In the spirit of "release early, release often," I am pleased to
announce the release of Composite 0.006. This release marks the
completion of the LV2 Sampler Plugin, which supports Hydrogen drum
kits.
STATUS
------
Composite is a project with a large vision. Here is the status of the
different components:
composite-gui: Alpha (i.e. "a broken version of Hydrogen")
compoiste_sampler (LV2): production/stable, no GUI
libTritium: Not a public API, yet.
LINKS
-----
Composite: http://gabe.is-a-geek.org/composite/
Plugin Docs: file:///home/gabriel/code/composite-planning/plugins/sampler/1
Tarball: http://gabe.is-a-geek.org/composite/releases/composite-0.006.tar.bz2
Git: http://gitorious.org/compositegit://gitorious.org/composite/composite.git
HOW TO USE THE PLUGIN
---------------------
To use the plugin, you need the following:
* A program (host) that loads LV2 plugins.
* A MIDI controller.
* An audio output device. :-)
The following LV2 hosts are known to work with this plugin:
Ingen http://drobilla.net/blog/software/ingen/
lv2_jack_host http://drobilla.net/software/slv2/
The following is known to _not_ work:
zynjacku (Uses a different MIDI port type)
If you don't have a hardware MIDI controller, I suggest using
jack-keyboard (http://jack-keyboard.sourceforge.net/).
The first time you run the sampler, it will create a file
~/.composite/data/presets/default.xml, which will set up presets on
Bank 0 for the two default drum kits (GMkit and TR808EmulationKit).
Sending MIDI PC 0 and PC 1 will switch between the two kits. See
composite_sampler(1) for more information on setting up presets.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
----------------
With this release, I would especially like to thank:
Harry Van Haaren - For help with testing. This release has much
more polish because of you.
David Robillard - For general help with Ingen and LV2. I also
stole a lot of great design ideas from Ingen.
Peace,
Gabriel M. Beddingfield
Morning LAU,
As I cycled to work this morning, I had a crazy idea. It's just
daydreaming and will probably never happen, but I wondered if anyone on
the last has any useful/interesting thoughts.
I want to measure how fast I'm turning the pedals on my bike (the
"cadence") and synthesize/sample the sound of an internal combustion engine.
As far as I can work out, there are three major parts to this.
1. A sensor that can measure my cadence. A simple magnet switch that
triggers once a revolution won't be enough to measure the cadence with
sufficient resolution, since my cadence is usually between 50 and 80
rpm. I would probably need to mount multiple magnets spaced equally
around the chainwheel and have a single sensor on the frame. Then I have
to get it to supply this information to my control program.
2. I need a control program that can read in the input from my cadence
sensor and convert a cadence reading of "66 rpm" into a frequency that
should be sampled/synthesised, e.g. "500 Hz" (I'm making these numbers
up). It will also need to be able to somehow smooth out the readings,
perhaps by interpolation, so when I accelerate, the sound of the revs
climbing doesn't increase in obvious steps. It could also have other
logic, e.g. when my cadence is 0 rpm, the sound of the engine is idling
rather than off.
3. I need a synthesiser or sampler that can take an input from my
control program and make the sound of an engine (or more likely, a sine
wave to start with). I've never sampled or synthesised on a computer
before but this engine-specific sampling technology already exists in
video games, such as torcs[1].
I have absolutely no idea why I would want such a device - just for the
fun of building it, I guess. I would like it to work in realtime (rather
than later generating the soundtrack from recorded cadence data). The
thought of sitting at the traffic lights with my earphones in and then
hearing the mighty roar of a V8 as I pull away would be really satisfying...
[1] http://torcs.sourceforge.net/
Any thoughts - useful, interesting, humorous, or otherwise - are welcome!
Cheers,
Jonathan
----------------------------
Jonathan Gazeley
Systems Support Specialist
ResNet | Wireless& VPN Team
Information Services
University of Bristol
----------------------------
Hi
Someone just asked my what's the "average RMS" of my audio. It's
supposedly a measure of which side (good or evil) you're on in the
loudness war.
Which app could do this for me?
--
Atte
http://atte.dkhttp://modlys.dk
Hello, just found out about Pat Metheny's new album. Basically what he
does is controlling, through mechanical devices and a complex setup,
many acoustic instruments from just his guitar playing. The results
seem very interesting.
http://www.patmetheny.com/orchestrioninfo/
renato
Hi Harry
Thanks for listening and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
It's nice to know the mix is clean. It's sad though that even
non-mainstream genres such as prog have fallen victim to the loudness
war -- I don't know who such bands, on what radio stations, they think
they are going to be competing with the ultrasquashed, more commercial
bands.
I like to get my own pieces somewhere in the vague region of
professional CDs, but I'm not going to push the level too far; I like my
distortion in small doses, not on everything all the time. If I need it
louder I have a knob for that only two inches from my mouse!
It sounds like I might be getting there with the brass -- I don't feel
it does want to bring attention to itself, more be one of those things
that you would notice by its absence. But to achieve that, first it
needs to be audible! So I'm obviously moving in the right direction. I
really must put it down for a couple of weeks and come back with fresher
ears.
Thanks again for listening.
Q
Harry Van Haaren wrote:
> Hey Q,
>
> Checked out the track there, (the newer version),
> although the brass is noticeable (just), I might agree with someone
> who says its a little soft. But its preference, do you want attention
> brought
> to the brass, or is it there to fill the spectrum, and allow the guitar
> to soar above it?
>
> Clean mixing, its nice to hear such different styles mixed to the "I
> compress my master X 1000%"
> before releasing...
>
> Enjoyed the track, keep em coming! -Harry
>
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/36698-from-windows-to…
>From Windows to Linux: a sound decision
Some excerpts:
Five years ago, when Geoff Beasley decided to move his sound studio
business from a Windows-based one to a Linux-based setup, he had one
simple bit of logic driving him: things could not be worse under
Linux.
...
"There's a great difference between working with commercial software
and Linux," says Beasley. "One is the speed at which things get fixed
- it is simply amazing. Another thing is that though I am always
running software which is in a constant state of development, it is
incredibly stable. It is not possible to get fixes at this speed from
commercial vendors - the guys I work with are driven by the sheer
elegance of their software and its flexibility. And I am constantly
amazed at what I can do with my limited knowledge."
...
Beasley's set-up:
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
All 5 of the production machines have the following subsystem:
Arch Linux system custom 2.6.31,6-rt19 kernel with RT preemption
(essential for Xrun avoidance - click and pops) Desktop consisting of
openbox, Adeskbar and pypanel. Display manager is Slim
AUDIO
jack2-svn (contains netone; which is netjack1 within jack2)
Qjackctl-svn
Rtirq (RT pci priorities for sound cards; also essential for Xrun avoidance)
LinAS
LinAS is the audio master machine. It hosts 4 Hoontech C-Ports
(ice1712-based chipset) in an Alsa multi-array providing 40 channels
of audio to the other machines via 'netone'. jack is running with 2
periods @ 48kH and 64 frames giving a 'round-trip' latency (in and
out) of 2.66 ms . Can be run @ 32 frames (half the latency) but the
samplers struggle at this low a frame rate.
Uses Gjacktransport to control the jack transport here and therefore
the netone slaves via jack transport.
LinDAW
The Digital Audio Workstation hosts 'Ardour' as the main DAW software
and also Mhwaveedit and Audacity for audio editing, Qjadeo for
synchronous video playback with Ardour, K3b & GDC Master for CD
mastering.
LinSeq
The midi sequencer machine. Runs MusE 1.01-svn and Linuxsampler with
the Fantasia (java) frontend. Magic. Mscore is the Linux music scoring
program, started by the creator of MusE, Werner Schweer.
LinSampler
Uses the program fst (free software studio) by Torben Hohn to run
vsti's (virtual studio technology instruments) under wine. The two I
run are Kontakt 2 and Sampletank 2. Both work 100 percent maybe better
than under Wine.
LinVS
This is the 'Video Server" This one specialises in distributing video
throughout the complex via webcams using 'Cheese' to mount them.
Kdenlive and capture cards are used to take interviews of Composers
and Performers for web-based content enhancement. Qjadeo is used to
playback vision also piped throughout.
LinFX
Essentially hosts the Jc_Gui front end for Fons Adriaensen's
Jconvolver. Using open source Impulse Responses. Gives reverbs to the
mixing desk.
--
A. C. Censi
accensi [em] gmail [ponto] com
accensi [em] montreal [ponto] com [ponto] br
Hi there,
I recently found this message regarding the alsa setup of a parallel
port Midi Express XT when I was about to re-activate some old gear
myself. So, I subscribed to this list and have to admit that I found a
lot of interesting topics here in the last few days.. So, hello to
everyone.
Regarding the Midi Express XT.. I finally managed to load up the
relevant alsa module when starting my (somewhat antique) desktop
system which runs a recent Arch Linux setup. The followings things
need to be taken care of:
1.) The relevant alsa module (snd-mtpav.ko) should come as a part of
most 2.6-kernels. Under a Xubuntu 7.10 (which I use on a laptop) the
module can be found in:
/lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/sound/drivers
So, most of the info found in
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Module-mtpav should
not be relevant for setting up the interface.
2.) The parameters for the module can also be found here:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.…
Search for "snd-mtpav" in the text. The parameters "port" and "irq"
need to be provided in order to correctly load the module where port
refers to the address and irq to the irq (interrupt) which are
configured for the parallel port the midi interface is connected to.
For an on board parallel port these parameters should be configurable
in the PC's BIOS.
3.) The module snd-mtpav will only be loaded if it may get complete
control of the specified parallel port! This means that you should
have a parallel port on your PC which will be exclusively used for
this midi interface. Otherwise, you would need to manually load/unload
relevant kernel modules. I think this is due to the way the module is
programmed, but that this is not necessarily the only possible
solution. For example, the module for the Portman 2x4 interface
(snd-portman2x4) uses another way to gain access to the parallel port
which seems to be more user-friendly if you want to connect another
thing to the parallel port like a printer (if such devices still
exist) at run-time...
4.) Regarding items 2.) and 3.) you need to do the following in order
to set up the Midi Express XT: Find out how to load a module at system
start up, and how to prevent the kernel from auto-loading some
standard parallel port modules. In Arch Linux this is simply a matter
of editing the "MODULES" line in /etc/rc.conf. For an Ubuntu-based
distribution you should find a solution at the Ubuntu user's wiki, or
in one of the numerous Ubuntu forums.
You want to load the module snd-mtpav, but you do not want the kernel
to automatically load the modules lp, parport, and parport_pc (at
least, if you only have a single parallel port on your PC)! This way,
snd-mtpav should get exclusive access to the parallel port.
Additionally, the parameters for snd-mtpav need to be provided. In
Arch Linux the relevant file is /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf. Under
Ubuntu, I suppose you need to edit/create a file in /etc/modprobe.d/.
The relevant info including the exact file name should be present in
the user's wiki/forums too.
On my system I added the following lines to modprobe.conf in order to
determine a static "sound card" order, and the parameters for
snd-mtpav:
options snd-ice1712 index=0
options snd-mtpav port=0x278 irq=5 index=1
5.) Reboot your system and use the "dmesg" command in order to check
the kernel startup messages. If all went well, it should include a
line like "Motu MidiTimePiece on parallel port irq: 5 ioport: 0x278".
Furthermore, "cat /proc/interrupts" should produce a line like "5: ...
MOTU MTPAV".
Hope, this helps in some way..
Kind regards,
Daniel
Hi.
I have been using Jack, ALSA, and Ardour for some time without
problems. A few minutes ago my Ubuntu update manager prompted me to
update packages. I noticed that several of them were related to ALSA.
I installed them and restarted (I didn't pay attention to what they
were).
Now Jack will not start. The failure message is pasted at the end of
my mail here. I don't think I made any other change to the
configuration.
Is anyone else having trouble with Jack after an Ubuntu ALSA update?
It was working well two days ago.
I'm using Ubuntu Studio 64bit 9.10, ALSA 1.0.20, and a Beringher
UCA202 USB soundcard.
Thanks for your help.
Peter Desjardins
21:34:46.120 JACK connection graph change.
jack main caught signal 12
cannot read server event (Success)
cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)
<snip>
cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)
21:34:46.143 Client deactivated.
cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)
21:34:46.144 JACK was stopped successfully.
21:34:46.144 Post-shutdown script...
21:34:46.145 killall jackd
For anyone, like me, who doesn't have a background in audio
engineering, this (I believe) Italian site seems pretty nice,
info-wise:
http://www.audiosonica.com/
TOC:
http://www.audiosonica.com/en/course/post/2/Index
>From the site -
"The Multimedia Audio Course is a Sound engineering course adopted by
audio schools.
The online version is completely free and under Creative Commons license."
I ran across it when googling for some info. Lots of material that
some people here might find useful. For money, there's also a
download-able premium version.
If the site has already been mentioned here, well, ok.
