takes a while 
> having to use qjackctl, etc

tell me a system in which this not true. i use the patchbay in qjackctl;
if you don't like qjackctl, i'm sorry and i am sure rui is as well.

> -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

this is completely ridiculous. the client can attenuate on its inputs.
where would you rather have these controls - distributed across N apps
or on the control interface for just one?

> -Lack of tempo-map based transport, I cant adapt my midi-only sequencer 
> , which works in bars,

you can't do tempo-map based transport without sharing the tempo map.
nobody has suggested a way to do this yet. please feel free.

> 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.

well, thats sad. i wonder what audio API you'll decide to use ...






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