Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Alsa Recording Software Programming HOWTO
From: David Olofson (david_AT_gardena.net)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 18:46:08 EEST
On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:
[...]
> >combination of virtual tracks and edl's has resulted in the creation of
> >two classes of audio applications, destructive and non destructive.
>
> I don't agree. "Non-destructive" was a term used to describe editing
> with EDL's. I have never seen it applied to the overall operation of a
> program with respect to overwriting when tracking, even if many
> programs force that the "no-overwrite" requirement upon you.
Cakewalk has been doing it this way from the first Audio versions.
The "undo" and "redo" functions work as expected for just about
everything, and you can move around the history all the way back to
when the project was created or loaded.
The annoying side effect is (obviously) that you have to manage
retakes manually, and every now and then "Compact audio data"
(writing only the referenced audio data to new files), and then
"Clean Audio Disk". (Followed by a disk defragmentation, or you'll
most likely get fragmentation when recording new data.)
There's also a stupid and serious bug: There's no function that
allows you to clean all projects at once, or even to locate projects
that own audio data! This means that if you want to clean you disk of
all unused data (that is, lots of takes that are long since
forgotten, since the only references to them - from within undo
history databases - are gone), you have to manually open all projects
with audio data, "Compact audio data" on each one of them, and then
"Clean audio disk". You also need to save projects using a special
function to make backups, unless you want to back up every single
project along with the entire audio data folder.
Disregarding the essential but missing audio data management
functions, the system is handy when working with large numbers of
short takes, but it's nothing but ridiculous for long takes at
24/96.
Actually, at times it seems odd to me how this application can be
regarded as one of "the Big Pro Apps" and mentioned in the same
sentence as Cubase and Logic, but well, most users probably aren't
programmers, so they don't react on this kind of things... (And it
might be that I don't know about all the design stupidities of those
other applications! :-)
[...]
> >the risk of accidents. Live recordings can't be repeated, and you never
> >know which take will turn out to be the best.
>
> but you certainly know when they turn out wrong. "Oops, I left the
> BigBottom (TM) on for that entire take, and its sounds awful. I want
> to re-record it. Oh, damn, the program requires me to delete it first."
Unless you use Cakewalk; then you have to "Undo" the record operation
or delete the take, "Copmact Audio Data", save your project, "Clean
Audio Disk" and then defragment your disk! *lol* I didn't completely
realize how crippled this application until now, since I use a 10 GB
HDR partition, and rarely record stuff that takes more than a few 100
MB at a time.
> you can view the extra step in either way:
>
> * require deletion if the user really wants it to go away
> * require confirmation if the user really wants to record over it
>
> i'd suggest that its also possible that a user may wish to set things
> up so the default is to record over it. i don't like telling users "we
> don't think you really want to do that, so you can't". i *do* like
> asking them "are you really sure you know what you're doing?".
Speaking of confirmation dialogs; seen the "Object <something> cannot
be copied to the desktop. Do you want to create a shortcut?" dialog
in Win98? (Probably in 95 as well.) What really pisses me off is
that you get this one *even if you explicitly tell Windoze to create
a shortcut, and NOT to copy the file*!
Oh well, I don't have to see much of it these days, fortunately. :-)
> >of a file; file>delete. Even punch-ins are obsolete. I abandoned tape
>
> To be more precise: you mean the act of writing data directly "over
> the top" of existing data.
>
> In general, I agree with you.
>
> >in 1996 and have been doing hdr with cd-r archiving ever since. I am
> >currently designing a new recording/editing/mixing application and my
> >first decision was to make it non destructive.
>
> Why view the world in such binary terms ? I wasn't suggesting for a
> moment that EDL-based non-destructive editing was a bad idea. But I've
> got lots of friends who complain about (and read more than a few
> magazine articles that also complain about) having to constantly be
> watching disk space and constantly cleaning up after a
> "non-destructive" recorder has been running for a while.
Yeah... (See Cakewalk.) At the very least, there should be the option
of getting a dialog that asks if an overwrite operation should save
the old data (default without the dialog) or not. It happens too
often that you know right away you don't want to keep a take, and the
amounts of data is too close to the limits of current hardware to
keep trash around.
//David
.- M u C o S --------------------------------. .- David Olofson ------.
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