Re: [linux-audio-dev] discussion about development overlap

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] discussion about development overlap
From: Kai Vehmanen (kaiv_AT_wakkanet.fi)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 23:02:12 EEST


On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:

>>So far I have identified the following items/features:
>>- support for multiple independent MIDI-devices
>>- support for different types of sw-level MIDI-interfaces
[... and the list continues]
> Your list is completely covered by libmidi++. Any questions ?

Where do you think I got my ideas? ;) Seriously, I've gone through the
libmidi++ source-tree. I won't be able to use it directly, because it's so
closely tied to libsigc++. I want people to able to install a typical
Linux distro, and then install ecasound from an rpm. I admit this stricts
code reuse in many ways (all 3rd party modules like ALSA, aRts,
libaudiofile, etc have to be dynamically loaded, etc), but this approach
is undoubtly more userfriendly. Anyway, I do intend to use libmidi++
as much as I can. And as I don't have the official MIDI spec myself,
libmidi++ is my primary MIDI-reference. :)

> having said that, proper support for EDL's for multichannel editing
> will be a big issue for me in the new year. right now, snd's handling
> of this stuff is not really very clean (there is a deep assumption
> that streaming from disk is simple), and i am not convinced that
> fixing it is less work than writing it from scratch (and reusing code,
> of course). so if there's a chance that ecawave will have the kind of
> clean design that will permit full use of EDL's, i would welcome that

Hmm, I'm afraid that ecawave won't be an answer to this problem. I guess
this is a good example of how different people need different things
from audio editors. Hmm, let's see, here are the typical editor types:

1. Simple memory-only sample editors.
- mainly useful for editing invidual samples used in sequencers and
  samplers
2. Direct-to-disk editors processing large files
- this is where ecawave is aimed at; it's the right tool, when you
  have just recorded a track, and want to do some basic editing
  (fade ins/out, cut&copy&paste, and of course, lots of effects),
  and want a simple-and-stupid user-interface
3. Audio sequencing
- audio editing is combined to the recording/mixing environment
  (sequencer/audio sequencer)
- this is probably what you are aiming at
- common in commercial Windows/Mac audio apps
4. Emacs of audio
- well, snd :)
- automation, scripting, advanced analysis tools, easy to extend
- try to do these with the latest Cakewalk :)

I think these are very distinct cases. In other words it's probably not
worth the effort to try to design an editor that is optimal for all these
use-cases.

>>Audio servers are another issue. One thing that I find curious is that
>>aRts still hasn't gained much support outside the KDE world. Why is this?
> my own answer would be that its been presented as *too* capable. most
> people just want a soundserver that multiplexes audio streams to some
> PCM device. aRts does *so* much more than this that no matter how good

Hmm, that's true, but isn't it in fact so, that for us interested in
making music (ie. not desktop-sounds), plain multiplexing is definititely
not enough. I'll go back to my old example - using ecasound as an fx-box
for soundtracker. I managed to do this with ALSA 0.4.x loopback, but I
can't do it with esd, nor with any of the dspproxies, or other
dsp-wrapping based multiplexers.

Let's take another example: I've recorded a few tracks with ardour, and
now I'd like record a synth track using EVO. How to do this? One solution
would be to use MIDI-MTC to syncronise the apps, and add disk-output
routines to EVO. I haven't tested this, but doesn't sound optimal to me.
With a sound server, you'd just need soundserver-output routines in EVO,
and that's all. You start the playback in ardour, and you can use EVO as
usual!

-- 
 . http://www.eca.cx ... [ audio software for linux ] /\ . 
 . http://www.eca.cx/aivastus ... [ aivastus net radio ] /\ . 
 . http://www.eca.cx/sculpscape [ my armchair-tunes mp3/ra/wav ]


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