Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] ardour, LADSPA, a marriage
From: Steve Harris (S.W.Harris_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 18:10:35 EET
On Mon, Nov 13, 2000 at 10:13:59AM -0500, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:
[mixing]
> Except that as David pointed out, with digital data, it *can't* be
> done better externally ...
I was refering to the control surface issues. Agreed you can have
equivalent functionality on paper, but I like shoving sliders about.
Plus my home computer is not going to equal the amount of horsepower my
mixer can throw at things for a good few years.
> I feel that cubase fell down here, as
> >I thought thier virtual mixer+outboards model was over complicated and
> >wastefull, I never used most of the layers, as all I was doing was
> >sending channel 1 out of output 1.
>
> Well, the model I have in my head right now is that each track has a single
> output destination. That could be:
>
> * physical output channel
> * a mixer strip
> * a plugin chain
> * a bus
This all sounds good, however...
> Note that in all of the above, the "mixer strip" really functions
> identically to a plugin chain. The only reason to support a "mixer strip"
> is for better integration of the GUI into the internal system, which
> can't be done easily with a plugin + GUI system. in all other
> respects, its identical to a plugin.
This sounds a little too special case (although I totaly understand the
reasons), were you planning to make it possible to implement the
channel strips as plugins? Abeit ardour ones. What one person wants from
a channel strip isn't the same as the next person.
I must admit I have reservations, whenever anyone mentions channel
strips. When I see channel strip, I think:
meter (admittedly this is a pretty full
output featured channel strip, but everyone
insert point wants a 36 channel Neve, don't they?)
dynamics
parametric eq
slider
trim
input
Usually I'm only using one or two of those things, but in a traditional
desk they need to all be there, with software isn't it just better to
provide them seperatly, rather than having "off" controls for each of
them? In an external digital desk you have to allow enough cycles for
everything to be going at once, so it doesn't matter if something's on or
off, but (luckily I guess) computer users are willing to accept knowing
that they can't have compressors on all 24 channels of thier recording.
What are the restrictions in making something that integrates with
ardour's GUI? Does it have to be part of the same binary?
...
> >With a quasimodo style "build your own mixer" design, now you're talking.
>
> Say it loud brother steve! Yeah! Amen! :)
Praise the code!
> Seriously, thats the goal here, though without the dangling patch
> cords (those ellipsoids were *too much fun* to code, though!).
Awww, but thats all part of the fun! Not even block diagrams ;)
In all seriousness, an automaticly generated (or better still editable)
block diagram would be a godsend.
> The final part of this whole puzzle, which some of you may have
> guessed at already, is how to get a program like Quasimodo to be an
> input or output for something like Ardour. I have 90% of this solved
> already ...
Good Stuff! Thats what I wanted to hear. I imagine you could do it with a
'fake' ALSA device, but then comes the dreaded L word.
- Steve
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