[LAU] introducing l2ork

[alex rae]

The "What is L2ork?" link on their website has some more explanation.
The most succinct explanation is in their faq:

[quote]
What is L2Ork?
L2Ork stands for Virginia Tech DISIS Linux Laptop Orchestra, World’s
first orchestra of its kind built on Linux.
[/quote]

Though I agree that to those who've never heard of a laptop orchestra,
that may not be so illuminating.  For that, the PLOrk (Princeton
Laptop Orchestra) site (http://plork.cs.princeton.edu/bio.html) has a
bit more of an explanation.  Basically, the idea is to develop the
technologies (hardware + software), skills, repertoire, etc to enable
an ensemble of laptops/players to perform together, coordinating and
interacting with each other with both networking tech and
musician-type skills.

For generating sound, PLOrk (the first laptop orchestra) i believe
mainly uses ChucK (Ge Wang developed ChucK with Perry Cook at the
Princeton Sound Lab, the same group that started PLOrk).  I saw
somewhere on the L2Ork site that they are starting out by using Pd.
It would be interesting to see more behind-the-scenes info on the
whole setup.

Basically the reason that there's all the stuff about hardware and
also linux is just that they are doing both -- setting up a bunch of
computers with linux audio tuned to their needs, and building a bunch
of hardware to go with it (e.g. the special speakers (each computer
has its own speaker unit).

-Alex

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 11:18 PM, Guru Prasad B. R. <prasadbrg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Robin wrote:
>> 2009/10/23  <hollunder at gmx.at>:
>>
>>> On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:52:26 -0400
>>> "Ivica Ico Bukvic" <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Greetings all,
>>>>
>>>> I wanted to share with you my latest Linux-based and
>>>> Linuxaudio.org-related project that has been sucking up most of my
>>>> time over the past year or so to the point it seemed as if I have
>>>> disappeared off the face of the Earth. Needless to mention it
>>>> continues to alter my sleeping/eating patterns with unprecedented
>>>> aptitude and with no end in sight ;-).
>>>>
>>>> http://l2ork.music.vt.edu/
>>>>
>>> It would be real nice if you could say in a few sentences what it is.
>>> The about page on the website reads more like a personal history than
>>> anything else, and I haven't found anything that tells me what l2ork or
>>> disis is.
>>>
>>> Philipp
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Linux-audio-user mailing list
>>> Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
>>> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
>>>
>>>
>> http://disis.music.vt.edu/main/index.html has some info.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I'm sorry, Ico,  but I'd have to agree with Philipp on this. After
> spending quite some time going through the links that you've sent us,
> I'm still clueless about what L2Ork is.
> Here's the problem: The videos are essentially about speakers, which are
> hardware, but 1 of the 'L's in L2Ork stands for Linux, which is an OS.
> What I'm interested in (and I assume others on this list, too) is, what
> applications are used to generate the instrument sounds in Linux? Are
> these existing applications? Samplers? Synths? Or have you come up with
> something entirely new? Does it run on Jack? If so, how do you ensure
> robustness? These are just the first few of the pressing questions which
> remain unanswered after going through your links.
>
> It's possible that all this info is there, but I've somehow missed it
> (and so has Philipp). If so, I'd request you to take our limited
> info-gleaning abilities into account while providing more detailed
> information.
> Wishing L2Ork all the best!
> Cheers,
>
> Guru
>
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