Re: [linux-audio-dev] GUIless friendly applications

Hello. I'm a blind Linux user since 1997, and I'm also interested in doing music on Linux. Since I'm the synth-type-of-guy, I'd really love to be able to play with software based synths, a little bit of step seuqencing, and some sample based stuff. Controlling my SuperNova DrumMachine via MIDI (and being able to sequence it) would also be nice. Well, since blind people are still very GUIdisabled in Linux, the only things I can use are those which are either CLI or curses based, or expose their functionality through a easily programmable API. If only choice number two is available, that isn't that nice, because I'd like to be productive sometimes, and if you have to write yourself every little bit of convenience thing, you are not really making music, you're programming :). THe biggest problem there is that you actually dont do much realtime modifications. And realtime changes to sequences or parameters of things are very important for experimental type of electronic music. SO I've looked around, and found some stuff, but still have nothing really useful. Here is the list of software which is nicely done, and GUIless friendly: Ecasound!!! Kai, cool done! But its not the thing I need unfortunately. GDAM. Looks promosing because the workhorse code is nicely separatedd from the GUI, and I already managed to program gdam123 a bit to allow rate control, but again, its not really what I'm looking for although it seems nice. Ardour is also somewhat accessible from what I hear, but again, its a multitrack recorder, not what I need. SSM: I looked at the code, and it seemed quite horrible to me. GUI and workhorse code are tightly coupled, I see no way for me to get to the underlying functionality. What I'm really missing is: Some Sequencer which is capable of MIDI out and in Some Synth software which is controllable through that sequencer. SSM seems nice, but its a GUI-only thing, PD is even more GUI... Some LADSPA plugins seem promising, but again its too much putting-things-together work. Can anyone add anything to that list? Can anyone help with the listed problems? Is some software author (i.e., the SSM author) interested to work with me on getting GUIless controllability? I'm not a good C programmer, but I'm at least familiar with what we'd need to work efficiently... Or am I missing anything completely? Some trick to circumvent the need for some GUIs? Can anyone give an example on how to create a short trtack with some samples and a synth line without X? -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer <URL:http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger mlang(a)db.debian.org | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44