22 Apr
2004
22 Apr
'04
6:08 p.m.
I've been lurking on this list for a few months... I haven't even
created a Linux Digital Audio Workstation yet, but I'd like to. I'm
becoming more and more a believer in Open Source Software not only on
the server but also on the desktop... (I digress, sorry).
I'm looking at the latest MIDI sound modules and thinking can't I
achieve many of these things using Linux and my PC?
1) I want to have many sounds available for live playing (via MIDI) on
my keyboard. That's the top priority. Lots of sounds. Good quality
sounds. I'm thinking a sample playback machine or sound fonts
(right?). Can't I even achieve BETTER sounds with my PC than with a
very expensive new sound module?
2) I'd like to be able to sequence those great sounds. It would be
even better if I could use the sequencer WHILE playing live sounds
through this machine.
3) It would be very cool to be able to edit those sounds and tweak
them. Doesn't have to be "live" though.
MY QUESTIONS: Can I achieve these goals without too much fuss
(remember I'm a newbie)? Which "distro" (CCRMA or other?) would be
best/easiest? Do I want to go with sound fonts? What sound card
should I go with (not too expensive, ok?)?
Thank you Linux Audio Gurus!
--
===========================================================
"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep
for that which he cannot lose."
-- Jim Elliott
RICHARD K. INGALLS
Director of Information Technology
Glenwood R-8 School District
West Plains, MO
email..ringalls (at) glenwood.k12.mo.us
web....http://glenwood.k12.mo.us
ph.....417.256.4849
fax....417.257.2567
"Miracles are a retelling in small letters
of the very same story which is written across
the whole world in letters too large
for some of us to see."
-- C. S. Lewis
===========================================================
22 Apr
22 Apr
7:15 p.m.
Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
I've been lurking on this list for a few months...
I haven't even
created a Linux Digital Audio Workstation yet, but I'd like to. I'm
becoming more and more a believer in Open Source Software not only on
the server but also on the desktop... (I digress, sorry).
I'm looking at the latest MIDI sound modules and thinking can't I
achieve many of these things using Linux and my PC?
1) I want to have many sounds available for live playing (via MIDI) on
my keyboard. That's the top priority. Lots of sounds. Good quality
sounds. I'm thinking a sample playback machine or sound fonts
(right?). Can't I even achieve BETTER sounds with my PC than with a
very expensive new sound module?
Maybe yes, maybe no. I think it depends on how much money you're willing
to spend on either side. I'm not very upbeat on most of the Sound Fonts
I've listened to. Maybe I haven't listened to the best of them. I don't
know. They just don't sound very alive or real to my ear.
Personally I'm a fan of Kontakt and GigaSampler for sample players.
Nothing in Linux is really ready to handle that task today, although
Linux Sampler is coming along and (for specific gig files) might meet
your needs. I use it in the Studio a little bit right now, but it hasn't
displaced GigaSampler yet. I am holding off on purchasing Gst 3.0 in
hopes that LS gets there soon, but I don't know if I can wait much
longer. We'll see... ;-)
As for soft synths, my current Windows platforms are running Reaktor
Session, Atmosphere, Acid Pro and a few other things less often. (And
GSt/Kontakt as above) If you're into programming your own sounds then I
think in the Linux area amSynth, ZynAddSubFx, Timidity, QSynt and
probably a few others should be investigated, but there's not much of a
community sharing patches yet so it's not like you'll get 100 good
sounds to play with on day 1 I think...
There are some good effects units in FreqTweak & tapiir, and Jamin is
worth some time if you need a tool like that, although it's not for live
work especially.
2) I'd like to be able to sequence those great sounds. It would be even
better if I could use the sequencer WHILE playing live sounds through
this machine.
This, I think, is possible. I've done it in the studio with Rosegarden
and me playing live. However, maybe you want to look at having a couple
of machines, one as a sequencer and one as a sound generator.
3) It would be very cool to be able to edit those sounds and tweak
them. Doesn't have to be "live" though.
Yes, that would be cool... ;-)
MY QUESTIONS: Can I achieve these goals without too much fuss (remember
I'm a newbie)? Which "distro" (CCRMA or other?) would be best/easiest?
Do I want to go with sound fonts? What sound card should I go with (not
too expensive, ok?)?
Thank you Linux Audio Gurus!
I would probably go with CCRMA and see if you can get some value from
the significant time investment you're going to be making. Later you can
look at other distro's if you feel you need them.
Good luck,
Mark
7:19 p.m.
Hi Richard,
On Thursday 22 April 2004 9:01 pm, Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
I've been lurking on this list for a few months...
I haven't even
created a Linux Digital Audio Workstation yet, but I'd like to. I'm
becoming more and more a believer in Open Source Software not only on
the server but also on the desktop... (I digress, sorry).
Welcome :-) The water's fine.
I'm looking at the latest MIDI sound modules and
thinking can't I
achieve many of these things using Linux and my PC?
You can.
1) I want to have many sounds available for live
playing (via MIDI) on
my keyboard. That's the top priority. Lots of sounds. Good quality
sounds. I'm thinking a sample playback machine or sound fonts
(right?).
Right - fluidsynth /qsynth (gui version)
Can't I even achieve BETTER sounds with my PC than
with a
very expensive new sound module?
Depends on you, I'd say. We have the technology, if you can figure out how to
get the results you want with it. I'm still learning, this is my first foray
into computer music, so I haven't had much experience of Windows or Mac
software to compare it with.
2) I'd like to be able to sequence those great
sounds. It would be
even better if I could use the sequencer WHILE playing live sounds
through this machine.
There's this wonderful little daemon, known as Jack to its mates. It enables
multiple different applications to use the ALSA sound system simultaneously,
not only that but these days it deals with MIDI synchronisation, patching and
sorts out latency problems into the bargain. You'll understand if we think
it's pretty neat.
3) It would be very cool to be able to edit those
sounds and tweak
them. Doesn't have to be "live" though.
Can be if you want though, there's about half a dozen different ways to
achieve most effects.
MY QUESTIONS: Can I achieve these goals without too
much fuss
(remember I'm a newbie)? Which "distro" (CCRMA or other?) would be
best/easiest? Do I want to go with sound fonts? What sound card
should I go with (not too expensive, ok?)?
Ok, either PlanetCCRMA, which is based on Fedora I believe or Agnula, which
has a debian based system, which is what I use. Agnula have just released a
bootable 'live' CD based on Knoppix, which should boot fine on most machines
that used to run Windows, it's the most painless way to have a look at what
Linux Audio has to offer. It is just a demo, albeit a rocking one, you'll
probably want to think about installing a proper distro at some point.
Mandrake & SusE also support a good range of Linux Audio software.
Thank you Linux Audio Gurus!
No, just a student.
HTH
tim hall
23 Apr
23 Apr
4:48 a.m.
Am Don, den 22.04.2004 schrieb tim hall um 23:12:
[snip]
Ok, either PlanetCCRMA, which is based on Fedora I
believe or Agnula, which
has a debian based system, which is what I use. Agnula have just released a
Just for the record since this is the second time I read this: Agnula
offers both a Debian based system (DeMuDi) and one that is Red Hat-based
(ReHMuDi).
See www.agnula.org for more information.
Jan
6:21 a.m.
Just for the record since this is the second time I
read this:
Agnula offers both a Debian based system (DeMuDi) and one that is
Red Hat-based (ReHMuDi).
That's true, but most of the community development is taking place on
the Debian version. There aren't a lot of questions from users of
ReHMuDi on the Agnula lists either - users mostly seem to be trying
out DeMuDi.
As I understand it, what happened was that the Agnula distribution was
originally planned to be Debian based only, then Red Hat France got
involved and ReHMuDi was proposed as an addition to the project.
Perhaps it's because Planet CCRMA already exists that ReHMuDi hasn't
spawned much of a community so far.
Cheers
Daniel
8:46 a.m.
On Friday 23 April 2004 10.20, Daniel James wrote:
To add to the confusion. I use Mandrake myself with great success.
I think a list of distros that aim for multimedia would looks something like
this:
- Mandrake (especially with Thac's rpms, rpm.nyvalls.se, very fresh)
- Suse (a lot of stuff is included in the main distro, including lowlatency
patched kernels)
- Redhat/Fedora + CCRMA (Looks good and diverse, CCRMA is where all the good
stuff is)
- Agnula (should be a big name, multimedia is what confirms their existence, I
know too little though)
- Dynebolic ( live-cd based, don't know much about it)
/Robert
Just for the
record since this is the second time I read this:
Agnula offers both a Debian based system (DeMuDi) and one that is
Red Hat-based (ReHMuDi).
That's true, but most of the community development is taking place on
the Debian version. There aren't a lot of questions from users of
ReHMuDi on the Agnula lists either - users mostly seem to be trying
out DeMuDi.
As I understand it, what happened was that the Agnula distribution was
originally planned to be Debian based only, then Red Hat France got
involved and ReHMuDi was proposed as an addition to the project.
Perhaps it's because Planet CCRMA already exists that ReHMuDi hasn't
spawned much of a community so far. 
3:03 p.m.
On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 12:35:52PM +0200, Robert Jonsson wrote:
I think a list of distros that aim for multimedia
would looks something like
this:
- Mandrake (especially with Thac's rpms, rpm.nyvalls.se, very fresh)
- Suse (a lot of stuff is included in the main distro, including lowlatency
patched kernels)
- Redhat/Fedora + CCRMA (Looks good and diverse, CCRMA is where all the good
stuff is)
- Agnula (should be a big name, multimedia is what confirms their existence, I
know too little though)
- Dynebolic ( live-cd based, don't know much about it)
I'd add gentoo to that list. Most of what I want can be installed
simply by doing emerge name-of-app.
Occasionally when I want to live on the bleeding edge and install
a more recent version than they have available, of e.g. jack or alsa,
I use emerge's "inject" feature to tell the package system that
I've installed it myself so don't mess with it :-)
This way I can still emerge apps that depend on jack even though
I've installed it myself from source.
Sure does take a long time to install, though :-)
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
3:13 p.m.
Paul Winkler wrote:
On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 12:35:52PM +0200, Robert
Jonsson wrote:
Paul,
I agree that Gentoo can do most of this, but I wonder if it's the
right distro for a newbie? emerge is really a great environment with
huge amounts of support. I love it, but I wonder if a person new to
Linux would be successful getting through the install process?
- Mark
I think a list of distros that aim for multimedia
would looks something like
this:
- Mandrake (especially with Thac's rpms, rpm.nyvalls.se, very fresh)
- Suse (a lot of stuff is included in the main distro, including lowlatency
patched kernels)
- Redhat/Fedora + CCRMA (Looks good and diverse, CCRMA is where all the good
stuff is)
- Agnula (should be a big name, multimedia is what confirms their existence, I
know too little though)
- Dynebolic ( live-cd based, don't know much about it)
I'd add gentoo to that list. Most of what I want can be installed
simply by doing emerge name-of-app.
Occasionally when I want to live on the bleeding edge and install
a more recent version than they have available, of e.g. jack or alsa,
I use emerge's "inject" feature to tell the package system that
I've installed it myself so don't mess with it :-)
This way I can still emerge apps that depend on jack even though
I've installed it myself from source.
Sure does take a long time to install, though :-)
4:24 p.m.
Friday 23 April 2004 19.06 skrev Mark Knecht:
Paul Winkler wrote:
I consider myself somewhat more on the 'power user' side of the spectra and I
love the idea of gentoo.
Build your own customized system... though in a controlled manner.
And infact I did try to do it once but I gave up rather soon thereafter, it
was just too much work for me to keep it going. I still think it's a good
idea though, but it's definitely not for everybody.
/Robert
On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 12:35:52PM +0200, Robert
Jonsson wrote:
Paul,
I agree that Gentoo can do most of this, but I wonder if it's the
right distro for a newbie? emerge is really a great environment with
huge amounts of support. I love it, but I wonder if a person new to
Linux would be successful getting through the install process? I think a list of distros that aim for multimedia
would looks something
like this:
- Mandrake (especially with Thac's rpms, rpm.nyvalls.se, very fresh)
- Suse (a lot of stuff is included in the main distro, including
lowlatency patched kernels)
- Redhat/Fedora + CCRMA (Looks good and diverse, CCRMA is where all the
good stuff is)
- Agnula (should be a big name, multimedia is what confirms their
existence, I know too little though)
- Dynebolic ( live-cd based, don't know much about it)
I'd add gentoo to that list. Most of what I want can be installed
simply by doing emerge name-of-app.
Occasionally when I want to live on the bleeding edge and install
a more recent version than they have available, of e.g. jack or alsa,
I use emerge's "inject" feature to tell the package system that
I've installed it myself so don't mess with it :-)
This way I can still emerge apps that depend on jack even though
I've installed it myself from source.
Sure does take a long time to install, though :-) 
24 Apr
24 Apr
9:52 p.m.
I think a list of distros that aim for multimedia
would looks something like
this:
- Mandrake (especially with Thac's rpms, rpm.nyvalls.se, very fresh)
- Suse (a lot of stuff is included in the main distro, including lowlatency
patched kernels)
I probly sound like some kind of "spokesman" for Suse, but I'm just a
user. I just wanted to say that Suse also allows for easy installing and
setting up of audio *and* non-audio stuff so you can get up and running
fairly quickly and painlessly. In other words, you don't have to be a
linux guru to install and use a suse distrob. Although, somewere along
the line, one needs to know a fair amount about linux and linux/audio to
really be affective.
BTW... Suse is the only distrob I've used. So the above statement is not
a comparison to other distrobs.
Also, be aware that even though Suse comes with a lot of audio software,
they are usually outdated. But Suse also has most of what you need to be
able to download newer versions of (most) software and build/install
them sucessfully.
- Redhat/Fedora + CCRMA (Looks good and diverse, CCRMA
is where all the good
stuff is)
- Agnula (should be a big name, multimedia is what confirms their existence, I
know too little though)
- Dynebolic ( live-cd based, don't know much about it)
/Robert
23 Apr
23 Apr
7:55 a.m.
Hallo,
Richard K. Ingalls hat gesagt: // Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
1) I want to have many sounds available for live
playing (via MIDI) on
my keyboard. That's the top priority. Lots of sounds. Good quality
sounds. I'm thinking a sample playback machine or sound fonts
(right?). Can't I even achieve BETTER sounds with my PC than with a
very expensive new sound module?
The most important question is: What kind of sounds do you want? If
you want to sound like a Piano, no computer will ever sound better
that the real thing. If you want experimental sounds, then some kind
of modular synth would be a good way to go, something like Pd,
Suppercollider or Csound. Those also will offer very high flexibility
not possible with most other systems.
2) I'd like to be able to sequence those great
sounds. It would be
even better if I could use the sequencer WHILE playing live sounds
through this machine.
Also "sequencing" is a word, that's not very concrete. Do you just
want to play some prececorded midi snippets or do you want something
with more intelligence, something that can react somehow intelligently
to your or someone else's playing? In the first case, you'd probably
get aways with some Midi sequencer like MusE or seq24, but for the
other approach, you'll need a modular system again.
An example of someone using the second approach live would be William
Fields, who sequences very interesting things with Pd. For example the
livesets on http://bill.teamtechno.com/live.php were done in a way,
William describes as:
Basically, my system consists of a number of "generator" patches
[...]. There is one that plays MIDI files, there is one that
generates patterns of notes in a given scale (which is set
globally), there is one that generates chords, etc.. Each of these
generators can be turned on or off, routed to any midi channel, and
have a number of other parameters.
Under the hood, it is simply generating, processing, and routing
around <note,velocity,duration> vectors.
This is done with Pd on Windows, though, but will work the same on
Linux.
3) It would be very cool to be able to edit those
sounds and tweak
them. Doesn't have to be "live" though.
MY QUESTIONS: Can I achieve these goals without too much fuss
(remember I'm a newbie)? Which "distro" (CCRMA or other?) would be
best/easiest? Do I want to go with sound fonts? What sound card
should I go with (not too expensive, ok?)?
CCRMA reportedly is quite nice for newbies.
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
7547
days inactive
7549
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
10 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Daniel James -
Frank Barknecht -
Jan Weil -
LinuxMedia -
Mark Knecht -
Paul Winkler -
Richard K. Ingalls -
Robert Jonsson -
tim hall