[linux-audio-user] audio/video player for theatre use anyone?

Thomas Vecchione seablaede at gmail.com
Fri Mar 2 19:09:56 EST 2007


> 
> Can't you extend an existing app rather than starting a new project?
> I know that Ardour has been used for sound installations, how are the
> requirements of a theater different? 

Was looking at it, but at this time I am not sure Ardour is the best 
choice.  Plus I gotta refresh my coding at the same time as its been a 
while, ardour is not what I like to jump in on;)

Useful things in CURRENT playback software I can think of right off hand...


1.  The ability to have a number of cues start instantly, and seemably 
random points in time, but in a consecutive order most of the time.  To 
give an example...

I build a thunderstorm sequence.  In this sequence are 5 cues that loop 
back to each other and fade between each other an indefinite amount of 
time, killed by a sixth cue.

Also in this sequence are other specific sound effects that do not occur 
at set intervals, but are actor motivated, or otherwise dependant on 
other factors than just time.  For example, a phone might ring, thunder 
might crash(And have to be sync with a lighting console for lighting 
effects), lightning might strike and blow out the lights on stage, whatever.

And then we have the cue that fades out the 5 cues of the background 
ambience of the storm.

The ability to mix in more ways than Ardour currently does.  Matrixes in 
particular, but an equivalent to a VCA would also be good, as well as 
post fade aux sends.  Some of this from a playback perspective might be 
addressed by the addition of ambisonic panning to a variety of different 
sources in ardour, which has been discussed.

The ability to launch multiple cue lists, each one might do different 
sets of effects like are described above.  For instance one cue list 
might contain all the thunderstorm ambience, and one might contain the 
otherwise motivated effects.  The ambience cue list might be 
launched(Fire and forget) from the initial cue list, that might also 
contain the set effects, and a cue to stop the ambient cue list.

Now I have not looked to much into playlists in ardour to see if they 
might be modified to handle things like this.  My ideal would be a very 
modularized system, and I would love to be able to do it in Ardour 
itself, however (And the devs can correct me if I am wrong) this is not 
a direction I believe Ardour should take as IMO it should probably 
concentrate on one thing, and that is being the best multitrack audio 
recording and editing solution it can be.  Get to fragmented in the 
direction it takes and it will suffer as a result IMO.

Things like post fade aux sends(Which in themselves could be the basis 
for a matrix if attached to a bus) and VCAs I could see being 
implemented eventually into Ardour, though I am currently not holding my 
breath as there are other things with higher priority.  If that did 
happena nd playlists got modified to be able to be launched 
independantly, as well as a functions to control other things, like 
sequencers or whatever via Midi/OSC  it might get there.

But then the question is, from a standpoint of accepting there is 
limited time for people to spend on these things, which is going to 
create a better product for it, one that is dedicated to a single use, 
or one that is modified for multiple uses?

I am certainly not against digging into Ardour and submitting patches 
after I finish refreshing my memory and going through the simple APIs I 
have been dealing with audio(IE Jack and libsndfile) but at the moment I 
am not sure it is the best way of handling things.  But dang being able 
to run a show and record it in the same program would be amazingly nice 
for me;)

        Seablade



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