well, seems like the discussion has run out of interest when i was
away, and everything that does matter has been said for the moment,
but i'll try to put some my thoughts in english anyway.
so. why do i think linux audio rules:
1) because any gnu/linux system is the construction set by its nature.
2) because it is very well suited for advanced users (i'm not a
developer, that's important!) and gives us as much control over any
and every aspect of the whole system as we want.
in fact, linux audio is the niche thing for those reasons. it's
absolutely ok. it just uses a different approach than the mainstream
products, and this SHOULD happen with something in the audio
production realm. say, if i want to build a dedicated GUI-less
environment running MIDI-driven supercollider on a cluster of laptops,
there should be a construction set that allows me to do it. the
coolest thing about linux audio is that it is capable of doing such
things just right.
but on the other hand, that's why i am very sceptical about the idea
of keeping linux audio in line with mass products. don't get me wrong,
i'd like such things as wider range of suported hardware or more cool
soft synths. but the approach of hiding more and more internals behind
smarter and smarter single-buttoned user interface drives the whole
cool linux audio thing to nowhere. literally. consider playing with
system internals vs hiding them as two antitropic vectors. the
resultant will be zero.
there is a well known basic in unix-like systems: using the right tool
for right task.
so if one wants an audio production environment where everything works
out of the box, he/she should consider going mac.
and if one wants an audio production environment where everything is
believed to work right out of the box, he/she should consider going
windows.
and linux audio should stay primarily for those who want to know what
they are doing and why.
and there will feng shui and harmony be all over the world forever :)))))
Strange I only get this for tons of mails send to LAU:
"FILE QUARANTINED
----------------
The original contents of this file have been replaced with
this message because of its characteristics.
File name: "Body of Message"
Virus name: "EngineError""
"Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified"
*?*
E.g.:
Your message
To: linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
Subject: Re: [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
Sent: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:49:16 +0100
did not reach the following recipient(s):
[1]
Your message
To: linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
Subject: Re: [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
Sent: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:52:51 +0100
did not reach the following recipient(s):
[? perhaps the same mail already forwarded before]
Regards,
Ra♪f
[1]
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:49:16 +0100
On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 09:30 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
> On Sunday 10 February 2013 11:08:02 Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > When subscribed to the user and/or devel mailing list, I report the
bug
> > to that list and most of the times I'm not willing to subscribe to a
> > bugtracker,
>
> Which mailing list? LAU and LAD or the various projects' lists?
>
> If the projects, that is just another account to manage as I say.
Project mailing lists, for audio applications and distros.
On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 09:34 -0500, Paul Davis wrote:
> if you're not willing to participate in the managed handling of a bug,
> i'm not interested in your bug.
> of course, someone else might be, in which case you get lucky.
If there's a good reason to subscribe to 1000 bugtrackers I do it, but
really, most of the times I don't do it. If I report a bug to a mailing
list, the coder/coders don't have tons of bugs to handle, why should I
repeat the report. It's useful to repeat the report on a bugtracker, if
the coders have to take control about tons of bugs.
However, where should people report bugs with ALSA? I've seen many
people asking for help, reporting bugs, without getting a reply, I often
recommend those people to subscribe to LAU/LAD ;).
Regards,
Ralf
To be fair this is the first really idiotic bugtracker I'm subscribed
to, I experienced other bugtrackers as intuitive usable.
Even on https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/bugtrackers/alsa-mantis is the
dead link to https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/ .
Wow, I followed the instruction on the quick and tried to add _not_ to
modify a bug report and got this:
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: noreply(a)bugs.launchpad.net
Reply-to: noreply(a)bugs.launchpad.net
To: ralf.mardorf(a)rocketmail.com
Subject: Submit Request Failure
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:00:42 -0000
An error occurred while processing a mail you sent to Launchpad's email
interface.
Error message:
The message you sent included commands to modify the bug report,
but you didn't sign the message with an OpenPGP key that is
registered in Launchpad.
--
For more information about using Launchpad by e-mail, see
https://help.launchpad.net/EmailInterface
or send an email to help(a)launchpad.net
This is the contend:
Subject: snd_hdsp ADAT channels 3 to 8 can't be routed to jackd
On Linux (ALSA 1.0.25, kernel 3.6.5-rt14, Ubuntu 12.10 amd64) there are
only ADAT channel 1 and 2 available by jackd, when using snd_hdsp for a
RME HDSPe AIO sound card, so I tested the card on FreeBSD 9.1 amd64
using the FreeBSD driver, there without TotalMix, but all 8 ADAT
channels are working.
$ service rtirq status
PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
62 FF 90 - 130 0.0 S irq/8-rtc0
812 FF 85 - 125 0.0 S irq/18-snd_hdsp
53 FF 80 - 120 0.0 S irq/19-ehci_hcd
54 FF 80 - 120 0.0 S irq/16-ohci_hcd
55 FF 79 - 119 0.2 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
59 FF 78 - 118 0.0 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
61 FF 75 - 115 0.0 S irq/1-i8042
24 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/9-acpi
45 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/22-ahci
256 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/14-pata_ati
257 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/15-pata_ati
619 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/7-parport0
740 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/43-radeon
1328 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/42-eth0
3 FF 1 - 41 0.1 S ksoftirqd/0
15 FF 1 - 41 0.1 S ksoftirqd/1
Still xruns at 10.7 ms:
$ jackd --sync -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -r48000 -p256
jackdmp 1.9.9
Excepted of the ADAT issue hdspmixer does work:
$ hdspmixer
HDSPMixer 1.11
Looking for RME cards:
Card 0: RME AIO S/N 0x579bcc at 0xfddf0000, irq 18
RME AIO found!
Card 3: USB Device 0x170b:0x11 at usb-0000:00:13.0-1, full speed
Card 4: KORG INC. nanoKONTROL at usb-0000:00:13.0-2, full speed
1 RME cards card found.
Restoring last presets used
This doesn't work:
$ hdspconf
HDSPConf 1.4
Looking for HDSP cards :
Card 0 : RME AIO S/N 0x579bcc at 0xfddf0000, irq 18
Card 3 : USB Device 0x170b:0x11 at usb-0000:00:13.0-1, full speed
Card 4 : KORG INC. nanoKONTROL at usb-0000:00:13.0-2, full speed
No Hammerfall DSP card found.
$ sudo alsactl store
alsactl: get_control:538: Unknown control type: 0
Regards,
Ralf
affects alsa
On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 15:49 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> However, where should people report bugs with ALSA? I've seen many
> people asking for help, reporting bugs, without getting a reply, I often
> recommend those people to subscribe to LAU/LAD ;).
*google*
Ok, I'll test https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/bugtrackers/alsa-mantis
next time ;), but how do I report a bug to ALSA directly?
The link on the ALSA homepage is dead, https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug .
On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 09:44 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
> So get a removable drive setup and let the person who knows what they are
> doing set up two drives for you. One optimized as an 8 track recorder and one
> as a daily driver. Swap and boot as needed. Right?
Maybe, but I don't think so. The clueless person always will experience
strange behaviour of a computer, something similar to
"I'm using foo for around a year now, but since last week there always
opens a window and ask me to report a bug, but I never experienced a
bug". This does cause fear, if the LEDs of a stand alone device start to
flash and they'll stop after a slap, it does cause some worries, but not
fear. The difference is, that the computer user guesses that he made a
mistake, that makes the software unstable, while the stand alone device
user is without doubts, he simply thinks that the gear is broken, but
not regarding to a faulty operation.
Btw. I own different stand alone devices, most are much better to use
than a computer, but they were much more expensive too and they are old,
but some stand alone devices are much harder to use than a computer,
I've got a 19" device from Behringer, that isn't that old, but OTOH
wasn't expensive, however, I know one musician who does buy cheap and
new stand alone devices that are still easier to use, than a computer.
Just give a technical noob, but gifted musician some 19" delays and
reverbs and computer plugins for delay and reverb and than ask her/him
to add a ping pong delay to one track, room to another track and hall to
a third track, in a way, that it does sound halfway ok and that the CPU
load won't become an issue. CPU load won't be an issue when using stand
alone devices and handling of stand alone delays and reverbs usually is
much easier.
Give a technical noob a pre-build Linux audio PC and ask her/him to set
up, save and load settings for something like a KORG nanoKONTROL or to
use an real analog synth or mixing console instead.
Regards,
Ralf
On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 10:43 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Ralf Mardorf
> <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 08:55 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
> >> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 8:37 AM, Ralf Mardorf
> >> <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
> >> > On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 12:17 +0100, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> >> >> On 02/10/2013 01:59 AM, gerald.mwangi(a)gmx.de wrote:
> >> >>
> >> snip
> >> >
> >> > Using Linux, keeping the workflow can become a PITA, just by updating
> >> > the DE ;), there are no updates for a 8 track analog recorder.
> >>
> >> So just buy an already setup, tested, and warranted computer from
> >> someone who knows what they are doing. Then, ***do not update it
> >> yourself*** [snip]
> >
> > Hi Drew,
> >
> > you replied off-list. Was this intended?
>
> Oops. No, will try to resend.
> >
> > A lot of people exactly do this, they pay for pre-build computers. Those
> > computers anyway fail more often than stand alone devices do ;).
>
> What are stand alone digital recorders on the inside?
A "computer", call it "desktop computer" or what ever you like to name
it, is an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau"
( http://www.dict.cc/?s=eierlegende+Wollmilchsau ), stand alone devices
are optimized for a single task.
> > Regarding to the updating issue, caused by some Linux DEs, there are
> > audio distros taking care about this, so they come with less risky DEs.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ralf
I have followed the instructions for recording to Rosegarden audio from
Rosegarden midi but can't get this to work. The instructions on the
Rosegarden site indicate that Qsynth output ports should be connected to the
Rosegarden Record In port. I have tried this under the ALSA tab and also
under the MIDI tab (using a2jmidid to make the MIDI ports visible). The
only WAV recording I can get to work is the Gnome sound recorder which uses
some form of system audio capture (which I can't get to work through jack
either into Rosegarden). Possibly this is connected to Pulseaudio? (which is
the only driver which works with Qsynth on my setup). The midi sound output
itself from Rosegarden works great
<http://linux-audio.4202.n7.nabble.com/file/n82124/snapshot1.jpeg>
--
View this message in context: http://linux-audio.4202.n7.nabble.com/can-t-record-from-qsynth-in-Rosegarde…
Sent from the linux-audio-user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net>
To: linux-audio-user <linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org>
Subject: Re: [LAU] LAC 2013, why not more students?
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:02:55 +0100
On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 01:35 +0100, Nils Gey wrote:
> the cheapest way, that I know of, to get from Cologne, Germany to Graz in time is to fly.
http://www.google.de/#hl=de&tbo=d&spell=1&q=mitfahrzentrale&sa=X&ei=NlAYUaq…
On 02/10/2013 01:59 AM, gerald.mwangi(a)gmx.de wrote:
hi gerald!
<strong disagreement next 5 miles, and likely some alligators crossing>
> What sucks: the workflow does not feel organic! Can you say that
> bringing down an idea alone with multiple instruments (sequentially
> recording all instruments, including synths) to disk is as easy as
> recording it with a band on an 8track machine? No!
as someone who has done his share of 8track reel-to-reel recording:
BWAHAHAHAHAAAHAAAA.
compare:
* clean and degauss tape heads
* find some empty tape (at something like 90 € per half hour)
* thread the tape
* lay down test tones
* (optional) wrestle with your noise reduction
* level, arm, roll
to:
* start jack
* start ardour with 8-track template
* level, arm, roll
when it comes to editing and mixing, the whole comparison becomes
ridiculously unbalanced. and i'm not even talking sound quality yet.
and if you want to include the setup and configuration of a bare-bones
machine, then please also include the soldering iron and oscilloscope :)
don't get me wrong, gerald, this isn't meant as personal criticism, and
your input is certainly appreciated, but this statement just doesn't
hold water.
> And just saying that
> it is not possible with other OS's is no excuse. The linux audio
> experience has to feel like just picking up an instrument (complex
> synths included) and a band to jam in the idea.
<snip>
> But, and this a big but: as I don't need nor want documentation to get a
> tone out of my guitar/ my voice, I don't want documentation to handle
> linux audio!
dude. you have practised your guitar for years. at some point, that
surely involved reading documentation, or at least very thorough and
systematic exploration on your part.
if you were to claim that guitars are needlessly complex and you are
entitled to just grab one and go, hard-working guitarists would be
rightfully offended and laugh at you.
a studio workflow is no different. it takes practice and respect to
master. why does everybody and their grandma just assume that when they
suck at recording, it must be the studio's fault? that is kind of
offending to hard-working recording engineers. ;)
> The whole ecosystem has to be integrated and simple to be
> operated at the ease of a few clicks with no prior knowledge! To the
> same extent as it is open to all.
no. no. no. i don't want to be limited to a three-stringed guitar
because people can only count "one, two, many".
stuff that works without prior knowledge or some will to study is
usually boring, and ineffective. it's cool for a week, and then you
outgrow it.
now i'm all ears when it comes to discussing workflow and how to
streamline stuff - after all, professional studio work is all about
workflow. but i don't like blanket statements that threaten to make
software too simplistic for more demanding work.
best,
jörn
--
Jörn Nettingsmeier
Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487
Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)
Tonmeister VDT
http://stackingdwarves.net