Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Route Stantons Final Scratch to internal sound cards?
From: Pieter Palmers (pieter.palmers@student.kuleuven.ac.be)
Date: Mon Jan 27 2003 - 01:04:40 EET
Vincent Touquet wrote:
>On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 04:02:59PM +0100, Modnogg wrote:
>(cut)
>
>
>>Do you think it's possible to route the USB sound cards to my internal
>>sound cards?
>>I could use the sound driver library from linux. But my problem is how
>>to link the software to other soundcards?
>>
>>
>(cut)
>
>Here you can find out how to run FS on any Linux distro:
>http://www.bostonraves.org/story/2002/11/11/162146/33
>
>Apparently FS needs devfs and gets its audio from
>both /dev/scratchamp/0 and /dev/scratchamp/1.
>
>
As I expected, they use their own device drivers, and probably won't use
the normal linux audio layer. Which means that you'll have to figure out
the interfaces between the 'scratchamp' module and the FS software...
>I think if you can make devfs to point /dev/scratchamp/*
>to the device nodes of other soundcards, you can use
>these other soundcards instead of the ones provided
>by Stanton.
>
don't think so... that would require the FS software to use a standard
interface. And I don't think they do.
Why do I think this?
Their scratchamp is not freely distribuable & not open-source, so
according to GPL they can't use existing linux code in it (correct?).
Meaning that they will have to build the whole driver from scratch. So
why bother providing standard interface? From a commercial point of
view, it's even better not to. If they use their own interface, it will
be very difficult for people to figure it out. So anyone that want's to
use FS, needs the scratchamp device. Which means that you have to buy
the whole package. In this way, illegal distribution of the program is
quite useless. And profit/piece are much larger when also supplying the HW.
I think of this as a very effective solution for stopping illegal copies
of your software. After all, the DJ market is pretty small, and there
are a lot of programs (both win as linux) that provide MP3-mixing
capabilities. So as a company you have make the difference. Stanton
clearly chose to aim for the (semi-) pro DJ by the turntable-thing
(those are expensive too), narrowing the market even further. Less
volume sold = more profit a piece needed. So you supply a complete
solution, which gives you more profit and more protection against
software theft. Pretty clever. I wouldn't use standard interfaces if I
were to design this.
>
>That depends greatly of course as to what degree the
>USB hardware by Stanton is a normal audio device.
>I think there is also a pre-amp in there and possibly
>other undocumented stuff going on ?
>
Probably.
>
>But you can always try of course :)
>
What I think could be possible is using (writing a driver for) the
scratchamp with OSS or ALSA drivers, as they seem to be USB soundcards
by creative. Those will have standard chipsets.
But that wasn't the question I guess...
Pieter
BTW: how is it possible that the scratchamp module works on a kernel
version other that the one it was built on? According to the link above,
the Final Scratch distro is a 2.4.18, but it should work with any
kernel > 2.4.17. I always thought that new kernel = recompile modules?
or is this what they mean by 'versionned kernel'? Might be a stupid
question, but I'm not that much of a linux expert.
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