[linux-audio-dev] options in capturing audio off a PlusDeck?

From: Sean Dague <sean@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Fri Mar 10 2006 - 05:10:10 EET

I got myself one of the PlusDeck units last summer after having received
some documentation from the product team about their serial control
protocol, so I figured that I'd have some chance at actually making a
recording program for Linux for it.

The impetus for all of this is a stack of 300 or so audio tapes that my
fiancee has, which contain mostly south Indian music recordings, including
training lessons, from her late teacher T Viswanathan. Some of those
probably don't exist anywhere else at this point, so putting them to digital
would be a good thing (tm).

Anyway, I have 2 goals.

First, the practical, get all this music to digital dumps (flac in ogg
containers for metadata seems to be the best bet). I'm trying to figure out
the best ways to do this on a Mandriva Linux 2.6.12 kernel (on an AMD64
3000+ processor running 32bit, with Via onboard sound.) The PlusDeck just
ends up being an input line jack into the sound card.

I've run some tests with ecasound both straight off the alsa device, and
through ecasound to jackd (both as root to get real time). It is hard to
tell if I'm doing better with jackd or not, but I'm making some long
recordings and letting my musical fiancee tell me if she can hear the
difference. :)

Given that I've got the serial protocol sorted out, it seems like the
practical approach is just a command line ripper that will start up all the
right audio bits, start the tape, and stop when the tape gets to the end.
Full automation is what I'm looking to create.

Is ecasound a good option here? How much better will ecasound + jackd be
over ecasound at realtime? Would building some kind of plusdeck control
plugin for another recording program make more sense? If so, which one?

Second, I'd like to turn whatever I learn during the practical phase into a
reasonable open source Linux tool for using the PlusDeck. I'd be a bit
unnerved if that required that I set up all jack & ecasound bits, as well as
kicked them off as setuid root, but better options are failing me at the
moment.

Any advice, ideas, suggestions, questions... even flames would be welcomed.
I've spent a bit of time learning more than I ever thought I'd end up
knowing about Linux audio already, and know I have a whole lot more I need
to learn still.

Thanks in advance,

        -Sean

-- 
__________________________________________________________________
Sean Dague                                       Mid-Hudson Valley
sean at dague dot net                            Linux Users Group
http://dague.net                                 http://mhvlug.org
There is no silver bullet.  Plus, werewolves make better neighbors
than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down.
__________________________________________________________________

Received on Fri Mar 10 08:15:05 2006

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