Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] What else am I missing?
From: Steve Harris (S.W.Harris_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2000 - 11:55:49 EEST
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 12:52:18AM +1000, Allan Klinbail wrote:
> Steve,
>
> You are reflecting what many of us are looking for. However, don't expect
> everything to be here already. What is written so far is designed for the
> needs of the authors (hackers) themselves and only true discussion with these
> people (most who are on this Mailing List) will respond and modify.
Actually I was amazed that there was anything at all, I'm a unix
programmer professionally, and love the environment, but never considered
it for realtime audio work. I've been working in csound, or hand hacked
perl/c, exporting as WAVs then rebooting for years. The only linux
compatible soundcard I have is a god-awful creative labs effort (AWE64?),
suitable only for monitoring as a last resort in linux.
> However do not fear work is being done in this direction. I urge you to take a
> look at both Jazz++ and Muse as environments that are approaching the
> sequencer/mutitracker model you know so well. LADSPA is becoming the VST of
> Linux.
Not my thing at all. I've never got on with sequencers, except as dumb
recorders. LADSPA looks interesting though.
> As for your Nord Modular (a hybrid soft /hardware synth that is patched
> and programmed via a winblows software and played on a hardware synth) unless
> WINE can handle the Nord software you are better off looking at Quasimodo and
> the huge variety of soft synths coming up and will probably find more
> interesting options as these are not written by a corporate looking to make
> the ultimate selling analogue synth but hackers with a keen interest in sound.
Woah! The modular is built by hackers for hackers. Its might be a
commercial instrument, but the developers are very open to users
(and release new modules for the hardware all the time), plus
Intel general purpose CPU's don't come anyware near to the speed of a
Nord, I can built patches with 20 odd oscillators that run without
zippering or apreciable latency without the machine even breaking sweat.
No software synth even comes close, in features or performance.
> One warning for you as you seem to have a decent rig - MIDI sync and SMPTE for
> many softwares are non-existant and ALSA is in the process of finalising the
> MIDI clock and SPP features of its sequencer engine. (THe latest development
> version of Jazz++ implements these features).
I tend to limit myself to MIDI clock and hardware word clock, MMC has
always caused me headaces. SMPTE is a bit of a different matter, but
SMPTE to MIDI clock hardware is easy to come by, and I don't use analogue
media much.
- Steve
--
Stephen Harris
MALIBU Technical Officer & JoDI Webmaster
IAM Research Group
University of Southampton, UK
07970 557047
swh_AT_ecs.soton.ac.uk 023 8059 2774
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