[LAU] ANN: Jacker 2010.5.4

Leonard Ritter paniq at paniq.org
Fri May 7 09:06:52 UTC 2010


On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:40 PM, Atte André Jensen <atte.jensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2010-05-05 10:34, Atte André Jensen wrote:
>
>> Looks really cool, will give it a try later!
>
> Ok, I tried it a bit. Very minimal, but nice. Two questions:
>
> 1) I have a hard time finding noise making apps that runs under jack-midi.
> Could you (or anyone else) please list the must-haves with jack-midi. I
> especially need a "sampler" ala specimen, but also synths ala ams or
> zynaddsubfx.

Right now, the landscape is dry. The only tool I'm using is QSynth in
JACK MIDI mode + A truckload of soundfonts. Everything else is
controlled via regular MIDI.

Of course that's insufficient. Jacker is supposed to be a nod to other
developers to upgrade their apps to Jack MIDI.

If you find any more cool Jack MIDI apps, please let me/us known. :)

>
> 2) I use and have used trackers alot. I appreciate the precise control they
> give over sample playback. But I'm not sure exactly what the benefits are
> when just keeping the interface, and having external software handle the
> audio, thus letting go of the tracker-style-control. Could you elaborate?
> Why should I use jacker over say dino?

Good question.

I have experience with apps such as Impulse Tracker, Jeskola Buzz and
Aldrin. Those apps are pretty integrated and monolithic. If you wanted
to extend Buzz or Aldrin, you would have to do that within the
application, in the confinements of a plugin.

With Jacker, I wanted to rip this monolithic structure apart and
contribute to the modular Jack ecosystem, but keep the Tracker-style
interface because it attracts me more than a piano roll-based
interface.

So, actually you shouldn't use Jacker over Dino or the other way
around. The best way would be to use it in conjunction with e.g.
Ardour, where tightly patterned and rhythmic control structures would
be needed to record parts of a song. And if you just wanted to record
some MIDI off your keyboard and edit that piano roll style, you would
use Dino.

The way I see it, your final result would always end up in a DAW
somehow, no matter where it came from.

Regarding the "letting go of the tracker-style-control" bit: I don't
see how that is true. Jacker also lets you send raw MIDI commands and
CC changes, so you could also control MIDI based effects
tracker-style, if you wished to do so.


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