19 Mar
2011
19 Mar
'11
12:10 a.m.
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 11:23:40PM +1030, Batz wrote:
[...]
I need to see Linux sampler/fluid synth, etc, working.
It doesn't
matter to me upon what distro. The reason is that I need to know
that they are going to work in this situation. There's not much
point pouring time and resource into something only to find that
it's design philosophy is anathema to the limitations of my
methodology. On the other hand, I might find a workaround. Or even a
better way of doing things. I just don't know till I can see it
working. And then I'd know if it's worth putting in the hard work of
nailing a system down. That's all I'm saying.
From what I'd been reading there seems to be a couple of big flaws
in the design of both fluid and LSP. But I can't tell from just
reading about it. On the other hand they seem tantalizingly
comprehensive. I really need to see that for myself. That's really
the only point I'm making about that. It's actually a small point
and I'm sorry to have had to labor it so. What I was asking is if
there was any sure fire way I can get to that point so I can
audition them. What's the quickest path? However you want to phrase
that.
Once I can see it's efficacy, once I can evaluate the behavior, then
I can invest time in the nuts and bolts. With a view to honing it
into a semi-embedded system perhaps.
The thing is that everybody seems to be concerned with recording.
And to a slightly lesser extent, sequencing. Sampling and
soft-synths are seen as add-ons and plug-ins to those things. This
philosophy presents us with a conundrum. Those solutions work well
in the short term. However in the long term they are redundant. I
need an instrument that is independent of those things and yet
completely controllable. Future proof to an extent. Because once I
start composing with this instrument, there's no going back. If I
want to play the same song in 10 years time, I have to know that the
instrument that makes the sounds is going to be there. Even if
everything else changes around it. And that's just one issue.
From the above, I infer that what you're after is a "proof of concept"
or "proof of workability". In this case, I suggest you pick any
distribution that suits your taste and install packages like fluid and
linuxsampler. Don't bother with pro audio, rt, or even jack at this
point, if all you want is to "see if it works for you". Then, once you
know for sure, you can upgrade to the latest versions of those packages
and focus on making your system battle-ready, so to speak.
Cheers,
S.M.
That's enough orthodoxy for one evening I'm sure. Except to thank
everyone once again for your advice. And move right along.
At 11:37 PM 3/16/2011 -1000, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
--
--
Over the next year of his use of it, they had to
walk him through
reimaging the system and reconfiguring things because Windows wouldn't
boot, or some other thing failed. Finally the hardware failed completely
and they sent him a whole new computer system to replace. He still
didn't get his "works out of the box" experience.
This is why we use linux isn't it?
In actual fact, windows can be nailed down pretty well these days.
Use TinyXP or now, Tiny7. These "unofficial" versions allow you to
pre-install windows (AKA BOSH AKA Bastard Operating System from
Hell) without all the M$-centric crap. IE, Outlook, WiMP and DotNet.
Once you get rid of all the virus magnets, it's actually half decent
and runs about 3 times faster. Since these things are where 99% of
all the hooks for malicious code reside, you have to purposefully
install something to get stung. Replace IE with FireFox. Or better
yet, Opera. Replace WiMP with VLC. Who needs WiMP when you've got
VLC anyway? And Outlook, What can I say. Virus anyone? And anything
that requires DotNet Framework or VB script shouldn't be in your
system anyway. No matter how tantalizingly bling it may appear. It's
not enough to just disable these things. You have to rip their still
beating hearts out from the system. The beauty is that Tiny does it
all for you from the get go.
The sad irony of all this is that I tend to learn far more about
fixing and butchering BOSH systems simply because the bloody things
break so readily. I don't get those kinds of opportunities with
linux because the damn things never die. I've got a SlackServer
here that ran for 5 years, 24/7. And even then all we did was jack
it up and put another Mo-Bo under it. That was 2 years ago.
But having said that, every system I've run up with TinyXP seems to
be getting the same kind of mileage. Except for the guy who blamed
his kids for installing a firefox tool bar which eventually snagged
his machine. Was a bit embarrassing when I discovered that it was a
porn toolbar and he, himself had installed it. You think your friend
is dumb as a rock?
Then there's ReactOS. http://www.reactos.org An open source version
of windows which seems to be coming along quite nicely these days.
I'll likely use that if I have to install this CreatiFlabs card
under Windows.
I don't think he's tried a Mac yet. Maybe
he should.
I booted his first machine off a Linux audio distro's live CD. The sound
worked. (Other stuff didn't, I think the system had a bunch of
Windows-only hardware in it.) So I didn't recommend that he use Linux on it.
That's not been an issue since the days of WinModems. Perhaps
there's no driver but even BIOS shouldn't be an issue with linux
because once the kernel takes over, the BIOS becomes irrelevant.
While he's much younger than you or I, he has
the technical knowledge
and understanding of a rock. You don't have that limitation to deal with!
Heh. This maybe true. Though I have one big limitation. Whilst I can
program in machine code on embedded systems, I completely missed the
boat with bloatware. I have a vague understanding of TinyC on
embedded systems but that's about my limit. There is a threshold I
reach with large complex OSes that just gives me a headache. But I'm
sure I'm not alone and there's probably clinics all across the globe
that treat the condition.
Anyway, I've tried a number of Linux audio
distros. Some were
surprisingly poorly-setup for audio use! Such as some of the Ubuntu 10
derivatives that didn't include an RT kernel. Or the ones that had RT
kernels but hadn't set up the permissions right. Or the one that refused
to recognize any form of audio hardware except the Intel stuff built-in
to the motherboard. Aptosid is the first distro I've encountered that
didn't need tweaking for audio - and it's a general purpose distro ...
I liked the last beta version of Musix 2.0 - it worked very nicely
running from the live CD, is very well setup for audio work. (Their
audio demos are really slick!) So I downloaded the release and tried it,
and the release version wouldn't work with the bog-standard Intel video
hardware in the laptop I use for music stuff!
I had some issues with Musix but I can't remember what they were
now. I'll go back and investigate. Hadn't come across Aptosid. So
thanks for that. I've now got fedora down and I'll see if I can get
CCRMA working. Never really got along with ubuntu but I'm slowly
making peace with it.
I agree about KDE. It use to be just fine in slackware for some
reason. But I'm assuming that the systems in question must be still
running KDE3. I'm not sure if I ever bothered upgrading any of these
local slackware boxes. You know how it is. If it ain't broke, don't
fix it.
Once again thanks. I have much to go on. I would rather prefer to
have a linux based system at the end of the day but I'll hedge my
bets. As long as I don't end up running something like
PropellerHeads Reason, I can live with running the CreatiFlabs card
under BOSH I guess. And it just dawned on me that I can still
transfer the SF2 files over to Fluid or LSP at some later stage
should I get either working.
Thanks again. Most appreciated.
Be absolutely icebox.
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