Mostly I am looking for the sampler parts. I want to be able to load samples and sequence it using my midi keyboard. I think I may have a good drum computer handled. Then I need some type of DAW to work with everyhting in to produce a final product. I'm really, really new to audio production on linux, so if there are any good guides out there to get started, I would be more than happy to read up on it! On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Julien Claassen <julien(a)c-lab.de> wrote:

No one program on Linux can do what reason does. But there is a way to use some groups of apps together to get all of the functionality (minus some streamlining of interface and user friendliness). Actually there are at least 20 sets of applications, each of which as a group would do what you want if you take the time to learn them. As an aside, the immensity of the number of choices is the heaven and the hell of Linux. For example the lack of any default software audio mixing means we can get better latency and signal-quality with Linux than any other OS I know of; it also means that for every pro-audio user in latency heaven there are two thousand desktop users who don't know why they can't listen to an mp3 and hear the soundtrack to a youtube video at the same time. As a nerd who cannot tolerate latency or xruns when using my laptop in a concert I am fine with that trade off. But I won't criticize a casual desktop user using his computer as an interactive TV for considering the linux audio experience a waste of his time. There may be a similar trade off for the pro audio user who wants to fiddle with low level integration of his audio tools and get the very most of his system (in Linux heaven), and the audio guy who is less of a nerd than I, who has no patience for setting up all the little parts of a Linux audio production environment (in Linux hell). I won't judge anyone for wanting an integrated cookie cutter out of the box audio environment, that is surely not a character flaw, but Linux is probably not the system he should be using (unless that easy set up is available now, I wouldn't know because that is not what I am looking for). On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:

For all I know you are right, but the Ubuntu forums are full of people claiming to have this problem. What is this solution you speak of? I know you could mean pulseaudio or dmix or esd or arts or jackd, or something else I haven't heard of, but which one? We all know you cannot use them all together with a normal sound card. I am not trolling. I have used Linux as my sole desktop OS for the last decade, and you could not make me use Windows or Mac OSX. On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com> wrote:

"If you have tried all the other fixes for sound in flash. Close all browsers and open programs. Open a terminal and type in Code: killall esd Then start Firefox and see if flash has sound. If it dose you may have to do this to make sure that other applications are not using the sound card." from: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202537&highlight=sound "Can't get sound and compiz to work" from: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=792183&highlight=sound "broken sound after upgrade" from: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=795853&highlight=sound Those were just a few of the hits on the first page of results for a search of "sound" on the ubuntu forums. Without fail it was a case of using incompatible audio backends. In the sense that there is a known way to make the audio work (set up all apps manually to use the same backend, or only use one backend at a time), then yeah it is "fixed". In terms of usability, it is not fixed until people don't need to start these threads. Once again, I am a Linux advocate, and if there actually was a consistant software mixing backend installed in linux systems, I would probably be manually turning it off by personal preference. But I would hardly consider the issue fixed yet for a typical desktop user. You don't see many graphic apps expecting to hog all of the the framebuffers, or refusing to work with any but one window manager, why should we expect less of sound? For most users audio is less of a baseline usability issue, so the infrastructure is less mature and it is easier to cope with it being broken. But it is still broken. As I said, I have been using Linux for over a decade, primarily for audio, and I don't have all my audio apps set to use the same backend, and I have to pick between audio using apps (if I want to watch a youtube video in firefox I need to shut down my jack server, and most of the apps using it, first, or download the raw file so I can watch it in an app that uses jack - unless there is some way to do this with portaudio I am ignorant of? I have had zero luck making jack use dmix). for reference, here is a url for the search: http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=41308245 On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com> wrote:

I have a windows sequencer running over wineasio/jack on an rme multiface. at the same time I have kde, amarok, vlc, skype, 2:nd life (in wine) and flash sharing my onboard Intel-hda soundcard (using alsa). This on kubuntu 8.04. Seems to be no problem... Jack On Thursday 15 May 2008 22:16:26 Justin Smith wrote:

Hi Ray! Do it my way: Don't bother with flash andyou'll be a happier man. :-) Kindest regards Julien P.S.: Sorry couldn't stop myself... -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Hi! In general you can't. But there is one trick I know. You can configure alsa's default device to be a jack-client. that means, your app says let me use ALSA and alsa just says: None of my worry I pass it on to jack. You can do that in your .asoundrc in your homedirectory. I did it like this: edit ~/.asoundrc pcm.!default { type plug slave { pcm "myjack" } } pcm.myjack { type jack playback_ports { 0 alsa_pcm:playback_1 1 alsa_pcm:playback_2 } capture_ports { # I use capture_1 twice, because it give stereo microphone input 0 alsa_pcm:capture_1 1 alsa_pcm:capture_1 } } You should make sure, there is no other "pcm.!default" in your .asoundrc. If there is noe move it to something like "pcm.old_default". So when you run on simple ALSA, no JACK at all, you could still easily use alsa by: 1. giving the proper "old_default" device as alsa-device to the app you run. OR: 2. By chaning "pcm.!default" to "pcm.old_default" and vice versa. For me it works perfectly with most apps. By wrapping the myjack pcm-device in a plug (pcm".!default" I even get some nice and comfortable conversions done. Hope that helps! Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Thanks for this Paul -- sorts that out nicely. So off to get a USB soundcard for my laptop... On Fri, 16 May 2008, Paul Davis wrote:

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Chris Cannam <cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com> wrote: Well, it works perfectly for me, on two separate Ubuntu 8.04 machines, without hardware mixing, one using pulseaudio and one using alsa + dmix. I guess the users on those Ubuntu forums are using an old version of Flash that blocks the soundcard. Lee

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Chris Cannam <cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com> wrote: What flash version does about:plugins report? Do you use a custom .asoundrc? Lee

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 5:51 PM, Chris Cannam <cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com> wrote: What mp3 player? Lee

Chris Cannam wrote: Perhaps this guide will help you. <http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683> -- Phil Sexton: http://www.myspace.com/philsexton Praise Whistlers Abroad: http://praisewhistlers.org/ Naomi's Fancy: http://www.naomisfancy.net/ Naomi's Fancy myspace: http://www.myspace.com/naomisfancy The Old Bush: http://www.cdbaby.com/naomisfancy Crossing Borders: http://cdbaby.com/cd/naomisfancy2 Naomi's Fancy Free tunes: http://www.naomisfancy.net/modules.php?name=Downloads

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Chris Cannam &lt;cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com&gt; wrote: Let's take this offline. I was not trying to threadjack or open up a huge can of worms, I really did think this problem was resolved. I'll follow up via private mail. Sorry everyone... Lee

On Fri, 16 May 2008 22:51:13 +0100 "Chris Cannam" &lt;cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com&gt; wrote: Exceuwws meee Why would anyone want to visit yew toob while playing music. ... come to think of it, why would anyone want to visit yew toob :D -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk

On 16/05/2008, Folderol &lt;folderol(a)ukfsn.org&gt; wrote: It's a fair cop! Well, the example earlier in the thread was about visiting YouTube while playing an mp3. But the usual problem for me is that the card isn't released after leaving the site either -- I do seem to go to YouTube and similar sites often enough that it's a pain having to exit Firefox completely before I can play another mp3 file, or (heaven forbid) start JACK against the same soundcard. Chris

Folderol wrote: My students use it for Reaper tutorials, Audacity tutorials, and guitar instruction videos. Maybe someday someone will put up a few Ardour tutorials. Best, dp

On Fri, 16 May 2008 23:23:12 +0100 "Chris Cannam" &lt;cannam(a)all-day-breakfast.com&gt; wrote: From my experience, the ESD-option in the gui enables/disables PA. There shouldn't be any other soundserver running, afaik. PAs gui is quite strange, you need to start the PA-device chooser, then (!)leftclick on the thing in the taskbar. Choose the volume control, it's the only part of the control stuff I needed so far and contains the controls one usually wants. Go to the output devices-tab, rightclick on the device you want to have as default device and you'll see a context menu with a single checkbox reading 'Default'. On the playback-tab you can change the output device of a 'playing' app in the same manner. Hope this helps. I agree that it isn't really a big improvement, in parts because of the strange gui, its bad integration into the desktop and the incompatibility between PA and portaudio and similar problems. Best Regards, murks

Hi! For a DAW to record: Try audacity (it's rather simple). I said rather. It means it is worthy to work with. For the big time work: go for ardour. There is a debian package for it, and I believe there should be a ubuntu package for it. For sample-playback: If you don't have sampling libraries yet or if you want to go for others: there is linuxsampler, which can read gigasample version2 sounds. There is hydrogen for drum-sounds, which has its own libraries and lets you create new drum-libraries. there is alsofluidsynth (and qsynth for the graphical interface). Fluidsynth (qsynth respectively) read soundfonts. There are some very ok drum-libraries in SF2 format. That's just completing to makr Knecht's message, not an either-or alternative. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Am Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2008 schrieb Mark Freeman: Thats the spirit! If you are set on ubuntu, you might want to use ubuntustudio, which has some great meta-packages to install _lots_ of audio apps. (And leaves it to gnome to display a list of apps in its menu that is longer than most screens :) Have fun, Arnold -- visit http://www.arnoldarts.de/ --- Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me to all your contacts. After a month or so log in as root and do a "rm -rf /". Or ask your administrator to do so...