[linux-audio-user] The Open Loop Library, a few questions

[Conrad Parker]

On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 10:06:05PM -0700, Darren Landrum wrote:
> After some considerable thought as to the best way to organize such a 
> library, as well as what a project such as this will do to my free 
> time, I have a few ideas and questions to present to the list.

Hi, this sounds like an excellent idea, and a wonderful way to use up
all your spare time :))

> Every loop would have attached to it:
> 
> a) Time signature
> b) Tempo
> c) Key (If applicable. Drum loops, for example, would not need this.)
> d) Creator's name
> e) Instrument(s) (This one is tricky, since there are so many 
> instruments in the world. It would need to be a free-text field, which 
> means misspellings could be a problem. Possible solutions?)
> f) Loop or one-shot (Not everything meant for a loop-based composition 
> program need be an actual loop. Drum fills and cymbal hits come 
> immediately to mind.)
> g) Style (This one creates some issues, due to how subjective it can 
> be.)
> h) Comments (A free text field the creator of the loop can use to 
> attach whatever additional info they feel it needs.)
> i) A million other things I can't think of at the moment. :)
> 
> One problem that needs to be solved is how to attach these kinds of 
> metadata to a loop.

info on generic metadata for audio formats is at:

  http://www.vergenet.net/~conrad/sounds/textual_data.txt

I've just now corrected that document for Ogg Vorbis, and added Speex; if
anyone has any additions or corrections, please let me know.

It would be possible to store all this information in the comments
packet of Ogg Vorbis or Ogg FLAC encoded loops; the vorbiscomment spec
is open enough to allow this. Of course much of this information can
also be stored in WAV chunks, as is done for ACID.

Conrad.