[LAU] Anyone interested in JACKifying Beatrix?

[Fredrik Kilander]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Ken Restivo wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 05:30:29PM -0700, Tim Howard wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I was just thinking it would be really great if someone (with
>> programming skills several notches higher than my own) could JACKify
>> Beatrix.  Now, I realize that Beatrix is not GPL'd software, so it
>> doesn't have anywhere near the community interest that it COULD
>> have... <ahem>
>> ...
>> Any thoughts?
> Have a look in the archives. This was discussed recently.

Hi,

I do have an interest in making Beatrix more suited for plug-in 
environments, but it is a long road. The main issues that concern an 
adaptation are (in no particular order):

  * The system sample rate is more or less fixed at 22.05 KHz.

  * The system buffer size is set at compile-time.

  * Dynamic memory is considered not to be a problem and is not released
    when free (this is not a leak - it just remains allocated but unused).

  * There is no support for shutdown/unloading.

  * The reverb FX hogs the cpu due to denormal numbers.

  * The rotary speaker FX has a flaw for which two fixes exist: either
    a huge lookup table or additional cpu cycles. Which is most
    appropriate?

  * There is no real user interface and for portability there is no UI
    service interface.

Further, to take full advantage of plug-in environments the overdrive, 
reverb and rotary effects should probably be broken out of the main chain. 
This creates a conflict with the current configuration mechanism which of 
course assumes that they are integrated. This is probably a secondary 
issue, since as independent FX units they need their own and independent 
control surfaces anyway.



-fk

  Fredrik Kilander                       | email: fk at dsv.su.se
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