On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 18:18, Jos Laake wrote:
  Hey!  Thanks for all the great responses!  This is my
kind
 of mailing list! :-)  Okay, I'm really serious about making
 some hellacious new music, so I'm diving into this...  Here
 are some questions leading off the new info... 
Never said you could ASK questions...Just said Hi! :))
 R Parker wrote:
  Hi Jos,
 There are numerous options but have a look at
 
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/. It
 works. I think you'll find what want. 
 Wow.  CCRMA...seems like some amazing work going on
 there.  Okay, so I downloaded and installed the latest
 CCRMA kernel and the matching ALSA support.  So far,
 it all seems to be working.  The new kernel runs like a
 charm (2.4.26-1.11).  Low latency is on.  Things still work.
 So, now I have a tuned kernel and ALSA.  Next... 
Mandrake has it swingin' too incase you want to dig around and try
something else. URPMI makes installing software pretty easy (things
NEVER compile well for me) and Thac's website ( rpm.nyvalls.se ) is just
brimming with all the latest and greatest stuff that he compiles and
packages just for ME...Er...us! :)
 eviltwin69(a)cableone.net wrote:
  Welcome back!  Check out my web site:
 
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/ALSA_JACK_ARDOUR.html
 Ardour is the best multitrack available but it takes some setup
 to get running.
 I've documented the scratch setup on my web site (since you
 already know your way around Linux this shouldn't be a problem). 
 So, I went to the Ardour website and checked it out.  Seems like
 ALSA/JACK/Ardour is a pretty good combination.  But I'd like a
 little more input from folks who have tried this stuff.  Any
 comparison tests out there among the various attempts at developing
 a Digital Audio Workstation?  Ardour seems more robust than Audacity,
 yet Audacity seems easier to use.  Is this just my newbie sense leading
 me astray or is my intuition telling me something? 
Allow me...Ardour and Audacity in my mind are like Gold and Chalk!  Not
in the same league. Ardour is heading towards being able to compete with
the big'uns such as Cubase, Sonar, Pro Tools, etc. It's already there in
many ways but the developer(s) are still working on that to ripen it up!
Audacity is a neat "toy" to me. I don't have that much time with it and
I'm sure it's a good app.
  Don't forget to check out JAMIn for
 mastering (
http://jamin.sourceforge.net/). 
 I'll get to this a little bit later... ;-) 
 
Jamin is an AWESOME tool for mastering and such but it's a bit "hoggy"
on the cycles is all. To be expected from something with some boots on!
 Pete Bessman wrote:
  I don't have experience with the audio
hardware you describe, but it's
 not known for pro-quality in the Window's world, so I don't see why it
 would be any different on Linux.  Your other hardware specs sound to
 be much more than sufficient.
 If you're interested in getting a new sound card, I'd recommend coming
 up with a few candidates and then asking the list what they think of
 them. 
 So how about this one? - Creative Labs SoundBlaster MP3+ USB Audio unit
 Yeah, it's a cheapo, about 40 bucks at Fry's.  Anybody using consumer
 grade stuff and getting decent (demo qulity) results?  Or are the stock
 soundcards and/or motherboard sound units all crap?  Remember, my last
 recordings were on reel-to-reel tape.  I'm not looking for pro-studio
 2-track ulti-bit quality here.  I just wanna make cool music that
 sounds clean enough for my friends and fans to play in their car stereos
 and MP players. 
I have not messed with USB audio cards specifically. I do use a midiman
2x2 USB midi interface with no probs...Frank has much on USB sound
devices...and none of it good! :)  I don't think USB should be your
first choice but you dont need to spend big bux to do multi tracking.
It's really comes down to how many simultaneous In's 'n' outs you want.
If you just want to do track by track your in great shape with a
consumer card. I use SBlives, ESS Maestro3 and a Turtle Bitch...er
Beach. SBlive 5.1's are about $20.00 US (OEM) and get good latency for
the most part.
 Okay, I'll bust it up and keep this short.  I suppose I should pop over
 to Linux Audio *Developers* to ask about fine-tuning hard drives and
 interrupts, eh? ;-)
 Thanks for the quick feedback and input, y'all! 
I'm pretty much a noob myself. This is just my malformed personal
opinion and there are many folks that have forgotten more in the last
week than I have learned in a year of Linux Audio.
R~
 ~Jos~