[LAU] A virtual LAU chillout band

[Rob]

On Wednesday 14 November 2007 02:49, Mark Constable wrote:
> Audacity has it's aup format files that could be useful.

The .aup format was the first thing I looked at.  Audacity itself is 
not scriptable enough to use in a headless web application, but its 
format seems to be a pretty straightforward XML EDL.

> No reason why anyone can't "fork" the current piece and start a
> new one from a particular point of the old ones evolvement.

Right, and while forking is usually a bad sign in the free software 
field, I would hope the culture that springs up around the kind of 
tool we're talking about would see it in a more positive light.

> Bingo, I've been looking around for a torrent based server/client
> system that handles revisions and delta updates but it doesn't
> exist.
> T'would be a great project for anyone into deeper coding. I'd
> go for Git as the revision backend with a C/C++ torrent lib OR
> perhaps a distributed rsync client/server system.

I don't know that any of CVS, SVN or Git will be suitable for what 
we're doing here.  Keep in mind that this system would most likely 
never be receiving any patches at all, just new tracks and EDLs.  
It's similar in concept, but still something that hasn't really been 
tried before as far as I know.

On Wednesday 14 November 2007 02:59, Mark Constable wrote:
> Perhaps a judicious compromise between using MIDI, where
> feasible, and vorbis test tracks (again, where feasible) and
> only relying on flac'd wav tracks towards the end of the
> pieces lifetime when it comes time for mastering.

That works great when everyone's purely an electronic musician, and I 
participated in some "email GM files across the Atlantic" projects in 
the mid-90's, but I personally enjoy using real instruments along 
with all the samples and virtual synths.  Often I start with a guitar 
or bass riff, and in those cases it's going to involve a waveform 
from the very first track I lay down.  

If I compose a melody by humming it or playing it on the piano or 
something, sure, it'll start out as a MIDI file (or XM module, if all 
I have on me is my Nintendo DS, or in the past a Buzz machine or 
whatever) but I don't just compose in a single way.  Having listened 
to some other people's posted songs, I have a feeling I'm not alone 
in this.

In any case, I think using any existing binary diff tool would be 
basically impossible for a structured file like a MIDI file, and 
difficult at best for FLAC files.  Again we'd end up needing to write 
something new that would be of limited purpose outside our community.  
I think if someone wants to upload a new fragment of a track, 
a "patch" if you will, he or she needs to just upload that segment as 
a new track and the software would let them cut it into the track 
they're "patching", again using an EDL.

We're already talking about requiring FLAC uploads and that means 
using the native file formats of Audacity, Ardour, Aldrin or any 
other commonly used tool in a traditional CVS/SVN environment is 
probably not going to work; it'd be up to the contributors to 
maintain the original guide track they're working from (click track, 
previous mixdown, or whatever) and export a FLAC track that they 
could upload to the project and then tell the web app where it needs 
to go (its offset, I guess.)

Rob