On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Rui Nuno Capela <rncbc(a)rncbc.org> wrote: Rui, I somehow missed this announcement the first time it came out or didn't pay enough attention. So you've managed to get pitch shifting into a Linux-based loop player?!?! Exciting. I've been waiting for this since 1999! I'll have to give qtractor a serious look? The power of the commercial progs like Acid Pro, Ableton, FL, etc., is that I can drop in loops and they are automatically set to the tempo of the session. Does qtractor do this? If I have loops recorded at 136BPM and I'm doing a 119BPM session is the default pitch as recorded and the default tempo 119? Thanks, Mark

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 12:21 PM, Rui Nuno Capela &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; wrote: <SNIP> Agreed. Ah, OK, I'll try to pay attention to that. Need to get the latest version built and spend some time with it. Ah, OK. That's a bit different than the default in Acid Pro but I'm sure it's completely reasonable once you get used to it. For info only - Acid Pro automatically adjusts the tempo of every loop making an assumption that every loop used in a session should conform to the tempo of the session. This is sensible (to me anyway) because 99.999% of the time I want my drums and guitars to be in sync no matter what tempo a specific the loop was recorded at. So, for at least the basic work flow the only thing you deal with by hand is pitch. As for edge dragging, in Acid this allows you to play a portion of a loop. If I place a loop in a session the tempo is adjusted automatically and I hear the whole loop. If I drag the left edge to the right I lose the front part of the loop. If I drag the right edge to the left I lose the last part of the loop. There are ways to drag the loop to an out-of-sync point if you want but I don't use it much, really only for beat slicing where they have better tools in the editor. Far better than I with Portuguese, my friend! A sia saide, Mark (If I got that wrong blame the Internet. I hope that meant cheers!)

Rui Nuno Capela wrote: [...] [...] As far as I can remember, the "automagic-ness" of ACID relies on some sort of extra metadata. I think it was embedded in the WAV file, but it might have been somewhere else. The point is, if there is such metadata in a clip (e.g. wav), why no use it? Have an option like "strech clip according to tempo metadata" or the likes. If I remember your LAC presentation correctly, all resampling is done "on-the-fly" (modulo some cacheing) so isn't is simply initializing the 'stretch factor' to a proper value? 2cents for the masses, Pieter

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 4:12 PM, Rui Nuno Capela &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; wrote: Free acidized [1] loops can be found as 8packs at ACIDplanet [2]. [1] http://www.playinmusic.com/FAQ.htm#what%20does%20acidized%20mean [2] http://www.acidplanet.com/tools/8Packs/?T=5516 -- Anders Dahnielson &lt;anders(a)dahnielson.com&gt;

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 11:04 AM, Mark Knecht &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Here's a couple of examples of sndfile-info looking at Acid loops. The first is a drum loop, the second a promo I got off of AcidPlanet this morning. There are certainly tempo problems with both of these as neither loop is 120BP natively but remember it was a work in progress where progress stopped and not that anyone said the work was done... - Mark mark@lightning ~/Desktop/My Data/Music/072 BPM (Slow Groove) $ sndfile-info Fill1.wav Version : libsndfile-1.0.17 ======================================== File : Fill1.wav Length : 441654 RIFF : 441646 WAVE fmt : 16 Format : 0x1 => WAVE_FORMAT_PCM Channels : 2 Sample Rate : 44100 Block Align : 6 Bit Width : 24 Bytes/sec : 264600 data : 440934 acid : 24 Flags : 0x0000 (Loop,RootNoteInvalid,StretchOff,RAMBased,??Off) Root note : 0x3C ???? : 0xFFFF8000 ???? : 0.000000 Beats : 2 Meter : 4/4 Tempo : 120.000008 strc : 636 End ---------------------------------------- Sample Rate : 44100 Frames : 73489 Channels : 2 Format : 0x00010003 Sections : 1 Seekable : TRUE Duration : 00:00:01.666 Signal Max : 7.23123e+06 (-1.29 dB) mark@lightning ~/Desktop/My Data/Music/072 BPM (Slow Groove) $ mark@lightning ~/Desktop/My Data/Music/Painting After Hours $ sndfile-info AFTERHOURS\ EDM\ pahPROMO\ 01.wav Version : libsndfile-1.0.17 ======================================== File : AFTERHOURS EDM pahPROMO 01.wav Length : 2619310 RIFF : 2619302 WAVE fmt : 16 Format : 0x1 => WAVE_FORMAT_PCM Channels : 2 Sample Rate : 44100 Block Align : 4 Bit Width : 16 Bytes/sec : 176400 data : 2605292 acid : 24 Flags : 0x0002 (Loop,RootNoteValid,StretchOff,RAMBased,??Off) Root note : 0x36 ???? : 0xFFFF8000 ???? : 0.000000 Beats : 32 Meter : 4/4 Tempo : 120.000000 strc : 4636 *** str2 : 20 (unknown marker) *** bmrk : 7024 (unknown marker) *** dtbt : 520 (unknown marker) LIST : 82 INFO *** MRAT : 4 ICOP : (c) 2008 Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved. *** mudp : 1612 (unknown marker) End ---------------------------------------- Sample Rate : 44100 Frames : 651323 Channels : 2 Format : 0x00010002 Sections : 1 Seekable : TRUE Duration : 00:00:14.769 Signal Max : 32735 (-0.01 dB) mark@lightning ~/Desktop/My Data/Music/Painting After Hours $

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Rui Nuno Capela &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; wrote: Hi Rui, You know me pretty well at this point old friend. I've just a user. Nothing more. I might be a pretty smart user, but I'm just a user. As I remember the work Erik and I were doing, I think we were doing sort of hunt and peck. I'd try a few loop files, look at the results and if they weren't correct (as per Acid) then I'd send him info like the stuff above, and maybe a loop file or two. I'd tell him what Acid Pro was telling me, and he'd try and find that info in the file. He'd do some changes and I'd try the new version via patches he'd give me. We made some headway but eventually he ran out of time and it didn't move forward anymore I'm actually not sure if it ever improved after that. I've been subscribed to this list or its predecessor for over 8 years now and cannot remember any serious discussions in public. Fankly though, without someone like you doing an app like qtractor it didn't matter too much and I let it drop. The need for this info is all driven by the app you're doing. I don't know of any other Linux app that would really require it. Other could use it but I think an app like qtractor would really make good use if we could work it all out. So, to the extent that you or some other developer reading this in lurk mode has an interest I have gigabytes of Acid loops that we use here for composition. I'd be happy to help out again should the need arise. Having an Open Source replacement for Acid has been high on my wish list for years. I'd love to help it happen. Cheers, Mark

Jokosher http://jokosher.org not as much as Acid or Live.. it uses "Apple Loops" which are AIFF files, and an invisible directory of metadata theres also 'rex' files from recycle, which embed the metadata _inside_ the sound file. usually inline. using some archaic blob 'chunks' thing from the original aiff quasispec i mainly use ssv files (154 0.8 932 0.6) which is just sample offset and velocity. i havent looked to see if appleloops use samples, ppqn/bars/musical-timebase or both. anywyas if i wanted more verbose/detail, id definitely use MoTools http://motools.sourceforge.net rather than inventing my own schema or reverse-engineering apple loops (ok, they probably have a spec up..) whats up with release 'cycles' anyways. people still open up CDRs in the mail every 6 months or something?

Mark Knecht wrote: oh no. don't take me wrong. i was just in hope that Erik was listening here too :) ok. we already have the "Root note", "Beats", "Meter" and "Tempo" fields in sight, which is a fair start imo. i'm afraid of what the "??" could mean :) and whether Erik will break or change the SFC_GET_LOG_INFO output string layout on any other libsndfile release ;) byee -- rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela rncbc(a)rncbc.org

On Sunday 04 May 2008 12:02:45 Mark Knecht wrote: snip You might want to ask Fred Gleason or one of the other Rivendell developers. I know they pull data out of various wav files on import inot the system. At least I think I know that. I am cc'ing one of the rivendell lists.... as a heads up only... all the best, drew

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Rui Nuno Capela &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; wrote: <SNIP> No, I really don't thin kit's quite that bad. In fact I thought it worked better than it did so maybe part of the problem is just lack of attention over the last few years and some bug creeping in here or there. Some of what's there is right, I think. I really believe that just finding a couple of folks who have an interest and digging in will probably figure it out pretty quickly. <SNIP> Well, independent of what the tempo is in a session, if I know an 8-bar pre-recorded loop is 120000 samples long (available from the loop's meta-data) and I know my session requires 140,000 samples to meet whatever the tempo is set to for 8 bars, then the resampling can be done on the fly. To be clear, Acid Pro does NOT resample on the fly with extremely high quality. The quality is good but if I change a 68 BMP loop to 160 BPM I am absolutely going to hear artifacts all over the place. My experience is, however, that this gives 'character' to my work. It sounds real, funky, fun. Most of the time what I hear when I listen to a single resampled loop by itself is completely covered up when the song is done. If it's not then and only then would I bother with external, high quality resampling. 99.99% of the time it's just not an issue for me. - Mark

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Rui Nuno Capela &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; wrote: OK, certainly I'm confused about the current feature set. I thought this was all a discussion for the future and that what qtractor supported today was pitch shifting. Let me spend time in the program and see what it actually does. Cheers, Mark

Atte André Jensen wrote: thanks Atte, your instructions are quite similar to the ones i've posted before, just that you're being much more specific with the numbers involved and i was just telling how to do it with the mouse-and-click way of things in qtractor :) however, it also assumes that tempo of a given loop is primarily derived from the length or number of sample frames (or sub-divisions of it) the other issue is about actual audio content vs. tempo and key signature. suppose you have some file of a recorded drum beat performed at any tempo X while the sample file length is arbitrary, that is, not a multiple nor exact sub-division of a bar in that tempo X? first you'll have to determine which tempo X is that, by earing and tapping or using some kind of a beat-detector; once you know X then you can start trimming the file to fit an exact multiple/division bar length of X; only then you can time-stretch to fit against to yet another tempo Y. the same applies to pitch and key signature detection. of course, all this applies if you want to keep what i call musical and metric coherence. if what you want to is breaking out new soundscapes, all this workflow is moot ;) afaict one purpose of the acid file meta-data is giving that tempo and trimming information right from the sample file content; no need for guessing. otoh, it won't be a big surprise if those "high-end" loop-editor apps includes some kind of beat and pitch-detection from the start, specially when importing audio sample files from "unknown" sources ie. without the proper meta-data filled in. qtractor hasn't none. *you* are in control :)) -- rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela rncbc(a)rncbc.org

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 9:24 AM, Atte André Jensen &lt;atte.jensen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Absolutely. It's actually sort of difficult to buy loop sets commercially that aren't in 4/4. Most 4/4 loops cover 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars, etc. Using commercial loop sets within something like Acid without chopping does lead to fairly straight forward pop/house/D&B/rock formats pretty directly but you can do other things by chopping loops. Trance loop sets are cool as they often have long pad loops that might run 32 bars with some variation in the loop so you can grab an 8 bar chunk that you like the sound of. There are sometimes a few 3/4 loops buried within larger sets, but it's really, really difficult to find 5/8 or 7/8 sets for doing anything very jazzy. - Mark

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Dave Phillips &lt;dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com&gt; wrote: And I'd love to see qtractor take on some of these interesting tempo area that Acid and the other commercial programs don't do a good job with but it's hardly important to me that I can choose a 17/32 signature but don't have any loops that really make sense in that time. BTW - it is *sometimes* interesting to embed a 3/4 or 6/8 loop in a 4/4/ signature. What Acid does is spread out the 3/4 audio evenly so that the beats are coming at odd, but mathematically correct times. Again, with Acid it's very easy to just 'play'.

On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 07:43:13PM +0100, Rui Nuno Capela wrote: how about dragging region end to snap to beats ? like ardour. -- torben Hohn http://galan.sourceforge.net -- The graphical Audio language

I completely understand. However logically this leads to a slower work flow and far higher disk space for those of use that buy loops and have a large library: Library 1 recorded at 136 BPM Library 2 recorded at 128 BPM Library 3 recorded at 124 BPM Session A tempo 118 BPM Session B tempo 140 BPM With Acid I keep one Library directory on disk. When I drop the loop into the session they are resampled for tempo (not pitch) on the fly. Fast and easy. With the flow qtractor currently has (and every other Linux loop friendly app I know of) I have to do this: 1) Resample Libraries 1, 2 & 3 to 118 BMP 2) Resample Libraries 1, 2 & 3 to 140 BPM 3) Point Session A to the 118 BPM directory 4) Point Session B to the 140 BPM directory Backup require that I either back up every tempo or resample libraries again in the future after a drive problem. What happens when I decide that 140BPM wasn't quite right and my video producer needs or just wants 142 BPM? With Acid I up the tempo 2 BPM and I'm done. What do I do with this flow? (A lot of work I think, and when he tells me "Sorry, I meant 143 BPM I shoot him or lose my gig.) What will qtractor require of me if I do tempo changes within the song, even if it isn't supported today? Resample at every BPM from 140 BPM down to 120BPM in 0.1 BPM increments and place these into the session by hand? I shudder! Please note I'm not trying to pick on anyone or any ideas here. It's just that I've used these Windows loop programs for years and have a pretty good idea of the pitfalls of trying to live long term with the current qtractor flow. I think it will be harder for the creative process. Acid is probably the most 'fun' program I've used over the years. I'd love to have as much 'fun' with qtractor someday. Cheers, Mark

While I'm sure Mark meant in no way to narrow the scope of Qtractor, I looked at it yesterday for the first time semi seriously. It's clearly headed for more than being just a 'loop player'... I have a slightly older version {0.1.1} that is among the repo pkg's on my distro of beloved choice. (Sorry Rui...I'm not in my bedroom and I used more than one track!!! Did I violate the RPL?? {Rui - Pulic - License}) Veering off topic as I so fondly do, I'm running Fluxbox 1.0 and when I run Qtractor, obviously it wraps in QT 3.3 in this case. The main windows function fine but child windows such as the "mixer" window, come up at a default size and cannot be re-sized other than to be maximized or minimized. I'm 99.9% certain it's a Fluxbox issue (and I have put a LOT of time into this in the last 10 days do to not having a job for he first time in forever), but wonder if anyone has the Fluxbox magic sauce on this....OR, is there QT3.3 magik I can apply. I'm largly doing this because there is a {yet another} audio based derivitive of my favorite distro out there and before I point the masses to it, I 1st, want blessings of the creator, and 2...it's not ready for prime time! But I CAN tell you, it smells REAL good!! It runs KDE by default and KDE is getting to be a bit more like that *other* OS that swallows resources n cycles like a pig eating slops, so I'm adding the pazzaz suace to fluxbox with custom menus, purty wallpapers and running Wbar with all the cool apps on it. More on that soon... Not that it mattered to anyone except my family, but rumors of my death {pre OR past tense} have been grossly exagerated! :P Fanx! R ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Knecht" &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; To: "Rui Nuno Capela" &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt; Cc: &lt;linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org&gt; Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 10:36 AM Subject: Re: [LAU] [LAA] Qtractor 0.1.3 (frugal damsel) released!

Heh! Hopefully, I did not imply you should provide any kind of apology! Having read yur posts for years, AND meeting you in person, I have *never* known you to be anything more than a complete Gentleman and diplomat! Besides, I was kissing up to Rui 'cause, well....just coz! lol While I kneel readily and worship the Great King of audio editing and recording with faith and dedication (Do I *have* to say??), sometimes I don't want to pull it out of the garage...I want to take the *other* rig, for many reasons! :) Cheers! R ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Knecht" &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; To: "Russell Hanaghan" &lt;hanaghan(a)starband.net&gt; Cc: "Rui Nuno Capela" &lt;rncbc(a)rncbc.org&gt;rg>; &lt;linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org&gt; Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 1:19 PM Subject: Re: [LAU] [LAA] Qtractor 0.1.3 (frugal damsel) released!

On Friday 02 May 2008, Rui Nuno Capela wrote: Heh, i would be happy with some way to push a region one periodsize to the left or right on the timeline.. (and then the way is not too far to automatically doing this for newly recorded regions). Regards, Flo -- Palimm Palimm! http://tapas.affenbande.org