[linux-audio-user] Linux synths

Ken Locarnini renueden at earthlink.net
Mon Sep 15 12:22:01 EDT 2003


Hi Atte,
I've used Csound alot in the past too.  Mostly command line from Common Music which I like alot.  I'm trying to go more real-time though now.  I just decided I would try and get into PD!  

How is your orchestra set-up.  Do you have 1 synth per instrument per channel?  I always had a hard time in Csound as I wanted to have 1 synth per 16 channels and have them all have their own set of presets.  PD supports multiple midi ports so I thought that would probably work, though learning another language will be tough as I know Csound well.  I also want the graphic routines, and as you know Csound dosen't have the Opengl stuff in Linux, (yet).  I also don't understand the status of Csound right now.  Is anyone actually working on coding Csound5?  I'm on the lists but can't tell.
Thanks,
Ken



-----Original Message-----
From: Atte Andr? Jensen <atte at ballbreaker.dk>
Sent: Sep 15, 2003 8:47 AM
To: linux-audio-user at music.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Linux synths

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 07:44:23 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Ken Locarnini <renueden at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I'm happy to be back after about 2 years away from Linux.  The
> audio/music world seems to be taking off and thats great.

Indeed!

>  I'd like some general comments on what would be peoples favorite
>  reactor type synth in Linux as of now.  I'm primarily interested in
>  realtime, multi timbral midi controlled synths.

I simply love csound. It's flexible, powerful, stable and well
documented. I know that some (most?) people find the fact that it's text
based a minus, but I don't agree. After working with pd intensely for a
couple of weeks I realized that I work much faster in csound.

I'm running csound under debian/unstable on kernel 2.6.0-test5 with a
csound buffersize of 128 on a PIV 2400 laptop, using Evolution USB
keyboards as controllers. I have more polyphony in real time than I can
use with two hands for "normal" (subtractive, fm, sample playback,
soundfont playback, additive) patches. This is even with a few global FX
units (chorus, delay and rotary speaker) running all the time.

The only not-so-nice thing about csound is that I didn't manage (or try
that hard, actually) to make it run alongside other sound-producing
applications, including jack, pd or fluidsynth.  Could be a problem if
you want to use LADSPA plugins or do hd-recording...

>  How about sequencers?

I didn't work much with sequencers under linux, but FWIW I've settled on
Muse. Needless to say it's quite simple to route midi events from Muse
to csound.

-- 
peace, love & harmony
Atte




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