[LAU] FOSS DAW recommendations

Tim termtech at rogers.com
Mon Nov 20 04:13:12 UTC 2017


> I recently had a demonstration where the mics were wired wrong and so
> the two "stereo" channels I recorded on were mixed up.  You think I
> managed to split the tracks into mono in order to salvage two usable
> tracks?  No beef.  I'd have had to do a stem export and reimport.  Or
> something.  Didn't really fit in the demo time frame.

Hi, may I offer some technical perspective:
I'm no Ardour expert but I've studied a few areas in detail.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm curious if I've actually got this right.

With the MusE Sequencer, the 'splitting' you describe is easy.

The two halves of a stereo track can be further routed to any
  other tracks, mono or stereo. In fact /any/ channels from any
  track can be routed to any other track's channels individually.

How does MusE accomplish this, while Ardour seems to /enforce/
  track channel routing compatibility?

For one reason only: The panner.

You see, MusE does not yet have /true/ multi-channel tracks
  beyond 2 channels - except for synth tracks: we do support
  all multi-channel synths.

(The extra channels of such a synth track can be routed elsewhere,
  the first two are presented on a mixer strip. In other words,
  we don't yet have multi-channel wave tracks so you can't just
  take all the synth channels and route them to one wave track,
  you must split them up and send to several wave tracks.)

Therefore, currently our 'panner' is just fine - it looks
  the same whether for a mono or stereo track. MusE magically
  manages to route all signals properly.
For example, if you route /two/ of a stereo track's output
  channels to some other /mono/ track, while /also/ routing
  those channels to some other /stereo/ track, MusE's panner
  'just works' correctly, as a panner for the former and a
  balance for the latter.

FYI: To ease user routing, instead of having to route individual
  channels like that, we support a concept called 'omni routing'
  where you just make /one/ connection from the source track to
  the destination track and MusE automatically figures out how
  to mix all those channels together - and most importantly
  how to pan or balance - depending on the number of source
  and destination channels. It also works for multi-channel
  synth tracks - you can route all 16 channels of drumgizmo
  into some other multi-channel plugin, with just one route.


Anyway I digress...

Full, true multi-channel tracks for MusE have been on my mind,
  of course. And with that came a question:
Since we allow such 'free-form' channel-to-channel connections,
  then how the heck would the panner work with multi-channels?
What panner will we show on each mixer strip?

You see, it's /impossible/ with a single all-purpose panner
  like MusE currently has.

So that's why I believe Ardour enforces such routing
  compatibility, because of the panner.

Am I right, or way off again?

Tim.
The MusE Sequencer project.


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