Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] *rta* A Wish List - Open Issues
From: Paul Winkler (slinkp23_AT_yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Nov 02 2001 - 18:44:01 EET
On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 01:50:08PM +0100, Oliver Kuederle wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> would you please take a look at the following site:
>
> http://www.kuederle.com/rta/0_Analysis/Wishlist/index.html
>
> I'm serious with this. It would help me a lot if you commented on the
> questions listed at the end of the document. Since I'm fairly new to
> linux and audio, I'm especially interested in knowing if a framework
> like this already exists.
Well, there are a couple of systems you could use *today* to do pretty
much everything you're talking about, depending on how much and what
kind of programming you want to do.
OS: I'd go with linux because it's the most likely to meet several of
your criteria: Everything is fully documented; reliable latencies < 3
ms can be obtained; the system is highly tunable so you could set it
up to boot with exactly the services you need and get your software
running quickly; and stability is good - onstage, a mature open-source
OS is the least likely to crash or require a reboot.
Software: There are a number of systems that could meet your criteria,
with some (a lot of) work to create the patches you want. Look into:
PD http://www.pure-data.org
A MAX-like system that runs on linux or windows (poor latency on 'doze).
Looks absolutely fascinating but I haven't had time to try it yet.
Supports LADSPA plugins on Linux, and VST plugins on 'doze!
I don't know how stable it is yet.
(OT: Does anybody know of a site that has mp3 or other audio
samples of work people have done with PD? A clip is worth
a thousand words...)
jMax ?
from the same family as PD. others could comment on the differences
between them.
csound http://www.csounds.com
Runs on many platforms. Weird, old, cranky soft-synthesis language
and interpreter (for lack of a better word). It's quite fast and it
can do damn near anything. There is an enormous body of existing
instruments on the net, some of which are incredible. Comes with
an enormous list of signal processing / generating
"opcodes". Programming complex logic (e.g. do different things
depending on the status of a midi switch) is possible but
painful... ugh - GOTO statements! Pretty stable; it's been a long
time since I've seen csound crash. There's even a way to create
FLTK GUIs for instruments.
sfront http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/
Compiles SAOL source code (which looks like kinder, gentler csound code)
to C executables. In some ways a step ahead from csound, but there's fewer
existing patches online. No GUI.
aRts http://www.arts-project.org/
runs on Linux, no windows or mac.
"The Analog Real-Time Synthesizer, or aRts, is a modular system for
synthesizing sound and music on a digital computer. Using small
building blocks called modules, the user can easily build complex
audio processing tools. Modules typically provide functions such as
sound waveform generators, filters, audio effects, mixing, and
playback of digital audio in different file formats.
...The artsd sound server mixes audio from several sources in real
time, allowing multiple sound applications to transparently share
access to sound hardware."
Note that AFAIKT, the synthesizer can get low latencies but the
sound server cannot.
Maybe others...
Once we get JACK and/or LADMEA working (soon I hope?) and start
porting apps to them, it'll be possible to concurrently run
soft-synths, samplers, fx processors etc. that were originally
designed as stand-alone apps. My favorite toys that I'm hoping to see
this with currently are the whole SpiralSynth family.
--paul winkler home: http://www.slinkp.com music: http://www.reacharms.com calendars: http://www.calendargalaxy.com
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