Linux-audio-user December 2006

linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org

161 participants
166 discussions

Re: [linux-audio-user] Miscellaneous hardware/software questions

by Gabriel Brachtel

>>>it's easy for non-programing people to bring "visions" regarding >>>interface design. (and i love do so :) as i know programers, it's quite >>>hard to establish a new standard. but imho the interface standards >>>(buttons, dropdown boxes, scrolling, menu-structure, etc.) are now a >>>couple of years old, and there might be better solutions for specific >>>tasks. audio seems to me like a good point to start. > > > i wasn't talking about such rudimentary stuff. of course there are > alternatives to these basic widgets and several audio applications (even > free ones) have begun to support them. > > the point about a visual interface is that it acts as a "memory buffer" > for the user: you do not have to remember much about the structure of > the session because the structure is made visible on the screen. can't > remember precisely where you put a certain sound? how many copies of the > bridge riff did i put in? is the door slam before or after the creak? > its all there on the screen, just waiting for you to look at it. > > as soon as you move away from a visual UI, you have to find some way to > avoid requiring the user to remember everything about the session. when i try to remember a poem my brain creates images and i walk trough them, when i reproduce it. when i learn a piece of music it does other stuff (i'm a pianist and singer) but in the end i have a very complex thing in my mind, just think of a bach fugue. i have the fugue also in "the fingers". different areas of the brain work together. i have the same oppinion as you, we are very good in using a visual UI. we trained it for a long time. but there could be other combinations that work nearly as good as "mouse-to-eye". > the visual interface offers another hard-to-replicate feature as well: > trivially variable precision. if you try doing cut-n-paste based only on > audio feedback, you will find it quite hard/laborious to be as precise > as you might want to be. with the visual interface, its much easier to > use visual information to get the rough location of an edit and then > get to precisely where you want, without many steps. with audio feedback > based approaches, i think you will find yourself needing many more > iterations through the edit-play-edit-play cycle before you get the > location correct. i think it's all a matter of training. you do the "display-keyboard-mouse-combination" for long years and you became professional in speed and precision. watch a pro-gamer gaming with mouse.. what's about data-gloves? whats with feet-controlers and other "non-standard" devices? greets, gabriel (sorry for my clumsy english)

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] Miscellaneous hardware/software questions

by Jason White

I am looking for suitable hardware to handle digital i/o between a Linux system and an RME ADI-2 ad/da converter that I just bought. I don't need lots of channels, but reliability of the data transfer is important, including jitter reduction. An RME card would be excellent but it is somewhat outside my budget. Also, connectivity to a laptop would be desirable, suggesting either a USB interface or waiting until http://freebob.sourceforge.net/ (the Alsa firewire project) matures. I don't plan to run any OS besides Linux with this hardware, so Alsa support is crucial. As this is for home/personal use I'm not in a hurry. M-Audio hardware is high on my list of possibilities at the moment. Now to the software question: does there exist any sound editor with a non-graphical interface, i.e., one that can be operated from the Linux console for inserting, deleting, copying and otherwise editing audio? Due to a vision-related disability I can't use a graphical display and therefore need a text-only solution - but all the sound editors appear to require X11. Surely it should be possible to design an audio interface to a digital sound editor. Suggestions welcome. I've discussed hardware on this list once before, and the USB options weren't highly regarded at the time.

17 years, 4 months

Re: [linux-audio-user] SMPTE timecode reader

by plutek

On 12/18/2006 09:44:11 PM, Robin Gareus wrote: > Hi! > > > cool to hear it is (or was) on the xjadeo todo list, > > it still is. one might get the idea to play a video file along to an > live audio-LTC, but no one requested that feature yet ;-) I guess it > could be useful for making video-walls using "old" computers without > MIDI and netjack... > > > i've needed this stuff recently while doing > > audio for live video shoots, just so we can all work from (and > record) a > > common timecode reference, and confirm while shooting that we are > > actually locked. > > I'm confused by "live video shots", are you editing (offline) or you > were monitoring (online/live)? mmh. OTOH it does not matter, does it? > In case it's during shooting: Are you feeding a camera generated LTC > into the the DAT, or some external generator into both the camera(s) > (which also records audio) and the HDR/DAT? during shooting. we were going to feed the studio64-xtc LTC to both the cameras and ardour, but had trouble locking cameras to that code -- i actually think this may have been a problem with the feed from my end, but we didn't have time to debug it. we ended up feeding camera-generated LTC into ardour in realtime while shooting. > -> how good/noisy is the LTC signal? > -> is it raw audio data or has it been resampled/transcoded. (lossy MD > or mp3 recording ??) i don't know how good the camera-generated LTC is. i have not yet tried to lock the studio64-xtc to that, but will try tomorrow. > > > > yes, i can generate, but i cannot parse an incoming stream. i also > have > > no way of knowing what time i'm spitting out (unless i also send MTC > and > > lock i.e. ardour to it), since my generator (an old opcode > studio64-xtc) > > just runs with no display of where it is. it CAN lock to incoming > LTC, > > but again i must tell it to transcode to MTC and then lock software > to > > it in order to know what's going on. > > don't get started on that windows machine... I've got some old files > where I know the timecode for reference (25fps). Hardware is > interesting for noise analysis (input) and to verify if proprietary > boxes can lock to the signal that "libltcsmpte" will generate. > > If I can read my own files, I'll try some of yours. Could you email or > upload a minute of example LTC (wav or aiff - gzip ) or maybe better > make that more files: clean and noisy :-) what is your usual > framerate? sure, i'll generate some samples, and also prepare a sample of what i recorded from the camera. the video producer i'm working with now is using 29.97 non-drop, but i'll send a range of frame rates > > when the parser works it'd be interesting to set up a loop: Can your > studio64-xtc lock to incoming LTC and output LTC (w/o you installing > windows)? i'll check tomorrow. i think so. i may just fire up my wife's old win95 laptop anyway, and play with MTC transcoding, just for the fun of it. yes, i'm up for beta testing. i don't have cameras available to play with, but i have a few computers here to sync together, along with the studio64-xtc. > that should be good enough for preliminary tests. In > January > I can get my hands on a scope.. > > I'm leaving for Austria tomorrow, and be will online again at the > Chaos > Communication Congress in Berlin after x-mas. cool. great to see this moving forward. it would be very cool to be able to lock to LTC for post-production on this project. you may have noticed that erik de castro lopo has stepped into the ring as well.... wow; a flurry of activity! i'll be in touch about samples. .pltk.

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] Just JAMin

by lanas

Folks, I'm trying to use JAMin to see what it can bring to a mix. There's a problem when I start Ardour to record the JAMin mix. Here's what I do. I play the .wav tune (exported from Ardour where it was recorded) using Rezound. I start JAMin, I disconnect the Rezound outputs from alsa_pcm and connect them to JAMin's input. Then I connect JAMin's outputs to alsa_pcm (all using qjackctl). So I play the tune and adjust stuff in JAMin while listening to the tune. Now I start Ardour to record the mix. I create a new session and add a stereo track. As soon as the stereo track is added the sound becomes ugly and boomy. I look at qjackctl and see there's a ton of new connections made by Ardour. I try to do a 'disconnect all' but all the ardour connections are staying there. Is there an easier way to record a JAMin mix than by using Ardour ? Or, is there another way to use JAMin to modify the final mix of a tune originally recorded in Ardour ? Al

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] I need a better video card for the AMD64 machine

by Dave Phillips

Greetings; I'm happy as a clam in mud with my new machine, but it's developed a problem. I purchased an inexpensive nVidia-based card that's starting to behave poorly. I think the hardware itself is buggy, the display will sometimes shudder rapidly side-to-side, blurring the screen view. Sometimes it stops and stays stopped, other times it goes on until I have to reboot. The problem doesn't appear to be a heating problem, but I've decided to go for a much better card anyway. So, I want an nVidia-based card with 256 MB video RAM and a decent cooling fan, preferably under $200. Any recommendations ? Best, dp

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] Ardour's click

by lanas

Folks, How can I hear Ardour's click signal ? I'm using a MAudio 1010LT and once the click button is pressed in Ardour I can see a corresponding signal in envy24control PCM Out 5 view meter. And in fact, the click out in connected to playback5 in qjackctl. Raising the volume of the PCM Out 5 does nothing. Do I have to run a physical wire from that 1010LT output to benefit from this option? If so, I only have a pair of stereo speakers connected to outputs 1 and 2. Thanks, Al

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] [ANN] das_watchdog V0.2.5 and jack_capture V0.9.3

by Kjetil Svalastog Matheussen

Download from http://www.notam02.no/arkiv/src/ das_watchdog 0.2.5 ================== Whenever a program locks up the machine, das_watchdog will temporarily sets all realtime process to non-realtime for 8 seconds. You will get an xmessage window up on the screen whenever that happens. Changes 0.2.4->0.2.5 -------------------- *Let the test thread run with SCHED_FIFO priority using the lowest priority. Should hopefully stop all the unnecessary reports. (This change has been tested quite thoroughly) jack_capture v0.9.3 =================== jack_capture is a program for recording soundfiles with jack. Its default operation is to capture whatever sound is going out to your speakers into a file. This is the program I always wanted to have for jack, but no one made. So here it is. Note: Anyone using 0.9.2 should upgrade to 0.9.3! 0.9.2 will most likely hang during startup. :-( (I'm going to start testing my software before releasing from now on, this one was very embarrasing.) Distros: If there is a system for doing so, you should mark 0.9.2 as unusable. Changes 0.3.9 -> 0.9.3 ----------------------- *Fixed horrible deadlock in 0.9.2. Bug found by Ken Restivo. *Fix for a potensional deadlock. *Added the --silent/-s argument. *Some smaller fixes. *If recording to wav (the default) and the the 4GB limitation is reached, automatically close the file and continue writing to a new file with an autogenerated name. *Added the --version/-v argument. *Changed default number of zeros in the autogenerated filename to 1. *Better error output. *Autogenerate code to check if various formats are supported by sndlibfile. *Bumped version up to 0.9. jack_capture should reach a 1.0 state quite soon. *Changed the name of --recording-time to --duration to match -d.

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] Interesting tidbits

by Tracey Hytry

After reading a few of the recent threads I think I should mention a few things from my experience. I've had good luck with 64Studio, seems like a great fast/easy install. But it lacks many apps that I'm used to. Maybe that will change in the future. I have both 64Studio and 64 bit Ubuntu with low latency installed on one of the machines. I did a lot of testing between the two and Ubuntu always liked to give a few xruns in the sub 6ms lantency settings, where as 64Studio was very stable. I even cleaned up Ubuntu's startups, etc, and could not get it to settle down. Last week I had the interesting experience helping set up linux on on a 17" Apple notebook(the high end one, dual core, bla, bla, bla). We managed to get linux on the machine and get it to boot separately from osX with a lot of work, but with a lot of satisfaction afterwards. Since the macbook pros are EFI partitioned monsters it took a while to get something to boot on it in the first place. This is where 64Studio surprised me, it was able to deal with the 2 partitions that we could use on the machine, and even install on it(no, we never tested a full install of 64Studio). Anyway, after that we copied over a 64 bit gentoo system that was compiled for the hardware in the machine(which is also kind of hard since intel dual cores are new to gcc). The networking on the ethernet port was pretty easy to set up and we were able to finish the install from the local gentoo repo. Then, everything was recompiled again on the native machine. Graphics look good(open gl, etc), lots of stuff works(even the intel HDA sound was real good on it(Apple must use the better stuff on that machine)). The only show stopper is that linux hasn't caught up to the newest wireless chipset in that machine. We fixed that by buying a $40 wireless usb stick and using it for wireless. Last I heard, there are also a few jack xrun issues on the intel dual core in there, but I think they may be worked out. Anyway, the macbook pro makes a real great linux machine. OSX is still there if they want to boot into Steve Jobs wonderfull world of eye candy. This machine was bought to use as a linux machine, the actual cost wasn't a whole lot more then any other make for something in that high end of hardware. So: 64Studio works great here, it even has some special abilities. The intel chipset actually sounds pretty good with linux in some cases. Tracey, Who had a good time sewing together a nice looking case for the laptop ;)

17 years, 4 months

[linux-audio-user] LASH is making me crazy

by Ken Restivo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 LASH has me stuck in an endless loop. It's running, and several daemons and programs are talking to it (fluidsynth, f'rinstance). But I can't figure out how to use it or what to do with it. I fire up lash_control. I try to create a new project. I type in "help"... there are lots of commands, but "NEW" isn't one of them? Fine, then, maybe I'll just save the current state. I type in save and a name. It tells me, "No project selected". Oh K... I type in "list", and it tells me, "No projects". Fine then, dammit, maybe I cna name this thing, so I type "name thisprojectsomething", and it tells me.... wait for it... "No project selected". Goddammit, I'm screaming now, how the hell can I select a project then if you won't let me create one??! Where do projects *come* from, anyway, does the stork bring them? Maybe I have to set the directory, so I type in "dir /path/to/my/project". But it is not to be. I'm told, and I'm sure you can guess this now, "No project selected". The GUI LASH client gives me the same song and dance, but with dialog boxes and greyed-out options instead of the ubiquitous "No project selected" message instead. Basically, what I want to do, is to save the current state of all my LASH-enabled apps, somewhere, with a project name (preferably in the nice project directory where most of the files are anyway). What am I doing wrong? - -ken -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFiyzKe8HF+6xeOIcRAhXRAJ0fsQFWfIW5cSqmdh9C69mHYE23bwCeL9qV OVsHYCoW7ken4lUb8In6sn4= =V5lu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

17 years, 4 months

Re: [linux-audio-user] New member wants to build a reliable DAW

by Kjetil S. Matheussen

October: > > Hello Mark! > > Coincidently a similar question was asked on a list many of us are > members on the very same day you submitted your questions! It might > serve you well to follow that thread too: > > http://lists.agnula.org/pipermail/users/2006-December/011707.html > > Basically I build pretty much the same machine I would build for > serious "gaming", perhaps dropped back a few notches on the video card. > The motherboard and PSU being the true heart of the system, it's > certainly no place to skimp! Asus has long been my favorite brand of > motherboard... out of the last dozen or so machines I've built around > their boards I've only had one with problems and their 3 year warranty > is genuine. > I second that. Asus is a safe one. But even more important is the chipset in use, because not everyone works very well with linux. Personally, I have always had good experience with via or intel, but I have heard SiS is working fine too. Stay away from nvidia, at least the newest models. (the older the chipset, the less problems you will have) > Power Supply needs to be rated at least 500w, higher if you are going > to run a RAID or something in the case. Enermax is my pick for best > value, PC Power & Cooling if you have a bunch of extra money to spend, > Antec and Thermaltake seem to also be popular brands. Don't try to save > money on a bargain brand power supply! It will come back to haunt you, > for sure! > > As much RAM as you can afford to put in the system is good... my > current machine has 2x1024 DDR and I'll probably double that to 4 gigs in > the future. Processor should be fast but doesn't need to be bleeding > edge either and multiple cores are not well supported (yet) so while you > can buy top end CPU(s) for future-proofing just don't expect to get the > full worth out of them immediately. Same can be said with running a > 64bit. There are 64bit distros out there that are "usable" but at the > moment are probably better recommended for developers and bug-hunters > than for serious audio production. I currently run a 32bit debian based > linux on a 64bit AMD single core but Intel should serve you well also... > more of a matter of personal preference here as far as brand goes. > > I mentioned video cards... I really prefer nvidia under linux, due to > the quality of the proprietary drivers and ease of installation, and This is a bad advice. The proprietary drivers from nvidia cause xruns, and should be avoided. But older (ie. at least 2-3 year old) nvidia cards can be used with the open nv driver instead, which I will recommend, because I have had experience with numerous nvidia gfx cards, and have had very little problem. > dual monitor (dvi) is something I couldn't live without in my studio. > Currently I run 2 x 21" Dell CRT for a combined desktop of 3200x1200 > which makes tending to several music apps at the same time much easier > than crowding everything together on a single screen. Any mid-range > gaming card should do this well. Plan on spending at least US$100 here > (monitors extra!) > Well, not everyone thinks so. Using a descent windows manager, where you can change virtual screen quickly, makes multiple monitors unnecessary. What is faster, moving your head or eyes (where you have to refocus) to look at a different screen. Or, pressing a button on your keyboard? In windows, with its horrible unconfigurable interface, I guess it can make sence, but in X, you don't need more than one monitor. > I run a pair of Western Digital IDE drives but if I could afford the > upgrade I really want it would be at least four (maybe with a few spares > for backup) 200 GB or larger SATA drives set up in a software RAID 0+1 > or maybe RAID5. Firewire or SCSI would be nice as well as would an > outboard rack if you are going with many more drives than that. > Do you really need RAID for audio work? How many tracks do you use? Are you sure you couldn't get a way with a single IDE drive? > I run a Delta44 which works great under linux but do most of my actual > mixing and line-in in a seperate mixer. A Delta1010 should be > fantastic! > Good advice. The ice1712 driver works really well on linux. I also want to add another important thing to concider, which is noise. It can be better to degrade the performance a bit to also reduce the noise. Power hungry processors cause more heat inside the case, which cause the fans to go faster. Same with lots of harddisks, don't do that, only use one. Same with gfx card, don't buy a fancy fast one that either makes a lot of heat or have a large fan. You don't need a fast gfx card for audio use. You should also use most of your money on the power supply. Not because of stability problems, but because of noise problems. The power supply is usually the noisiest part in a computer, and buying an expensive silent one is well worth the money. It doesn't matter if it can support 500W, 300W or even 200W is usually enough, but it must be silent.

17 years, 4 months

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Linux-audio-user December 2006