Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Pro Audio Software RANT!!!
From: Kai Vehmanen (kai.vehmanen_AT_wakkanet.fi)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 22:50:39 EET
On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Jason wrote:
> think that may be the problem as Ken pointed out. Everybody and their
> grandmother has started writing "The GIMP for Audio" and I'm starting to
> think that maybe until someone at the FSF picks up the ball and starts
> running with it, that probably isn't going to exist.
One aspect I think is good to note are the motives behind writing free
software. As for myself, my own need for an multitrack recording app has
been the main driving force behind ecasound. Nowadays it does just what I
need. Many people find it hard to believe, but I'm not lying when I say
it's just the kind of app I want for recording.
Two good examples outside the audio world are emacs and vi. These two
editors are amazingly popular, even outside Unix-type systems. Many
professional programmers prefer to use them instead of advanced IDEs like
VisualStudio, CodeWright, etc, etc.. This is quite strange, because
neither emacs or vi is very user-friendly, and require more user effort to
get things working properly.
But the truth is that emacs and vi were written by developers for
themselves. At the end of the day, many developers get more work done and
feel more at home when using them. I think the same applies when comparing
Linux audio apps to the flagship windows/mac products.
From this point of view, writing a GIMP of audio doesn't make much sense.
What are you aiming at? A tool for making music, mixing&mastering,
multitrack recording of live material, tool for editing stuff recorded
from net radios, etc, etc? It just doesn't work this way... you have to
have a more specific goal - something you can aim at and reach.
This is specifically why Ardour will most likely become a success. Paul
has stated his goals (a Linux DAW that can be used in studios), and knows
precisely what is already done and what's left to do. It's the only
way get things done.
And there are others. Bill Schottstaedt (author of Snd) said the following
in Mstation interview:
"Back in the early 80's I wrote a sound editor for CCRMA's PDP-10-based
system as a part of a set of compositional tools (my background is in
composition). When we moved to Unix on NeXTs around 1990, all of that code
was flushed (it was written in SAIL, an obsolete Algol language). There
were no reasonable sound editors available on the NeXTs, but I
procrastinated for about 6 years, hoping someone else would do the work.
Finally in 1996 I decided to go ahead and write my own. By that time we
were using SGI's, so I wrote the initial version using Motif and C. I
would have preferred to use Lisp, but there were no good Lisp GUI choices.
My initial goals were modest: multi-channel waveform display with FFTs,
and a few simple editing operations. But, as usual, the thing grew and
grew."
If I remember right, Gsmp authors wrote it to record music
themselves. I've read/heard similar comments from authors of at least
SoundTracker, ttrk, Trommler, .. and the list goes on.
A Linux version of ProTools won't happen this way. There needs to be an
organisation behind it to make the project go forward for long periods of
time. Think of KDE (Trolltech), GNOME (FSF, Ximian), glibc (FSF) and gcc
(FSF, Redhat/cygnus, code sourcery). I don't count the linux kernel to
this category, as it's something one guy could do just for fun of it.. ;)
Btw; I'm not too familiar with GIMP's history. Any guesses (or even
knowledge) about the motives behind it; what make the project tick?
-- http://www.eca.cx Audio software for Linux!
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