[linux-audio-dev] ANNC: Audiality 0.1.0 Alpha Release

Audiality 0.1.0 Alpha Release ----------------------------- Audiality is an audio engine originally designed for playing music and sound effects in games. Scalability has been a major priority; the current version will run on very low end Pentium systems, but also scales to audio quality comparable to that of "real" hardware synths. (That is not to say that Audiality can compete with the feature set of those synths... Yet.) The engine builds as a shared or static library, or both if possible. (Not sure if it builds for Win32, but it did not long ago...) Two simple test programs (one for the scripting engine and one for the whole thing) and a bunch of demo sounds and songs are included. That minimalistic plugin API, and the timestamped event system are in there. Should be easy enough to extract for anyone who wants either or both for something else. Both are LGPL, just like *most* of the rest of the engine. (Read on...) Licensing terms: I intend to release all of the code under the LGPL. However, there are still traces of the GPL code that "inspired" the creation of this engine. (I didn't really mean to turn those four little files it this beast... *heh*) That code was written by Masanao Izumo (maintainer of Timidity++), whom I have not been able to contact. Therefore, the engine as a whole has to be considered GPLed, until this issue can be resolved one way or another. Feel free to find Masanao for me, contribute LGPLed versions of the offending files, or whatever. This might all sound silly to you, but I can't say for sure how much of Masanao's code and design is still in there, and I don't feel like stealing and sublicensing stuff - be it 5 lines of code. No big deal - it's still Free, and I'm not planning on making money on Audiality as a product anyway. The motivation for LGPL is just that I want people to also be able to use Audiality for what it was originally intended: Game audio. The files (temporary location): http://www.seaside.se/~sea1154a/audiality-0.1.0.tar.bz2 (359 kB) http://www.seaside.se/~sea1154a/audiality-0.1.0.tar.gz (467 kB) To install: * Unpack into whatever place you want sources * In the top dir: * ./configure * make * As root: (or add options for user install) * make install * In the test subdir: * ./configure * make * ./eeltest (does the output make sense? ;-) * ./atest (enjoy! :-) If the lib won't compile for reasons related to ALSA, I'm afraid you have to './configure --disable-alsa', since the ALSA rawmidi support is for 0.5 only... Sorry. (I'd happily accept a patch - including audio support, as I'm using ALSA 0.9 myself now! ;-) Requirements: * SDL 1.2 (http://www.libsdl.org) * Autoconf 2.55 * Automake 1.7.1 * Libtool 1.4.3 (Though you can probably build with slightly older versions of autotools. I just grabbed the latest tarballs from the GNU site.) Some working features (or so I hope!): * Voice mixer with * 2 stereo sends with independent bus selection * Smooth ramping of sends - no zipper noise * Scalable resampling quality: * Nearest sample * Linear interpolation * Adaptive oversampling * Cubic interpolation * Native support for multiple waveform formats: * 8 bit integer * 16 bit integer * Mono as well as stereo * Internal mixer with * Up to 16 busses * Up to 8 insert effects per bus * Full send array... * ...that can send to other busses * ...before the first insert * ...after each insert * Two way kewl insert effects (not really): * Feedback delay "reverb" * Basic limiter * Off-line waveform rendering package: * Driven by a simple scripting language * Can be driven through a handy C API. * Supports various sample formats: * 8 bit integer * 16 bit integer * 32 bit float * Mono as well as stereo * 7 modulation targets, each with: * 1 envelope generator * 1 LFO * Oscillator operator with: * 6 mixing/combination modes: * ADD * MUL * FM * FM_ADD * SYNC * SYNC_ADD * 13 waveforms/tone synthesisers * SINE (with FM if you like) * HALFSINE (half wave rectified) * RECTSINE (full wave rectified) * PULSE (PWM capable) * TRIANGLE (mod => saw-tri-saw) * SINEMORPH (recursive FM) * BLMORPH (sin, saw, square) * BLCROSS (sin, saw, square) * NOISE (SID style; NG + S&H) * SPECTRUM (additive Df) * ASPECTRUM (multiplicative Df) * HSPECTRUM (harmonic) * AHSPECTRUM (pseudo harmonic) * Basic filters: * Low pass, 6 dB/oct * High pass, 6 dB/oct * Basic resonant filters (oversampled): * Low pass, 12 dB/oct * High pass, 12 dB/oct * Band pass, 12 dB/oct * Band reject/notch, 12 dB/oct * Band boost/peak, 12 dB/oct * Real time MIDI input (ALSA 0.5 or OSS) * MIDI file loader/player * Audio output through * SDL (and whatever that supports) * OSS * OSS/polling (only for broken debuggers...) * WAV and "RAW" audio file loading. (SDL) The main goal for the future is to extend the scalability of Audiality well into the range of serious home and professional studio use. The idea is to provide total control, a multitude of *useful* features, tools for fast and effective creation of original sounds, and excellent audio quality. I'm serious about music, and I'm not going back to programming hardware synths with little LCD displays or crappy editor software. Audiality is meant to replace the hardware synths I have, and eliminate the need for future purchases in that area. (I'd much rather spend the $$$ on audio interfaces, CPU power and perhaps, good sample libraries.) It's a tough goal, but I have been known to produce hundreds of lines of working code a day (*), when strongly motivated. :-) (*) Calculated from Audiality statistics during the period when most of it was written. Around 300 lines/day, IIRC. Some TODOs: * Separate audio/MIDI drivers from the core! * Implement a serious API for the engine library! * Audio I/O through JACK, ALSA and possibly LADSPA. * ALSA sequencer support. * OSC? DMIDI? Whatever works. * Hosting LADSPA plugins as inserts. * Support multichannel I/O directly through the mixer. * Make the FX plugin API use the event system. * Add support for float32 processing and plugins. * Direct-from-disk waveform playback. (EVO?) * Switch from interpreter to compiler + VM. * Support scripting in the real time engine. * Script editor with GUI panels for known constructs. * Full GUI editor that generats scripts from scratch. * Integrate the off-line and RT synths totally. * Split voice mixers into "resampler" and "send unit" * Support voice insert plugins? Maybe, maybe not... * Implement better resampling in the voice mixers Have fun! //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate .- Coming soon from VaporWare Inc...------------------------. | The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! | | Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPL...| `-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture | `----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -' --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---