Subject: [linux-audio-dev] a little news...
From: Dave Phillips (dlphilp_AT_bright.net)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 18:25:45 EEST
Greetings:
In the last issue of the Linux soundapps pages I mentioned that I should
have the new look on-line by mid-August. It didn't happen, but I am still
working on it. A prototype is being installed at a test site, and
hopefully the bugs will be knocked out soon. There really will be a nice
new look to the pages, and some new amenities for users. So it's coming,
it's just taking a lot of time (that I don't really have).
Meanwhile, I thought I'd post a little catch-up news to LAD readers.
My book is still delayed, sad to say. No Starch now informs me that it
should hit sellers' shelves during the first week of October. If you're
subscribed to review it you should have a copy sometime during September.
All I can do is sigh and wait... :(
Linux audio software development marches on.
With the current mess regarding Fraunhofer and their MP3 patent, people
are beginning to look at alternative audio compression schemes. I haven't
got to Vorbis yet, but I did try the XMMS Shorten plug-in from
http://sdf.lonestar.org/~jason/shn-utils/. A link to Shorten 2.3 can be
found there too. I was rather amazed at Shorten's speed and the fact that
it's a lossless compression technique. Definitely worth checking out. The
XMMS plug-in is completely transparent and works great.
I've been playing with ecasound quite a lot recently. What a program !
I'm still discovering all that it will do: recent releases include support
for aRts, LADSPA plug-ins, and multichannel multitrack recording with
cards like the MIDIMan boards. Ecasound is certainly the only command-line
app that does what it does, but its Qt interface is also very nice if you
prefer working with X-based apps.
Morris Slutsky has ported his ELE (Excellent Low-latency Effects,
available from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mslutsky/ele2/index.html)
processor to SVGA, abandoning the Gtk interface. This move may seem rather
backwards to some users, but I happen to like SVGA apps. Beyond its own
utility, ELE 2.01 clearly shows that items such as an SVGA-based wave
editor would be possible. Personally, I'd love to have a full suite of
graphic audio apps usable from the Linux console. Any volunteers ??
Spiral Synth (http://www.blueammonite.f9.co.uk/SpiralSynth/) and
PSIndustrializer
(http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~foxx/industrializer/index.html) are two new
soft synths to check out. I've been using PSIndustrializer to create some
cool percussion sounds for use in SoundTracker. Spiral Synth is 'way cool
to just play, and you can capture your performances to disk. Very neat
stuff.
If you haven't checked out the synths from UltraMaster, do it today.
They're trying to make commercial-quality soft synths for Linux and sell
them at a low cost. Their plan includes giving back to the community, and
their products are definitely fine. Check them out at
http://www.ultramaster.com/.
ALSA continues making great strides. I've been happily using 0.5.9b for
my SBLive Value and PCI128 cards. Sound quality is terrific and the
installation gets easier with each release. Wonderful work from Jaroslav
and his team at http://www.alsa-project.org.
4Front Technologies (http://www.4front-tech.com) have not been resting.
The latest OSS/Linux includes new support for various digital audio
boards, as well as a limited-time only price reduction.
It's often overlooked that 4Front is a major contributor to the XMMS
open-source media player project. The number of interesting plug-ins is
increasing almost weekly, and the player has become one of my favorite
"show-off" Linux apps.
The OSC synthesizer control interface has been added to the unofficial
Csound. A set of Tk sliders can control Csound synth parameters in
realtime even on remote machines. Check out the latest unofficial Csound
at http://web.tiscalinet.it/mupuxeddu/csound/index.html.
Also, I'm trying to update Fred Floberg's ALSA support code in Csound
but I've hit the wall with my minimal programming skills. Anyone want to
join in on this fun ? It would be nice to have native ALSA support back in
Csound.
Well, I have to get back to an article I'm writing for the O'Reilly
Network. It's about the OpenAL specification for 3D audio, interesting
stuff. I'll let y'all know when it goes on-line.
Now go ye forth and make a mighty noise...
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/index.html
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linuxsound/
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