Subject: [linux-audio-dev] "pro" soundfile editors for linux
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: la helmi 05 2000 - 00:21:40 EST
is anyone out there seriously working on a professional-level
soundfile editor for linux ? by "pro", i mean able to handle:
* each track in its own file (i.e. non-interleaved)
* multi-GB files
* 24+ track
* 48/96kHz sample rates
i ask because there is no currently no application i can find that can
deal with these parameters in a robust way. Snd is close, but without
a "real" Motif, several aspects of its GUI are either unusable (the
listener) or unstable (many general Motif-related errors), or
both. This prevents useful work being done by most of us on the
program, since we don't have a "real" Motif around to link against
modified source. Even then, its not clear to me that its really been
designed for working with that many tracks, and specifically, not
situations where each track is in a different file. I may be wrong.
this is important for my "ardour" project because: any sane soundfile
editor, as juhana has pointed out many times, will use non-destructive
edits i.e. a playlist. if ardour is to be able to play back the edited
files, it needs either (1) to understand the playlist format or (2)
have the editor export the data (i.e. "commit" the edit, and write out
a new soundfile(s)). Since some of these files with ardour may be on
the order of 2GB (or more) each, option (2) is absurd.
therefore, I would like to find people who are working on a project
that can be "tightly integrated" with ardour, in that they both
understand each other.
If nothing else, perhaps several of us could join together and port
Snd to GTK+. It seems to be the most capable and flexible soundfile
editor, but it needs a new GUI toolkit if we are going to work on
it. LessTif is a great piece of work, but Snd works its way into
LessTif's corners and reveals problems. Motif is also slow, in my
experience, compared to GTK+.
OTOH, its not clear to me if Snd uses non-destructive editing. I think
it must ("Undo"), but it doesn't seem to have a way to save the edit
without writing a new version of the file.
the current situation is really pretty pathetic, although it can
change rapidly, and is hardly a suprise when until recently, there was
no "pro" level audio h/w available for linux.
--p
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : pe maalis 10 2000 - 07:23:27 EST