[linux-audio-user] Commercial "clone" of ZynAddSubFX?

[Dave Phillips]

Folderol wrote:

>On Sat, 3 Feb 2007 01:01:18 -0500 (EST)
>Larry Troxler <lt at westnet.com> wrote:
>
>>yn isn't RT safe? Could you elaborate or point to a link? I remember 
>>reading something about this, and was hoping to use it for live 
>>performance.
>>    
>>
>I have heard several comments to this effect, and also that the code
>in Zyn is 'a nightmare' however I have not heard anything specific that
>one can really get a handle on.
>
>While I agree the GUI is poor and could do with quite a lot of work, I
>don't know about the rest, although there are changes I would like in
>the way voice banks are managed. 
>
>This all causes me quite a lot of concern. I find that Zyn gives
>unparallelled results, and conceptually most closely matches my grasp
>of sound. I am concerned about talk of unspecified jack problems, and
>also the lack of any visible development by the originator.
>  
>
Zyn will occasionally just pop itself out of the JACK graph, I'm not 
sure why. Paul Nasca had talked about upgrading Zyn's JACK support, but 
I don't think he ever got around to it.

Personally I don't mind the GUI. Zyn is a rather "deep" synth, I 
certainly wouldn't want to see all of its controls in one panel or even 
two. However, I will agree that its interface design does make it 
problematic to program. Fortunately its included sounds work beautifully 
for my purposes.

Finally though, Zyn is open-source and GPL'd, so whoever wants to pick 
up the torch is more than welcome to do so. I have no idea how its code 
looks, and I'm not likely to make the effort to find out (IANALAD), but 
surely there's a fledgling (or not-so-fledgling) Linux audio developer 
out there who wants to make a significant contribution to the Linux 
audio workplace ? A stable JACKified Zyn seems to rank highly on users' 
wish-lists.

>I, personally, would be willing to expend a great deal of effort to
>help revive Zyn, and would be quite happy to put my hand in my
>pocket as well.
>  
>
Developers, are you listening ? The man is offering his time *and* his 
money. And are any other users out there who are willing to pony up some 
dough for a bounty on this item ? (Assuming of course that the task is 
actually do-able within a reasonable time).

Synth development in Linux has seen a severe slowdown over the past year 
or so. We need things like stabilized Zyn, Om (or whatever DR wants to 
call it these days), and AMS. Or does everyone plan on waiting for 
better VSTi support ?

Best,

dp