So has anybody around here missed with DAW on linux? Specifically has
anybody tried ardour?

http://ardour.sourceforge.net/

I'm using WinXP/CubaseSX for "real" work right now, but in my
programmer dayjob I use pretty much exclusively linux. I'm thinking
of setting up a linux partition on the DAW to mess with in my "spare
time" (ha!) just to see how things are coming along and how useful
they've gotten.

Here, Paul Davis talks about offering prebuilt turnkey linux DAWs from
LAS:

http://ardour.sourceforge.net/money.html

But at the LAS page they only talk about it doing sometime in the
future (2001). Further searches turn up nothing concrete, leading me
to think no one has actually done this yet.

Anyway, I'm just interested in hearing from folks who've already
dabbled or messed about with linux audio. I think the linux/free
software community would be an especially good place to find some
cooler more esoteric plugins and audio processing algorhythms. Things
developed in an academic setting or just by hardcore nerds that do
strange wonderful things to sound. Any place to look?

rossi

Byron G Jacquot wrote in message ...
I'm using WinXP/CubaseSX for "real" work right now, but in my
programmer dayjob I use pretty much exclusively linux. I'm thinking
of setting up a linux partition on the DAW to mess with in my "spare
time" (ha!) just to see how things are coming along and how useful
they've gotten.

I've been in the same position...Windows/Cubase at home, but various
"big guns" at work, and I'm also curious about Ardour. The setup seems
pretty intensive, and ALSA doesn't support my sound hardware, so I
haven't taken the plunge.

I have the Layla24. There are now ALSA drivers for it, although it
looks like those are still in beta as well. The setup does look
pretty extensive. It seems to me the logical next step is for
somebody to package a DAW oriented linux distribution or have an easy
set of RPMs to run against the most common distributions. Rather than
having to track down all the dependencies. One of the downsides of
doing anything "cutting edge" in Linux anymore is chasing the damn
dependencies from here to kingdom come. Anybody would be happier just
installing a linux distro with everything they need already in it.


Tom Erbe's new plugins might fit the bill...www.soundhack.com.

Yeah that was a good article with him in TapeOp. They're not out yet
and will cost $$$, but hopefully there will be some sort of demo/trial
so I can check them out. The seem pretty cool.

There's also a version of Csound that runs as a plugin...I think it's
called Csound VST.

I hadn't heard of csound until just now. But what I've seen quickly
glancing through:

http://www.pipeline.com/~gogins/Silence/CsoundVST.htm
http://www.csounds.com/

It looks very cool. I don't know if I have time to learn a new
programming language right now but I ever get some "free time" it'd be
cool to check that out and play with it.

And if you're a real hardcore nerd, look into writing your own VST
plugins. The SDK is downloadable from Steinberg, and it's not all that
tough to get started.

I've thought about it. I think the programming part would be pretty
straightforward and easy to me, but I don't know anything about
processing audio, so I'd have to learn how to do FFTs and all the math
you have to know to do the really cool stuff. I guess delay effects
and silly things like flipping polarity or DC offset I could do
without learning any new math. Again, "free time".

yrs,
rossi

"Chris Rossi" wrote in message
om...
So has anybody around here missed with DAW on linux? Specifically has
anybody tried ardour?

http://ardour.sourceforge.net/

I'm using WinXP/CubaseSX for "real" work right now, but in my
programmer dayjob I use pretty much exclusively linux. I'm thinking
of setting up a linux partition on the DAW to mess with in my "spare
time" (ha!) just to see how things are coming along and how useful
they've gotten.

Here, Paul Davis talks about offering prebuilt turnkey linux DAWs from
LAS:

http://ardour.sourceforge.net/money.html

But at the LAS page they only talk about it doing sometime in the
future (2001). Further searches turn up nothing concrete, leading me
to think no one has actually done this yet.

Anyway, I'm just interested in hearing from folks who've already
dabbled or messed about with linux audio. I think the linux/free
software community would be an especially good place to find some
cooler more esoteric plugins and audio processing algorhythms. Things
developed in an academic setting or just by hardcore nerds that do
strange wonderful things to sound. Any place to look?

I have Ardour 0.9 beta3 running on my Linux box. It's not stable, but I've
done some recordings with it. It feels nearer Pro Tools than cubase sx, as
it's got the same kind of
regions and selection editing. It has some nice features that are not in
cubase sx, the routing is very
flexible as you can put effects sends as inserts, and you can use external
programs as sends and inserts too.
It's not trivial to set up and get working at the moment, I use a distro
called Gentoo which makes it a lot easier, but it's not the best distro to
start with if you are new to Linux.

I also use it as main mixer, for all the other programs that connect to it
with JACK. Hydrogen (a drum box) and Jamin both use Jack and can control the
transport in Ardour.

Once you get Ardour up and running, get the SWH plugins
http://www.plugin.org.uk/
This is a pack of plugins for Ardour, or any other program that uses the
LADSPA standard.

and freqtweak
http://freqtweak.sourceforge.net/
for sound mangling.

and JAMIN
http://jamin.sourceforge.net/
for mastering or general multiband compression.

and Sweep
http://www.metadecks.org/software/sweep/
for two track editing and scratching audio.

If you want more hardcore synthesis, then it's time for modulars...
Pure Data, Jmax, C-sound, Supercollider, ALSA modular, SpiralModular,
Opensound are all good. Most are available on Windows too.

There are loads of other sound manipulation apps and plugins, look here for
a good list..
http://linux-sound.org/


rossi

In article writes:

I'm also curious about Ardour. The setup seems
pretty intensive, and ALSA doesn't support my sound hardware, so I
haven't taken the plunge.

The project is still in Beta, as well.

I pop in and have a look at it now and then as I have a good friend
who's a total Unixhead and, while he has absolutely no use for a
multitrack DAW, likes the idea of my Mackie HDR. I feed him tidbits
about how he can make one that runs Linux (he wouldn't touch Windows
or a Mac). But like so many Linux "interesting" group development
projects, it never leaves development. I thought its first iteration,
essentially a clone of the Mackie HDR24/96 down to the graphics of the
panel, was pretty cool even though there was no way to get signals
into and out of it at the time. Now it's a Linux DAW-in-training. Fun
for experimenters but no way to get any recording work done with any
reliability and efficiency. (he says, not personally knowing anyone
who has complied the code, debugged it for his own brand of Linux, got
hardware working, and is really running an Ardor system)




Anyway, I'm just interested in hearing from folks who've already
dabbled or messed about with linux audio. I think the linux/free
software community would be an especially good place to find some
cooler more esoteric plugins and audio processing algorhythms. Things
developed in an academic setting or just by hardcore nerds that do
strange wonderful things to sound. Any place to look?

Tom Erbe's new plugins might fit the bill...www.soundhack.com.

There's also a version of Csound that runs as a plugin...I think it's
called Csound VST.

And if you're a real hardcore nerd, look into writing your own VST
plugins. The SDK is downloadable from Steinberg, and it's not all that
tough to get started.

Byron Jacquot


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

"philicorda" wrote in message ...


I have Ardour 0.9 beta3 running on my Linux box. It's not stable, but I've
done some recordings with it. It feels nearer Pro Tools than cubase sx, as
it's got the same kind of
regions and selection editing. It has some nice features that are not in
cubase sx, the routing is very
flexible as you can put effects sends as inserts, and you can use external
programs as sends and inserts too.
It's not trivial to set up and get working at the moment, I use a distro
called Gentoo which makes it a lot easier, but it's not the best distro to
start with if you are new to Linux.

I also use it as main mixer, for all the other programs that connect to it

with JACK. Hydrogen (a drum box) and Jamin both use Jack and can control the
transport in Ardour.

Once you get Ardour up and running, get the SWH plugins
http://www.plugin.org.uk/
This is a pack of plugins for Ardour, or any other program that uses the
LADSPA standard.

and freqtweak
http://freqtweak.sourceforge.net/
for sound mangling.

and JAMIN
http://jamin.sourceforge.net/
for mastering or general multiband compression.

and Sweep
http://www.metadecks.org/software/sweep/
for two track editing and scratching audio.

If you want more hardcore synthesis, then it's time for modulars...
Pure Data, Jmax, C-sound, Supercollider, ALSA modular, SpiralModular,
Opensound are all good. Most are available on Windows too.

There are loads of other sound manipulation apps and plugins, look here for
a good list..
http://linux-sound.org/

I actually was considering going the gentoo route. Thanks for the links.

rossi

On 2003-09-03, Chris Rossi wrote:
I actually was considering going the gentoo route. Thanks for the links.

Let me advise against this. Now, you say you have a programmer day job,
so I assume you're Un*x competent. But I think you'd be much better off
going with a distribution that has packages for the audio apps you're
interested in - it will save hundreds of hours of tracking down source,
patching, and compiling.

If you have the technical expertise and you're hard-headed (like me! I
should take my own advice...) it'll work a-ok compiling everything
yourself. But PlanetCCRMA will save you so much time.

BTW, Ardour is awesome. I've used Cakewalk Pro Audio and Soundforge
fairly extensively working on one CD, and a touch of Pro Tools, and
Ardour handily beats them all. It's not without its rough edges, but
still very very nice.

--
Ross Vandegrift


A Pope has a Water Cannon. It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it. It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it. It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it. It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced. It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official. It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive. He shoots them.

Ross Vandegrift wrote:

I've used Cakewalk Pro Audio and Soundforge
fairly extensively working on one CD, and a touch of Pro Tools, and
Ardour handily beats them all. It's not without its rough edges, but
still very very nice.

Ross,

What aspects of Ardour do you prefer over those other apps?

--
hank alrich * secret mountain
audio recording * music production * sound reinforcement
"If laughter is the best medicine let's take a double dose"

In article , Chris Rossi wrote:

So has anybody around here missed with DAW on linux? Specifically has
anybody tried ardour?

Yes. It's still far from perfect, but it does the job (for me at
least). This is now what I use for tracking.

Anyway, I'm just interested in hearing from folks who've already
dabbled or messed about with linux audio.

I do all my audio hacking in Linux, simply because that's what I
run. But YMMV; I use mostly command line, non-interactive software
à la Netpbm.

I think the linux/free software community would be an especially good
place to find some cooler more esoteric plugins and audio processing
algorhythms. Things developed in an academic setting or just by
hardcore nerds that do strange wonderful things to sound. Any place
to look?

http://www.ladspa.org/ (the theory)
http://plugin.org.uk/ (the practice)
http://www.linuxsound.at/ (everything)

--
André Majorel URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we
despise, we don't believe in it at all. -- Noam Chomsky

On 2003-09-04, LeBaron & Alrich wrote:
Ross,

What aspects of Ardour do you prefer over those other apps?

While it's not exactly intuitive to use (and what serious audio software
isn't?), it's very easy to learn, and very efficient - more so than Cakewalk
or Soundforge (I don't have enough Pro Tools experience to really judge
there). It's strange - I never really felt like I "understood" Calkwalk or
Soundforge. But Ardour mostly works exactly the way I think.

The architechture of the JACK + Ardour + LADSPA system is waaaay more
flexible than any of the Big Name DAW software vendors want you to
believe is possible. Ardour isn't attached to any commercial hardware
or software, so there's no incentive to not make it do everything it
can. Everyone else is always ready to sell you just a little more
capability - Ardour is the whole deal.

My workstation is an aging AMD Athlon from about four years ago.
It handily records four tracks of 24/96 without breaking a sweat, and I
stop there because it's all my Delta44 supports. My biggest Ardour
project is currently at about 10 tracks, all being mixed and having
effects applied in software. And of course there are people doing way
more serious stuff than I am - check out the ardour-users or ardour-dev
mailing lists from the ardour.sf.net homepage for more details.

Software real-time plugins are great - the LADSPA plugin architechture
is really easy to work with, so lots of people write lots of cool
effects. Perhaps the diversity is a bit low here still, but new ones
are written all the time.

And you can't beat the freedom - ardour is 100% free softwa it's
license guarantees that I can use it for whatever I want. It's source
is available to be improved and fixed. And it's freely redistributable,
so all of this software costs me zero dollars. Free upgrades too!

I can see how a serious studio might not be ready to make the jump from
commercials DAW software to GNU/Linux based Ardour systems just yet, but
I doubt it'll be long. I can't see how anyone else would ever want to pay
a penny to have to put up with Windows or MacOS ever again ::-).


--
Ross Vandegrift


A Pope has a Water Cannon. It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it. It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it. It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it. It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced. It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official. It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive. He shoots them.

In article Bill Thompson
writes:
Chris Rossi wrote:

It seems to me the logical next step is for
somebody to package a DAW oriented linux distribution or have an easy
set of RPMs to run against the most common distributions. Rather than
having to track down all the dependencies.

Check out Planet CCRMA:

http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/planet.../packages.html

They have what appears to be a pretty complete collection. I haven't the
time or machine to play around with it in quite a while, but the first
time I played with it I was really impressed with the ease of
installation.(Caveat - my day job presently is as a unix developer)

Bill

Since this environment is intended for our students and composers to install on
their own at home, it is pretty well explained and seems to work with a minimum
of difficulty. So far, Ardour is looking very promising.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ----x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

Bill Thompson wrote in message ...
Chris Rossi wrote:

It seems to me the logical next step is for
somebody to package a DAW oriented linux distribution or have an easy
set of RPMs to run against the most common distributions. Rather than
having to track down all the dependencies.

Check out Planet CCRMA:

http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/planet.../packages.html

They have what appears to be a pretty complete collection. I haven't the
time or machine to play around with it in quite a while, but the first
time I played with it I was really impressed with the ease of
installation.(Caveat - my day job presently is as a unix developer)

Excellent. That's exactly what I was looking for.

thanks,
rossi

Ardour is most definitely the hardest piece of software to install on
Linux I've seen so far. I've counted up to 50(!) different package
requirements if you want to run it on full force and while I have
finally managed to get it installed the LADSPA plug-ins aren't working
yet (they seem to work on other apps though).

And also, it is nowhere near as powerful as the Win apps - reportedly
a 800MHz machine is enough for only four or five track recordings! You
can do the same with a P133 quite easily.

But let's just wait.

On 2003-09-09, ... wrote:
And also, it is nowhere near as powerful as the Win apps - reportedly
a 800MHz machine is enough for only four or five track recordings! You
can do the same with a P133 quite easily.

It depends on a lot of things - how much you're doing with the system
for one, and how fast your disks are.

I for one can say my 900MHz Athlon has no problems with a ten track +
four bus project. It's currently using maybe a 8-10 LADSPA plugins.
Works great.


--
Ross Vandegrift


A Pope has a Water Cannon. It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it. It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it. It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it. It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced. It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official. It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive. He shoots them.

Actually... I FINALLY managed to get LADPSA working in Ardour this
morning - bizarrely the RPMs I was using required Audacity to be
installed as well! Bad building perhaps, but at least it's now
apparently functional. I'll be looking forward to start recording with
it next weekend. Well, of course experimenting with silly things at
first - let's see if I can also handle a full session with some band
in the future too.

I've tried recording about eight dummy tracks on an Athlon XP 1600+
and the CPU meter didn't rank too high - about 18%. I think it'll be
just okay - unless the program proves unable to handle a lot of edited
clips. We'll see.

By the way, how would you rate the quality of the most essential
plug-ins in the Steve Harris SWH-collection and in other various
packs? Compression, EQ and such? How do they compare against, say, the
mda plug-in pack for VST?

And further, if anybody has experimented with the impulse convolver
(or the one included in Rezound), have the results been anything
comparable to the standards programs like Acoustic Mirror have set?
That would be a really cost-efficient way to produce more professional
quality reverberation for example, and even amp and tape simulation on
Linux without having to wait for another decade for someone to come up
with fully professional grade plug-ins. Don't get me wrong, freeverb
is fine for tracking.

Actually I fiddled for a moment with the convolver in Rezound, and
judging from the included one single impulse it seemed quite good at
least initially. The controls were quite similiar to Acoustics Mirror.
There weren't decisive instructions included with the RPM on how to
create your own impulses, altough I think the free .sfi ones you can
get from the net can be converted into .wav just by renaming the file.
I'll dabble with it more when I have the time.

I guess I'll have to try SIR on a Windows platform too. Too bad I
haven't got a Windows platform anymore! :-)

I know about the Wine implementation, but couldn't get the program
working yet. I think it supports only GUI-implemented plugs. But if
that thing proves to be workable, and it can be get running
effortlessly (because at the moment it's apparently not just a matter
of of inserting the appropriate plug-in to the mixer window).