Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] What I want, to stop using Windows
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 15:44:56 EEST
>1. Multichannel soundcard - I have a Korg 1212, but this only works in 9x,
> mLAN would do for this but I suspect its a way off yet. It only needs
> to talk to my Yam 01v, I don't care about direct analogue. 2 coax
> SPDIF and one ADAT i/o would be perfect.
the RME Digi9636 (Hammerfall Light) has 2 ADAT's plus 1 stereo S/PDIF
plus Alesis ADAT sync connections. its a great card (i wrote the ALSA
drivers).
there are other, somewhat cheaper RME Digi96(<something>) cards which
have analog as well.
You will need to use ALSA for almost all multichannel cards. the only
other option is OSS commercial stuff, where it exists, seems to be
pretty beta-ish. OTOH, OSS adopted a model which will allow existing
"16 bit, 44.1/48kHz, stereo" s/w to work on all their supported
h/w. ALSA hasn't gotten to that stage yet, so you won't necessarily be
able to use "standard" linux s/w with ALSA-supported multichannel h/w.
(ALSA in CVS does support such things, but it requires that native
ALSA apps be written to use the so-called "plugin" layer via an API
that has changed dramatically over the last year. Not suprisingly,
very few apps support this at this time).
>3. A sample editor like soundforge.
IMHO, the best we have right now are DAP (which has an easier, more
obvious interface, but is less powerful in various ways) and snd
(which can do anything, if you can figure out how to do so).
>4. A multitracker like Vegas, the dumber the better, but plugins would be
> nice. On the subject, is the any possibilty of getting VST or active X
> plugins working under linux? Without the (pointless) pretty interfaces?
if you're talking about editing:
snd can handle multichannel stuff. bill just added a new feature at my
request in which if snd is asked to open a directory, it will
open the files it finds there (subject to a user-definable filter)
as if they are each mono files representing each channel.
if you're talking about multitrack recording:
i am working on ardour, which is intended to be a replacement for
almost any dedicated MDM or HDR system, but its not quite ready
yet (it has been used for live sessions, however). ardour currently
plans to incorporate all of snd as an internal editor, but this
will be a little ways off until it works the way i want it to.
See http://ardour.sourceforge.net/.
Kai's ecasound will also do this stuff, to a point, and is cmdline
driven.
>5. Some primative MIDI sequencing stuff (as part of 4 would be fine)
Jazz++, or if you want to get experimental, KeyKit.
>6. Control software for my Nord Mod (think this more or less works in
> Wine, but havn't tried for a while). I used to have a second PC with a
> fast ISA MIDI card just for this, but my girlfriend nicked it to
> wordprocess on (poor thing). 2 PCs sucks anyway, too much fan noise.
Unlikely to be possible, unless they release all the specs. On the
other hand, if its just standard MIDI CC stuff, check out xphat.
>7. A USB MIDI box (run out of slots) that is fast enough to talk to a Mod
> without karking.
I don't know how far along USB support is, let alone USB MIDI. Its
certainly not there in kernel 2.2 and below.
>9. Control software for an AKAI S[23]000 sampler.
This ain't gonna happen unless its just standard MIDI CC stuff.
>So, any notes on how optimistic I'm being?
You'll still want Windows around, I'm sad to say.
--p
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