On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 02:54:48PM -0700, Russell Hanaghan wrote: I must of missed it before, but I'll give it a read.

-Eric Rz.

On Friday 10 September 2004 03:53 pm, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote: I don't have it posted anywhere just yet. Still in first draft.

el Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:26:19 -0700 Russell Hanaghan <hanaghan(a)starband.net> escribió: why don't you just upload it somewhere and post the url to the list? i guess many of us would just click on it and take a look...

On Saturday 11 September 2004 01:41 pm, Russell Hanaghan wrote: wrote: escribi�: Still in first draft. the url to the list? i a look... blurb. much...too that may have never used And NOW with pretty pictures!! :) C'mon...someone get mom or Grandma to read this thing...see if she becomes a Linux God by the end!! :) R R~

Opening the page was a little slow for me as well but I finally got there. But hey I'm on a modem so _everything_ is slow for me. I liked it, very basic and to the point. You may want to go into a little more detail about what FTP is.

Great graphics!! Good job Russell!!

Brad. On Sat, 2004-09-11 at 19:05, R Parker wrote: > Have tried to pull up the link twice. It just spins on > "Loading" and never pulls up anything. > > ron > > --- Russell Hanaghan <hanaghan(a)starband.net> wrote: > > On Saturday 11 September 2004 01:41 pm, Russell > > > > Hanaghan wrote: > > > On Saturday 11 September 2004 05:47 am, luis jure > > > > wrote: > > > > el Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:26:19 -0700 > > > > > > > > Russell Hanaghan <hanaghan(a)starband.net> > > > > escribió: > > > > > I don't have it posted anywhere just yet. > > > > Still in first draft. > > > > > > why don't you just upload it somewhere and post > > > > the url to the list? i > > > > > > guess many of us would just click on it and take > > > > a look... > > > > > Okey Dokey... > > > > > > Here's a link to the humble beginnings of this > > > > blurb. > > > > > http://hanaghan.mystarband.net/7397fxhowto.html > > > > > > Constructive critism invited! > > > > > > I basically want to know if the detail is too > > > > much...too > > > > > little...remember...I'm trying to attract people > > > > that may have never used > > > > > Linux before... > > > > And NOW with pretty pictures!! :) C'mon...someone > > get mom or Grandma to read > > this thing...see if she becomes a Linux God by the > > end!! :) > > > > R > > > > R~ > > > > > R~ > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

On Saturday 11 September 2004 05:05 pm, R Parker wrote: spins on Hmmm....It comes up fine for me but...then I use the service as my ISP to...damn Starband Satellite Internet service. They provide 10mb of webspace. This is the only place I have to post this for now... It maybe their servers are running a little slow... Please try again and tell me if you experience the same thing.

R~ wrote: jure post take http://hanaghan.mystarband.net/7397fxhowto.html people C'mon...someone the finish.

Hi Russell, Writing useful documentation is very difficult. The only reason that I'll offer any feedback is because I appreciate the difficulty of the task and sympathize with the feelings that you will experience. I'd love to see you churn out a useful document. In a past life, I studied a couple writing styles and reader tendencies. I might be typical of the average reader but it's possible I'm even less tolerant. Here's a few thoughts that have been helpful in my efforts to produce useful documentation. 1. If I write it in six words, they'll remember six. If 12 words, they'll remember six. If 18 words, they won't remember anything. 2. Provide answers, not questions! There should not be one single question in the entire document. No exception! 3. Leave the humor to that dumbass Jay Leno. 4. Opinions must be supported with facts. Style A format I believe is appropriate for this type of document is Associated Press Style. Tell the entire story in one very short introductory paragraph. Then elaborate on each point within a new paragraph, sub-section, chapter or whatever is required. The format for presenting information is referred to as an "inverted pyramid." The title for the document can be drawn from the first paragraph. Your title: "Linux DAW fx box How to for Rookies" Having read the title, I expect to find the information needed to build a Linux effects box. You have to assume the acronym DAW is unknown and will cause readers to immediately wonder what you are talking about. The same rule applies to "fx." Here's my rewrite of your title. Building Affordable Linux based Digital Audio Workstations Let's examine your first paragraph: So you dable with audio? This is assumed and it's a question. Remove it! You play an instrument(s) and have a tight budget but seem to have plenty of seemingly obsolete PC's laying around and even one decent enough to read this article somewhere out on the Internet? Not interested in spending the big bux on buying proprietary programs that are copyright protected, need a 'puter the size of HAL to run well and midrange to expensive sound cards to boot?? Read on...this might just be a solution for YOU! Having read the title, I expect a related introductory paragraph but it doesn't exist. If you don't fulfill the expectation of the title within the first paragraph, I'll never read the document. You jump into an unrelated topic about cheap computers and imply that they can be used as digital audio workstations. Here's a rough rewrite for the introductory paragraph, based on the rewritten title: If you need to build an affordable Digital Audio Workstation then a Linux based solution is a worthwhile consideration. There are customized versions of Red Hat, Debian, Slackware and several other linux based operating systems that specialize in including any number of the hundreds of audio, midi, sythesis and analysis applications that exist. A community of 871 Linux audio users and 781 Linux audio developers[1] subscribe to public mailing lists. Subsequent Paragraph 1 This paragraph is about Alsa. It could include one sentance about the 2.4 kernel status and one sentance for the 2.6 kernel status. A comprehensive list of supported audio cards and relative information is located at http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=All#matrix Subsequent Paragraph 2 This paragraph is pointers to Planet CCRMA, Demudi, etc. Subsequent Paragraph 3 This paragraph is about the Linux Audio community. How many people. Who uses linux audio solutions. Include specific examples and links to their websites. Prospective users need facts and examples. NOTES: 1. Statistics for subscribers to Linux audio mailing lists http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/subscribe.php3 The rest of the document can explore the details of your personal endeavor; installation, use, etc. Another point that you should be aware of. Paul Davis the author of Ardour has requested that nobody write user or developer documentation for Ardour. His request is a little frustrating for many people but everyone has honored his plea. You need to be very aware of this issue prior to designing your document. Russel, I admire your willingness to post your work and to request feedback. It's fuckin' awesome that you have the integrity to do this. The feedback I provided might be total crap but what matters is that you've created an opportunity for someone to strike the right cord with you. I appreciate that. Don't stop! OK, one last random thought. Ernest Hemingway is considered by many to be a great American writer. He had an editor and as a rule none of his first draft material went to press. The same applies to music. Without exception, every composition written by the members of this mailing list can be improved upon by anyone of us. Nobody I know produces great results without alot of help. You happen to be the poor grunt that has taken on the most important and demanding task of producing something useful. I hope you find something in my feedback that is useful. I gotta go study the drums and shutup--already. ron

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On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 09:18:21AM -0700, Russell Hanaghan wrote: wrote: me...primarily because I don't wish policies; Is that really personally used this one should use Ardour in the the Author(s)." But again, I be kinda counter thoughts?? As I understand it, Paul has been working on Ardour more than full time for at least the past 4+ years ... *on_his_own_funding*! Along the way he has made huge contributions to the linux audio code base in the form of extensive work on jackd, alsa drivers and various libraries. Not to mention the fact that his participation in the community as a very experienced and knowledgable programmer increases everyone's knowledge base.

this would be to write up docs on my use case, not publish it myself,

but instead give it to him to include in his docs as an example to put in the appendix or something. Maybe you could do the same with your section on your use of ardour. I'm not sure if Paul would accept it, but it can't hurt to offer it to him.

Anyway, the point is that your attitude of trying to offer something back to the community is a good one. We users who are willing to do this just have to find the ways of helping that fit the needs of the developers and other users. You've inspired me to get my butt back in gear and do more to help than I have been. > The "effects box" idea is a greater attractant

IMHO because there are a great PC in some form or performance was not that great. "Turn that old 486 into a else!"...this is a valid concept in capabilty and sense of reason in less DAW software that uses recording / messing / will have the hard work On this note, I have 25Mhz 486 w/12MB of RAM that has served as my firewall/router for 4.5 years. It's soon to be replaced by a shinier, newer, faster classic pentium 200MHz w/64MB of RAM. Last night I was thinking of how to keep it useful. I came up with the idea of writing some script that generates some kind of audio in realtime continuously to be streamed over the net. I'm thinking of trying to get it to boot over the network from an image on my file server and run in ram ... or maybe an NFS or other share. This should probably go in another thread, but does anyone know what to shoot for? How much realtime dsp can a box like this reasonably handle? Could it run hermes from a python ECI script with ecasound controllers controlling the parameters? Anyway, this is an interesting thread. Thanks everyone. -Eric Rz.

Hi Eric, --- Eric Dantan Rzewnicki <rzewnickie(a)rfa.org> wrote: Exactly! He's made a significant contribution and that makes it very easy to understand his wish to control the documentation for Ardour. Perhaps one way to do Not publishing them ourselves is important. You obviously appreciate his position. It might save you some work to ask him before you write anything. Before jackd was written, I had outlined and written many chapters for a book titled Professional Audio in Linux (PAIL). The book was designed around Ardour and I put a great deal of time and effort into the project. Before I could publish, Paul asked that nobody document Ardour. For various reasons it didn't bother me at all to have my efforts nullified; 1. Ardour is not my project, 2. I didn't have to finish this big assed book and could refocus my attention on using Ardour. I don't mean to speak for Paul Davis or anyone else. Especially when what I'm saying could discourage someone from making an appreciable contribution. I'm just trying to relay the message. Russell, I'm curious why you choose to use Ardour rather than Jack Rack for routing audio to effects. It seems to me that Jack Rack might be a better choice because it's designed to do what you need. I imagine there's more than one way to control levels into or from Jack Rack and there would be a way to create sends. Maybe I don't know exactly what you're doing. ron

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Last Monday 13 September 2004 20:20, R Parker was like: Having just started to get my head round Ardour, I can understand exactly why anyone would choose it over Jack-Rack. J-R can be a bit of a resource hog and I find the interface bewildering. That's not a dis on Bob's excellent work, rather an affirmation of what a fine tool Ardour is. We all have different needs, I have personally found multitracking apps to be excellent LADSPA hosts, ecasound does equally well in a profoundly less intuitive manner. ;)

On this note, I have 25Mhz 486 w/12MB of RAM that has served as my firewall/router for 4.5 years. It's soon to be replaced by a shinier, newer, faster classic pentium 200MHz w/64MB of RAM. Last night I was thinking of how to keep it useful. I came up with the idea of writing some script that generates some kind of audio in realtime continuously to be streamed over the net. I'm thinking of trying to get it to boot over the network from an image on my file server and run in ram ... or maybe an NFS or other share. This should probably go in another thread, but does anyone know what to shoot for? How much realtime dsp can a box like this reasonably handle? Could it run hermes from a python ECI script with ecasound controllers controlling the parameters?

http://hanaghan.mystarband.net/7397fxhowto.html Constructive critism invited!

It should be noted that this is often useful to do in a first draft. As Russell said, it started as a brain dump. Often when I sit down to write it takes several paragraphs, or pages even, to figure out exactly what it is I want to say. That's part of what first drafts are for, imho. I just wanted to mention it so that Russ and any other potential documentation writers don't get intimidated into thinking that what comes out first has to be the final word. It's good to just put down whatever comes out the first time through. You can always throw the fluff away on subsequent revisions.

Last Saturday 11 September 2004 21:41, Russell Hanaghan was like: Immediate thoughts. Yep. Way too many words in general, you lost me about half-way through paragraph 5. All I want to know is how to do this thing. Personally I also think it works better to refer to Microsoft Windows in a more respectful manner, I know that's not necessarily how any of us feel about it, but it makes a difference to the potential migrator. People take it personally being told their OS is useless, even (or especially) if they know it's less than perfect. There is an argument for use of relatively plain English, don't worry about seeming a bit 'dry' (generally better to put the effects on later. ;) - I don't think there's any chance that this article is going to come over as boring.

Also this: 'A great many of the Linux distributions, all based on the same structure of Linux created by Linus Torvalds years ago,' gives the wrong impression. Linus Torvalds does the Linux kernel, The structure of the distros probably owes more to UNIX history and presently, GNU. There's probably a much better way of putting it than that. Safer to credit the entire Free Software community for this than just one individual.

The actual HOWTO bit is much better, nice piccies! I'll be back to correct your grammar later! One last question: Is it really necessary to recommend running QJackCtl as root?

If you would like to include any information about how to do the same under Debian (A/DeMuDi) for completeness, I 'd be happy to provide the information once you've edited the existing piece a bit. Actually, most of what I would have to say is already up at: http://wiki.agnula.org/ and besides, you're the author, so obviously, do as you will.

Keep up the good work!

cheers tim hall

On Tuesday 14 September 2004 03:32 am, tim hall wrote: 'cause when you start trying to describe how to do this stuff to a noob, you begin to realize that you have yet to scratch the surface! And the biggest point made by everyone so far is "I talk too much!" :) So....why? I figured I would describe the quick and "dirty" way first...then lay out the methods utilizing realtime-lsm in the 2.6 kernel as I use on my system. But it involves editing modprobe.conf to setup on boot...that was ~not~ something I want to guide a noob straight into...just more or less testing if everything works.

I have mentioned this to the main developer and original author of this distro www.yoper.com I am one of the "team" members there now and hope to help bring that distro along as another good audio distro. They already use the Con Kolivas patches and the kernel is quite "snappy". If you have any idea when the realtime-lsm will realize as part of the 2.6 kernel, that would be great. Otherwise, I will convince Aundreas to include it in his version of the next release. Based on what I have told him from your posts here, he says he has no problem including it.