[LAU] [RFC] A “poor man’s”, yet professional level studio setup

Hi everyone

Following my question about JACK and tempo transmission over a network, I felt
the time is right for me to share some ideas about possible setup(s) of a
studio mainly based on free software. The key idea is that such a studio is to
be distributed among many hosts connected together with a fast local network.

While the infrastructure should run primarily on FLOSS software, we should not
shun proprietary tools, allowing a certain grade of interoperability between
different systems (OS and applications).

I don’t really know if I’m telling nonsense, but these ideas stem from my own
experience over the years: the main use case for me is to make music for
videos, being assisted in score and parts preparation, as well as
“quick” mockup creation.

Since money has always been tight for me, but I am a musician with enough
curiosity and a certain experience with computers, I have been fiddling with
Linux and music software for many years.

What I’m trying to demonstrate is that the effort of integrating FLOSS and
proprietary s/w with the great possibilities of modern and inexpensive h/w
could give a professional great flexibility and relative ease of use, while
keeping “low” costs and minimizing licensing and forced obsolescence woes.

Basically, what I am trying to achieve is a network mainly made of Ethernet
cables (while minimising audio cables), with the following nodes:
* a master (or maybe better, a “conductor” ;-) ) machine controlling and
transmitting the transport information, ideally a tablet or a minipc with a
touchscreen showing the “big clock” and the “big buttons” (transport controls)
* another machine (the router) with audio h/w and a DAW, receiving audio data
from the network. The same machine could also host a notation software,
perhaps
* optionally, a machine showing a synced video
* N >= 1 hosts running synths, virtual instruments, rocket launchers,
microwave ovens getting the lunch done while I’m thinking of these things...
;-)

On the FLOSS side, I think there are many of the right tools to implement my
idea, I’m using them since many years. Here’s a incomplete list of them:
1) JACK (obviously ;-) )
2) Cadence/Claudia
3) Carla
4) Qjackctl (gives me the “big clock” and the “big buttons”)
5) Ardour
6) MuseScore
7) Xjadeo

While all of these tools do a great job (*really* great), there is still a big
plumbing and tuning work to do. Actually this is the hardest part.

#####

Personally, being a classical trained musician, I tend to compose using a
notation software, with close attention to score neatness: I still prefer my
music being played by humans rather than virtual gizmos. But I’m a “poor man”,
so my great score is also to be “hashed” into a MIDI file, whose tracks are to
be assigned to virtual (grrrr...) instruments, which in turn are to be mixed
together, and the whole composition synced to a video.

Since I cannot afford buying an expensive Mac nor can I pay for a plethora of
licensed software, the challenge is to achieve similar results with
alternative means.

With this post I hope to start a constructive discussion about the potential
of FLOSS music software and practical uses of it, instead of or in conjunction
with other kinds of software, in professional environment.

ciao
Francesco Napoleoni
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Received on Mon Feb 22 04:15:01 2021