Jkmeter-0.4.0 is now available at the usual place:
<http://www.kokkinizita.net/linuxaudio/downloads>
Jkmeter is a combined RMS/digital peak meter based on
the ideas of mastering guru Bob Katz.
New options in this release:
-type k14 : K14 scale instead of the default K20.
Use this for mixing to a higher average level.
-A : Ambisonic (4ch) mode.
-C : Adds a stereo correlation meter.
Used on a Ambisonic B-format signal the correlation
meter uses W and X, and indicates how 'forward' the
sound stage is.
Enjoy !
Ciao,
--
FA
Follie! Follie! Delirio vano e' questo!
Hi list.
My name is Holger Ballweg, I am a student of Musikinformatik (musical
computer science?!) and musicology at the university of music in karlsruhe.
I'm using Linux for quite some time now, often using audio applications.
To discover new applications, there luckily is linuxaudio.org's appdb.
Unfortunately many of the apps aren't actively developed, some are
nowhere to be found because the homepage has vanished.
I just started editing the wiki and wanted to know, if we could add a
tag, which in some way makes it possible to see which projects are still
active or which not.
A possible solution could be to include some mechanism to show which
packages were updated in the last couple years by including a timestamp
for the last release (like proposed in the wiki) in the app entry and to
add an to the listings, which shows projects updated in the last 12 months.
I'd like to mess with the wiki some more, but first I'd like to have a
possibility to mark those old projects...
Cheers,
Holger
Qtractor 0.2.2 (flirty ditz) is out!
------------------------------------
Qtractor is an audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application, written in
C++ on top of Qt Software's Qt4 framework, having JACK and ALSA as its
main infrastructures and Linux as native and exclusive platform.
Specially suited to the lone-wolf composer, arranger and (re)creative
music-maker personal home-studio, it still hopes to evolve as a fairly
featured desktop audio/MIDI workstation or at least, a prototypal part
of it ;)
Release highlights:
* Stephen Doonan joined documentation team and revised the user manual.
* Spurious MIDI events recording bug ow fixed.
* Audio track monitoring and plugin loop processing slightly improved if
not fixed.
* MIDI clip editor improved precision and correct snapping.
* Multiple track mute and solo one-click toggling (NEW).
* Better MIDI connection persistance across sessions.
* Record-armed tracks aren't muted on playback anymore (NEW).
* Optimized audio clip waveform caching and drawing.
* Many more or less fixes (see change-log)
Website:
http://qtractor.sourceforge.net
Project page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor
Download:
- source tarball
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.2.2.tar.gz
- user manual
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.2.2-user-manual.pdf
Weblog (upstream support):
http://www.rncbc.org
License:
Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of
the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.
Features:
- Multi-track audio and MIDI sequencing and recording.
- Developed on pure Qt4 C++ application framework (no Qt3 nor KDE
dependencies).
- Uses JACK for audio and ALSA sequencer for MIDI as multimedia
infrastructures.
- Traditional multi-track tape recorder control paradigm.
- Audio file formats support: OGG (via libvorbis), MP3 (via libmad,
playback only), WAV, FLAC, AIFF and many, many more (via linsndfile).
- Standard MIDI files support (format 0 and 1).
- Non-destructive, non-linear editing.
- Unlimited number of tracks per session/project.
- Unlimited number of overlapping clips per track.
- XML encoded session/project description files (SDI).
- Point-and-click, multi-select, drag-and-drop interaction (drag, move,
drop, cut, copy, paste, delete, split)
- Unlimited undo/redo.
- Built-in mixer and monitor controls.
- Built-in connection patchbay control and persistence (a-la QjackCtl).
- LADSPA, DSSI and native VSTi plug-ins support.
- Unlimited number of plug-ins per track or bus.
- Plug-in presets, programs and chunk/configurations support.
- Audio/MIDI clip fade-in/out (linear, quadratic, cubic).
- Audio clip time-stretching (WSOLA-like or via librubberband),
pitch-shifting (also via librubberband) and seamless sample-rate
conversion (via libsamplerate).
- Audio/MIDI track export (mix-down, merge).
- Audio/MIDI metronome bar/beat clicks.
- MIDI clip editor (piano roll).
- MIDI instrument definitions (a-la Cakewalk(tm))
- JACK transport sync master.
- MMC control surface enabled.
- Configurable keyboard shortcuts.
Change-log:
- Slight optimization in audio and MIDI meters refresh rate.
- Another ancient bug has been squashed: MIDI events were being recorded
even though recording wasn't rolling; spurious event times were being
recorded due to an absent started queue.
- Major fix applied to audio track monitor metering, and most
importantly to plugin processing, correcting tentatively all audio
buffer offsetting and slicing due on loop turnarounds.
- Fixed a potential crash and/or simple record dismissal when changing
properties of a track already armed for recording; prevent record
engaged tracks from editing or removal.
- Lighten up the connections line and highlight colors, as seen to fit
best on some darker background themes.
- Several icons refined with slight transparent shadowing.
- Send/reset all MIDI buses and track controllers (ie. volume and
panning) only when main transport playback is started, avoiding the
pouring on eg. loop, playhead or tempo changes.
- Pressing the Escape key also clears current selection in the main
track-view and MIDI clip editor; resizing multiple events at once
doesn't need help from Shift or Ctrl modifiers anymore.
- DSSI and VSTi plugins get all their default parameters values reset on
MIDI program change.
- Several major fixes have been applied to the MIDI clip editor,
regarding snap precision and correctness, most specially due on clips
which weren't located on exact bar boundaries.
- Brand new usability feature introduced: mute, solo and monitor
toggling may now be applied to all tracks in session at once, when
issued with either the Shift or Ctrl keyboard modifiers, which will set
or reverse respectively all other tracks state.
- Audio buses plugin chain may be also accessed and edited from the
extended bus management dialog (View/Buses...).
- MIDI meter level default color is now set distinct from the old
lime-green one as in audio level meters.
- MIDI clip editor is now a genuine top-level window, fixing all
keyboard shortcut ambiguities with main application window.
- Mixer splitter panes are now collapsible and optionally hidden.
- Make MIDI instrument patch management a little more sane, as for
preventing the accidental insertion of blank instrument names and
automatic default bank/program selection in track properties.
- All connections are now based exclusively on the textual client and
port names, effective in particular to match MIDI bus ports with
disregard to their volatile numerical identification.
- MIDI file (SMF) header endianess fix (PPC users rejoyce:))
- Record armed tracks aren't muted for playback anymore, as this was a
severe crippling nuisance regarding input monitoring and all mighty user
experience after recording a simple take; for instance, as the bottom
line goes, there's no need to un-arm a track from its record-enabled
state anymore, for just recorded material get heard on immediate
playback; kick on the jam!
- Playhead position overflow fixed on negative MMC STEP commands.
- Thumb-view width proportions now based on minimal slack session length
instead of the auto-extending track-view contents width.
- Optimize audio clip drawing, most specially on zoomed-out levels.
- Bring the audio peak frames into some sort of cache, preventing
recurrent peak frame buffer reallocation and trashing.
Cheers && Enjoy!
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc(a)rncbc.org
On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 8:03 AM, plutek-infinity <plutek(a)infinity.net> wrote:
>>Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>>> New options in this release:
>>>
>>> -type k14 : K14 scale instead of the default K20.
>>>
>>> Use this for mixing to a higher average level.
>>>
>>> -A : Ambisonic (4ch) mode.
>>> -C : Adds a stereo correlation meter.
>
> just want to add my sincere thanks for this meter! i've been looking for a k-type meter for a while now, and with the inclusion of both k20 and k14 scales, as well as correlation, this is now going to be *permanently* glued to my screen! (not only for function, but it also just looks really tasty!)
Yes, Thanks Fons. Very handy!
I noticed that jnoise link on your download page goes no where. Is it available?
--
Brad Fuller
www.bradfuller.com
I've been playing with and watching various tutorials for Processing,
the Java framework for generative video and video effects.
http://processing.org/
What blew me away recently, though, was this video from Wesen on
building a "game of life" MIDI sequencer with it (watch the whole thing,
it's worth it):
http://vimeo.com/1824904?pg=embed&sec=1824904
(Of course, Paul reads the same blog that I do, so he'll know about this
already.)
Notice that Processing has its own editor, with controls to compile and
run any program you make in it, single-click. Not much different than an
IDE, I suppose, though I would be hesitant to say that an IDE is better
because it's more powerful, as I would have to disagree: what makes
Processing so powerful and so popular is because it's so specific to its
niche. Combine it with a very thorough (and expandable) framework and it
becomes very powerful.
Why couldn't we make something like that for audio? It would most likely
be C++ rather than Java, but the idea of building up DSP networks using
a large framework of code, plus some pre-defined functions and settings,
and being able to launch our new code with a one-touch button into a
JACK client (or whatever), is extremely appealing to me. Throw in some
GUI-building elements (Cairo-based, perhaps) that can handle
mouse-clicks, keyboard input, and the like, then suddenly people who are
good at math and DSP but not so good at coding might have a shot at
making some great programs.
Consider this a feeler post for a potential project. I am unfortunately
not a great coder, but at this point, I can't help but think that
something badly-coded and working is still better than well-written code
that never actually gets written.
-- Darren Landrum
I suppose you've all noticed this newish class of ultra portable cheap
netbooks based on the Intel Atom? Forget about that, there's apparently
already a new kid on the block.
The tiny Beagle Board based on Texas Instruments OMAP3530 has been
available for some time, then came this week the Pandora - a pocketable
computer with built in game-controller, also based on the 3530 - and
caused quite a stir on Slashdot.
And now today I read that Dell is going to introduce a fullsized Vista
laptop that as an added bonus, alternatively can fastboot into one these
tiny OMAP environments. Nokia also has a product in the pipe ... And
they are all running the Linux kernel of course.
What is this hype all about?
The bad News
--------------
* Random access memory is on chip and hardwired to 128MB.
This means that Desktop Environments like Gnome is out of the equation.
(I realize that some might reckon this as good news ..)
The good News
----------------
Hardware OpenGL ES 2.0 and an Arm processor with support for vectors of
float as well as double aside, the one thing that strikes me the most
is:
* It's a 2 Watt system! .. including everything and the kitchen sink.
So if not really running on candle light, it is not a far cry. A
pocketable solar cell should be enough to get you up on your marks
again, in case you run out of juice. At these power levels, battery
lifetime finally appears irelevant.
The real star of the show - and why I am mentioning anything at all of
all of this - is the included DSP:
* The TMS320C64x+
At first I was a little disappointed that this is not a floating point
DSP - we have kind of settled for floats as the standard carrier for
audio here lately - but since those domains are already covered by the
Arm vector co-processor, I reluctantly downloaded the 1000 page manual
to see if I could figure out some of what it is all about ...
TI describes their DSP as an "advanced very long instruction word (VLIW)
architecture", which is another way of saying that a bunch of
instructions are grouped together and excuted in parallel on seperate
execution units, each on their own data .. not totally unlike the these
days familiar notion of SIMD, where a single instruction is executed in
parallel, also on multiple data, but in the VLIW case of course way more
flexible.
The execution units are eight in numbers, all slightly different from
each other except for two that are specialized in memory address
calculations, store and load, and do not resemble anything else. This
symmetric pattern of two applies to the other execution units as well.
In fact - except for a few corner cases - you could view the the whole
DSP as being a dual processor, each half having its own four 32bit
execution units for load/store, (dual) 16bit fixpoint madd, 32/40bit
shift and 32/40bit fixpoint mul as well as their own register file. The
capabilities of the units overlap somewhat and is not set in stone the
way I just outlined above. Furthermore, instructions may be predicated,
that is to say that depending on a condition the individual instructions
may be replaced with a noop so that one (or more parts) of this 8 way
instruction mayhem can relax and enjoy having arrived at a result
instead of mindlessly overwriting it, while the rest do their best to
clean up their act. Oh, and did I mention that each VLIW can be set up
to execute in parallel, serial or anyting in between ..
If the above does not sound like your favourite sunday soduko, do not
dispair. For private evalution or opensource developement, there is an
optimizing C-compiler available as a free download from TI themselves.
Final Words
------------
Both of the boards available at low cost to developers for the time
being utilizes the same audio codec which also doubles up as a decision
engine for power saving state (or perhaps that should be the other way
around?) Samplerates are for playback: 96K, 48K, 44.1K, 32K and similar
for recording except no 96K. The bittiness is 16. There are two channels
in and two out and ALSA is supposed to work out of the box.
References
-----------
The Pandora Wiki has a convenient link page:
http://pandorawiki.org/Hardware_documentation
I suppose you've all noticed this newish class of ultra portable cheap
netbooks based on the Intel Atom? Forget about that, there's apparently
already a new kid on the block.
The tiny Beagle Board based on Texas Instruments OMAP3530 has been
available for some time, then came this week the Pandora - a pocketable
computer with built in game-controller, also based on the 3530 - and
caused quite a stir on Slashdot.
And now today I read that Dell is going to introduce a fullsized Vista
laptop that as an added bonus, alternatively can fastboot into one these
tiny OMAP environments. Nokia also has a product in the pipe ... And
they are all running the Linux kernel of course.
What is this hype all about?
The bad News
--------------
* Random access memory is on chip and hardwired to 128MB.
This means that Desktop Environments like Gnome is out of the equation.
(I realize that some might reckon this as good news ..)
The good News
----------------
Hardware OpenGL ES 2.0 and an Arm processor with support for vectors of
float as well as double aside, the one thing that strikes me the most
is:
* It's a 2 Watt system! .. including everything and the kitchen sink.
So if not really running on candle light, it is not a far cry. A
pocketable solar cell should be enough to get you up on your marks
again, in case you run out of juice. At these power levels, battery
lifetime finally appears irelevant.
The real star of the show - and why I am mentioning anything at all of
all of this - is the included DSP:
* The TMS320C64x+
At first I was a little disappointed that this is not a floating point
DSP - we have kind of settled for floats as the standard carrier for
audio here lately - but since those domains are already covered by the
Arm vector co-processor, I reluctantly downloaded the 1000 page manual
to see if I could figure out some of what it is all about ...
TI describes their DSP as an "advanced very long instruction word (VLIW)
architecture", which is another way of saying that a bunch of
instructions are grouped together and excuted in parallel on seperate
execution units, each on their own data .. not totally unlike the these
days familiar notion of SIMD, where a single instruction is executed in
parallel, also on multiple data, but in the VLIW case of course way more
flexible.
The execution units are eight in numbers, all slightly different from
each other except for two that are specialized in memory address
calculations, store and load, and do not resemble anything else. This
symmetric pattern of two applies to the other execution units as well.
In fact - except for a few corner cases - you could view the the whole
DSP as being a dual processor, each half having its own four 32bit
execution units for load/store, (dual) 16bit fixpoint madd, 32/40bit
shift and 32/40bit fixpoint mul as well as their own register file. The
capabilities of the units overlap somewhat and is not set in stone the
way I just outlined above. Furthermore, instructions may be predicated,
that is to say that depending on a condition the individual instructions
may be replaced with a noop so that one (or more parts) of this 8 way
instruction mayhem can relax and enjoy having arrived at a result
instead of mindlessly overwriting it, while the rest do their best to
clean up their act. Oh, and did I mention that each VLIW can be set up
to execute in parallel, serial or anyting in between ..
If the above does not sound like your favourite sunday soduko, do not
dispair. For private evalution or opensource developement, there is an
optimizing C-compiler available as a free download from TI themselves.
Final Words
------------
Both of the boards available at low cost to developers for the time
being utilizes the same audio codec which also doubles up as a decision
engine for power saving state (or perhaps that should be the other way
around?) Samplerates are for playback: 96K, 48K, 44.1K, 32K and similar
for recording except no 96K. The bittiness is 16. There are two channels
in and two out and ALSA is supposed to work out of the box.
References
-----------
The Pandora Wiki has a convenient link page:
http://pandorawiki.org/Hardware_documentation
Heya!
At the audio microconf at the Linux plumbers conference one thing
became very clear: it is very difficult for programmers to figure out
which audio API to use for which purpose and which API not to use when
doing audio programming on Linux. Someone needed to sit down and write
up a small guide. And that's what I just finished doing.
I'd thus like to draw your attention to this new (long) blog story of
mine containing this guide:
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis
I'd be very thankful for comments!
Lennart
--
Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553
http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4
