Subject: Re: status of linux studio [was:Re: [linux-audio-dev] testing the waters]
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Tue Jun 27 2000 - 05:28:02 EEST
>how is it going ?
Very slowly. Until ardour is ready for non-stop use, its not going too
far. We have used the system mostly just for CD burning, though
SoftWerk has also been of some interest for certain projects.
>do you/does your employer have a website with further information ?
I don't get paid to do this (I put about $25K of my own money into
equipment) and no, there is no web site. The owner of the studio is a
friend of mine, and we decided it was in our mutual interest to work
on this together. Plus, I wanted some toys that it was hard to justify
having at home :)
>* what hardware is used ? (smp experiences ? i recall a dual p3 on
>asus...)
Computer: dual PII-450 on a supermicro P6DBU, onboard AIC7890 U2W SCSI
self-built in a 4U rack-mount unit from Appro.
3x IBM Speedstar 18GB 10K U2W SCSI drives, in a separate
chassis, also from Appro, each mounted in a removable
mount.
RME 9652
RME 9636
Hoontech/Trident 4dWave-NX (for MIDI)
Matrox G200 AGP video card
Plextor 40x CD player
Yamaha 8x4x16 (?) CD-R player/recorder
Jaz 2GB drive
Mixer: Mackie Digital 8 Bus, with Apogee word clock and 3 x ADAT
optical I/O cards (plus stereo S/PDIF and AES/EBU in/out)
>* what is the current kernel that works for you ?
nothing works properly right now. we currently boot 2.3.99-pre9. but
every kernel that exists that I have tried so far is broken with
respect to streaming disk i/o. its *possible* that 2.4.0-test2-ac1
might work.
>* do you soft-raid ?
no. as previously mentioned, i want each disk (which is on a removable
chassis) to be self-contained. RAID (s/w or h/w) is nice, but it makes
the working situation in the studio much harder to keep track of.
>* how are things connected (all in one box, ethernet, or scsi
>between hosts, or firewire, or...) ?
we have an ISOBOX (acoustic isolation in a "self-cooled" box). That
contains the dual CPU system, the Mackie CPU, and the disk chassis
(plus a Fuhrman power conditioner).
elsewhere in the studio, we have a MidiTemp 16x16 Matrix MIDI router,
which handles all MIDI interconnections. This is a stunning piece of
h/w. Nobody in the US sells them, and nobody anywhere else that I know
of makes a 16x16 MIDI device.
Digital data in ADAT optical format goes from the tape-outs of the D8B
to 3 Hosa optical splitters, and from there to both the Hammerfall and
the 3 ADAT M20s. we are currently working on the construction and/or
selection of a digital patch bay. The only contenders are from Z-sys,
and they are really too expensive (we'd have to buy 2 at about $1700
each!) to justify in what is mostly a static configuration. right now,
tape returns (3 x ADAT optical) have to be manually plugged/unplugged
depending on whether we are using the M20's or Ardour for playback.
>* are outboard controllers used (you talked about this fader box of
>yours...) ?
We have the Mackie D8B, which has 8 MIDI faders, 8 MIDI knobs and 8
MIDI buttons. I have a PC1600x at home which I sometimes take over there.
>* any means of controlling midi gear from the box (seqs, fx's, ...)
>? (xphat here ?)
The MIDI router provides MIDI access to every MIDI device in the studio.
The D8B is a better (ie: h/w) controller for MIDI gear. We don't have
anything that requires the kind of programming that the PC1600X
allows, but we might, one day.
>* is there pro standalone gear that connects nicely to the linux box
>(like the mackie hdr ?)
No Mackie HDR in here - thats what Ardour is for. The D8B connects
*very* nicely to it, however. See above.
Other gear in the control room includes:
* 3 Alesis M20 ADAT recorders
* Tascam DAT recorder
* Tascam PortaDAT recorder
* mic pre-amps from Fearn, FocusRite, and others
* outboard processors from Eventide, Lexicon and others
* Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler (broken 80% of the time)
* Genelech near-field monitors
* NAD phono pre-amp and Bang+Olufsen turntable for sampling
* many fine tube compressors/dynamics processors
>* has it already been used for demo productions [i'm assuming it's
>not ready for paying customers yet,
the studio existed as an analog setup before i even met jim. the d8b
has been in use for a while now, and we hope to start hdr with ardour
around labor day (i am away for most of the summer). there are paying
customers in there almost every night, and we just aim to slowly,
silently increase the role of linux-based systems in the overall
operation.
>rest of the world news: "tux for the charts: first all-linux audio
>production released." (now tell your employer to mpeg it, put up a
>website and sell just a few ad banners... and of course talk major
>distros into including it as a demo, again with a thanks to your
>employer [maybe he'll hire someone to help you??:])
heh. jim does quite a few local hip-hop/rap acts in there, but a lot
of the stuff thats done in the studio is a long way from anything that
would make headlines. jim is really trying to support/extend the
philadelphia world/experimental/samba communities.
Hopefully, you can all see how heart-broken I would be if we had to
get a Windows/MacOS laptop to run Gigasampler or something :) Good,
now get to work and write that damn thing for Linux, OK ? :) I would
do it, but you hopefully understand that my hands are full ....
--p
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