[LAU] ShowQ - "a QLAB for Linux"

[Jostein Chr. Andersen]

Hi Francesco,

On 2015-06-04 12:26, Francesco Ceruti wrote:
...
> It's not written in C/C++, but in Python, and i know, a lot of people
> could complain about this choice, but the development is
> faster and easier. The cpu-expensive parts are managed by C/C++
> extensions like GStreamer and Qt5.

If your program is made for musicians and music engineers, then the 
people who complain about this is not your target audience! :-)

It is very unlucky that developers use so much energy to advertise the 
toolkit and/or programming language in their program names and the 
explanation of the programs.

The end user perspective: -The program works or not and does the job 
good or bad. For developers and fellow geeks: -The toolkit and language 
are of interest and should not be a concern for the musicians and 
engineers. While we're at it: -Several good music programs are done in 
Phython.



As I wrote in another posting on this thread:
---------------
"Linux Show Player do really have the right GUI and end user 
perspective in mind; an in house mixer or any other person can hardly do 
anything wrong with it when the heat turns up. All the the person in 
charge has to do is to click at the song and then the song plays with 
useful clear visual feedback. But it really has it's technical 
limitations on a little bigger projects with it's lack of multichannel 
and real Jack support. I will investigate Linux Show Player further in 
case I missed something.

ShowQ has the ability to deliver everything one basically needs for 
backing tracks in a live situation, that's why I will stick to it now. 
And small details like the fact that the space button starts the que but 
can't stop it shows that the program's author really has been in this 
situation or has been thinking right."
---------------


In a live situation, one really need to have multi-channel abilities 
that just works in a Jack environment and ShowQ delivers and take care 
of the routing (patching) from for example a single flac multitrac file.

The reason for using multi-tracks is that one might to have a different 
track for the audience and one ore more channels for (in ear) 
monitoring. Some common examples:
  - A mono track for the audience
  - Someone saying in a monitor channel the song name before it starts,
    (very useful in case the person in charge picks the wrong song).
  - Count ins, clictrack in quiet passages
  - Perhaps little less bass for the vocalist(s), making it
    easier to sing in tune.


When Linux Show Player can handle multi-track through Jack, then I will 
use it. The GUI is right and the ease of use is there. And as I said: it 
doesn't matter if it's Python, C++ or whatever, most known languages are 
sufficient enough for playing a multi-track file - it's the end user 
aspect that matters.

Jostein