[LAU] A year of Linux Audio revisited - would like to know your oppinion

Sebastian Tschöpel tschoseb at tu-cottbus.de
Tue Dec 11 02:30:57 EST 2007


Hello Robert,

thank you for your comprehensive and interesting reply.

> Although I have tinkered with it for a while, it is only recently that 
> it has actually become a viable audio platform for me. The two key 
> factors are wineasio and the continued improvements in the Windows DAW 
> Reaper. 

Have you ever tried ardour? I know it isn't MIDI-capable (yet!) but to 
me it is a
great DAW. As far as i know, Reaper isn't a linux-application at all, right?

> Like with any mainstream commercial DAW, you can start up Reaper and 
> carry on working where you left off. This is an absolute essential for 
> conventional multitrack recording. 

That is something Ardour can provide. At least you could easily pick the 
last
session in the start-up menu and off you go. Are there certain problems 
you've discovered
by using Ardour? If you tried it.

> Proper and comprehensive session management is an absolute must.

Agreed.

> Therefore it just isn't true that LMMS can do the kind of job
> that FL Studio can do, yet it seems that many people in the Linux audio 
> world think that it is. 

That is correct. As for Rosegarden. I think it's not appropriate to 
compare tools with
similar windows application especially if the handling is not (yet) 
anything compared
to the windows tools. I also see no sense in it. As long as you do, 
people will always
tend to use the "original".

  > Jack is another area of concern for me. [...] Either jack must
> become more forgiving or client applications must automatically 
> reestablish their own connection with jack and their routing to other 
> clients.

Well, I guess I have to agree. These are some problems I also had to 
experience,
especially the xruns/crack-noises when you connect certain clients.
Another problem is: When you try to change the buffer size of the soundcard
you have to restart jack (what goes with disconnecting/closing all 
clients).
On windows you could do that during production. This
is important to switch between recording (low latency, small buffer) to 
mixing with
lots of effect (latency uninteresting, more ressources for effects).

> And of course it also lacks groove quantise.

Thanks for pointing that out. This could be a problem to me very soon.

> There are also some outstanding driver issues. 

Okay. To me that is by far the biggest problem and as i said, i don't 
think musician
or (semi-) professional producers would ever touch a linux machine as 
long as this
problem exists. Even if it's something the linux-developers aren't 
responsible for.

> I should probably let someone else get a word in now.

I would be glad to hear some more (other) oppinions, as well.

Best regards,
Sebastian.

web: linuxaudioblog.sternenhejim.de



More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list