5 Sep
2003
5 Sep
'03
9:59 a.m.
A few thoughts come to mind immediately:
1. The GNU/Linux user base consists more wholly of technically inclined
people than found in other user bases (IMHO). Linux users don't
typically think with the end of their mouse and are often quite
accustomed to solving their own problems. Furthermore, the OSS
community in and of itself is very supportive and it's unlikely a vendor
will have to create a sophisticated support infrastructure for their
product (afterall, we've managed this far often with little or no help
from vendors... look how far alsa has come). Do they really think we
are going to go one-click two, "oops call support?"
2. It's all about time to market, and now is the time. If these guys
wait too long, their playing field is only going to shrink, with many
more open source products that will waste any proprietery solution they
could hope to offer. Right now the game is open and there really aren't
any standards like VST around. LADSPA and JACK are developing nicely
though, and sooner than later someone is going to step up to the plate
with the full unified audio spec (hmmm splunge anyone?). The virgin is
just waiting to be spanked, so who's up to the job?
3. It's all about partnering. There are tons of pro studios out there
that wouldn't mind ditching a couple hundred licenses of MacOS or
Windows for a nice stable and integrated solution. These guys need to
be thinking about partnering with hardware developers because the
largest benefit of Linux from a business standpoint (again IMHO) is that
it sells hardware. It runs on nearly anything without having to scratch
a nutt.
4. Performance. Is there anything to compare to XFS realtime for the
desktop environments? I believe OSX is still on UFS. Linux has been on
journalled filesystems for a while now. Preempt patches have been
available for some time, and 2.6 will include these as standard. The
story just keeps getting better. Linux is now an extremely responsive
OS, and if you're complaining about not having any standard apis
available then why don't you step forward and write some? You've got
the lovely kernel source right in front of you and a ton of developers
out there that would love to help you along. Look at how successful
Apple engaged the community with it's OS X development.
Final comments... people such as I tend to be in Linux because it offers
an alternative. The GUI for me is a floating element, not an encasing
one. This idea is certainly a departure for those desktop based OSes.
But just look at all the CSound crazies at it. You'll never hear these
guys complain about not having a pretty gui because part of the idea of
such a system is grainular control. Linux in many ways offers this
where no other can. My advise to those contemplating designing
professional audio software for linux is this: leave as much
application and feature set control in the hands of users as possible,
keep it as open as feasible (no patents on recursive algorithms for
calculating comb filter coefficients please :) ), and use the resources
of your community. Peace, love and prosperity will follow in due
course.
Any ideas on what Creamware has been up to? They've been really quiet
about Linux lately, perhaps they don't want anyone to know about their
integrated audio dsp workstation based on... who knows? But apparently
something off is in the works.
In any case, I don't intend to spend 20k on my audio station when my 5k
one works just fine. By the way, bayviewproaudio.com has half decent
prices on the RME HDSP cards I noted for those in the US (sfb.net for
Europe). I had to go and get me one of these as I just don't have the
time to reverse engineer a card that a company doesn't want to release
specs for, apparently even under NDA. Good bye beloved PowerPulsar and
sblive. Let me know if anyone finds the RME cards for cheaper, I will
buy more!
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/hdsp9652.htm
And thanks to Thomas!
http://www.undata.org/~thomas/
Regards,
Shane
On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 03:13, Uwe Koloska wrote:
Hello,
the german magazine KEYBOARDS has answered a readers question
about audio and linux with tremendous ignorance. I think this
is a good chance to push linux to the attention of "the masses".
Here is the full text of question and answer (first in german,
so anyone can correct my errors ;-).
--- KEYBOARDS --------------------------------------------------
Leserbrief:
Habe mir schon ein paar Mal KEYBOARDS am Kiosk geholt, weil mich
gerade das Thema Recording und Computer interessiert. Einige
Artikel waren für mich recht interessant. Nur vermisse ich
gänzlich Vergleiche mit Linux. Ist es Absicht, dass dieses
aufsteigende System nicht erwähnt wird, oder traut sich keiner ran?
Seit einigen Monaten steige ich auf Linux um, nur meine
Musik-Geschichte hängt hinterher. Dabei gibt es in SuSE eine
Menge Musik-Software und Synthesizer, und ich habe gelesen, dass
einige Programme bald zur Marktreife gelangen. Von Verkäufern
höre ich, dass sie nicht am Linux interessiert seien, weil man
da nix mehr verdiene. Von anderen höre ich, Linux sei kein
Multimedia-System. Desinformation auf der ganzen Linie ...
Rainer Hain (KEYBOARDS):
Das Ganze ist ein recht kompliziertes Thema. Linus Thorvald
selbst hält Linux nicht für Audio oder generell für
Multimedia-Anwendungen geeignet. Low-Latency ist mit den
aktuellen Kerneln schlicht nicht zu machen, schon gar nicht
Multichannel.
Dazu kommt dann, dass ein Setup von Linux heute zwar simpel
ist, aber nur, solange man nicht von einem Standard-SuSE
abweicht. Und das muss man, wenn man Audio und MIDI betreiben
will. Deshalb springt kaum ein Sequenzer-Hersteller drau an, die
fürchten den ungeheuren Support-Aufwand. (Man erkläre dem User
mal am Telefon, dass er ein Make-File ändern muß und wie er dann
die Sources neu kompiliert ...)
Deshalb gibt es auch kein Package, was auch nur entfernt an
Cubase oder Logik herankäme.
An der Treiberunterstützung hapert es halt auch. Ich habe
hier zwar eine gute Auswahl an gängigen Interfaces (Audio und
MIDI), aber für keines davon gibt es Linux-Treiber.
--- english translation ----------------------------------------
Reader:
Sometimes I have bought Keyboards cause I'm especially
interested recording and computer. Some articles seemed to me
very interesting. But I deeply missed any comparisons with
linux. Is it intended that this rising system is not mentioned
or does noone felt able to do it?
Since some month I'm migrating to linux -- only my musical
things are left behind. Despite SuSE having a lot of music
software and synthesizers; and I read about some programs coming
to end-user stability soon. From dealers I hear, that they are
not interested in linux cause there is nothing to earn. Other
people say, linux is not a multimedia system. Desinformation
all along the line.
Rainer Hain (Keyboards):
This is a very complex matter. Linus Thorvald himself considers
linux not to be suited for audio or universally multimedia
applications. Low-latency cannot be achieved with current
kernels especially not multi-channel.
On top of that comes the fact, that a setup of linux is quite
simple today, but only if you don't leave the standard SuSE.
But this must be done to work with audio and midi. Therefore
hardly any sequencer manufacturer uses linux -- they fear the
tremendous support effort. (try to explain a user on the phone,
that he has to change a makefile and how he must compile the
sources ...)
Therefore there is no package that can hardly reach the level
of Cubase or Logic.
The driver support also is a problem. I have a great variety
of popular interfaces (audio and midi) but there is no linux
driver for one of them.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I hope we are able to shape a convincing answer!
Yours
Uwe Koloska
--
voiceINTERconnect www.voiceinterconnect.de
... smart speech applications from germany