Yes and no. I mean you might be hard pressed for low latency real time especially with DSP going on. But properly tweaked just maybe. You can add the Ubuntu studio repos to try. I would back up important stuff first though, just to be sure.
Ken
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mutitrack recorders
- Thread starter stjohn1299
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Yes and no. I mean you might be hard pressed for low latency real time especially with DSP going on. But properly tweaked just maybe. You can add the Ubuntu studio repos to try. I would back up important stuff first though, just to be sure.
Ken
Ubuntu 10 was my last ubuntu I even played with. I loved ubuntu at first coming from old school debian. But in the end its philosophy has differed from mine too far to be reconciled right now. Don't get me wrong, it is a great project that makes a great OS for many types of users. I am just not one of those types of users.
Ken
I really like the form factor and price point of the R16 solution. I don't have a need for one, but if someone I know picks up one I will ask them to let me try to make it work in Linux for a weekend. If I succeed I might consider one down the road.
Ken
Thanks Ken. Well, if the laptop truly has the horsepower to do it, I would consider a clean install and then use it only as a lightweight DAW (single purpose, no internet connection, tuned for Ardour..etc.) If not, I'd look at buying a new or used laptop with enough juice. Used would probably be the way I would go although even new low end laptops are pretty much all dual core now.
I think it could work as a production station. MTR might be pushing it. I mean depends. With just USB 2.0 your going to have issues finding an interface with more than 4 simultaneous tracks that works anyway. Firewire is the better way to go typically. Real time DSP will be the big deal. How many tracks it can play back while you overdub without latency issues will be where the CPU runs into a limit.
I think for best results you would want a firewire interface. Firewire and linux audio get along better for MTR performance than USB. Granted you gotta pick something up that is compatible but you will have more options with Firewire and better results IMHO.
Ken
Problem is that outside of Apple, finding a Wintel laptop with built in firewire ports is hard (and expensive)
That's the MTR that I'm considering most. It has mixing/mastering functions as well, right? If you carried a project to it's completely mastered end on a 2488, would the quality be significantly less, in your opionion, or does it carry it's own pretty well?
devilock76 said:
I made a conscious decision to stay with USB and have just upgraded from a four channel Lexicon Omega to eight channel Roland Octacapture. Use it with a band for first time Sunday week but expect it to be ok. However that's the limit and I have to limit the sampling rate to get eight tracks simultaneous. So yes for full power FireWire is preferable.
BulbousMoses said:
There will be other limitations. Eg laptop disks are 25% slower.
I'm using a bottom of the range MacBook and memory is being stretched. I will upgrade that and expect it to be fine for what I do.
I own the Zoom R16 and love it. It's way easy to operate, I can dump everything onto my PC for some post-production, it has tons of onboard features and 16 tracks is plenty for me. I haven't tried using it as an interface yet, though...I probably should.
I found it in a Toshiba used for $250 on CL. But you are correct. Basically when consumer video cameras that needed it to digitally transfer video to a computer started to fade from the market, so did it's place on even media centric intel computers. The manufacturers that seemed to add it the most where Toshiba, Sony, Gateway, and sometimes HP. However firewire will be here for a while as it did well in MTR applications.
Ken
You really should never be recording to the disk in a laptop, you should always be using an external if you want any type of performance. Yes laptop HD's are slow but that slowness is not enough to inhibit recording until you think about the fact that while you are recording that the computer is accessing the same drive in at least three different locations, for the OS, for the program, and to record the media. If you are way under spec'd there is a fourth, swap space/virtual memory. Since it is very rare (I have never seen one) to get a laptop with dual HD's it is best to use an external of some form no matter what. USB 2.0 would probably be the minimum connection speed. That is what I use and it performs for me.
Ken
True, like I said minimum. Overall though it is better than trying to tackle your media recording to the same media that you system is running from.
Ken
Really, I haven't seen too many Lenovos with it, but then again I don't end up working on many of them. Learn something new each day. Thank you.
Ken
I know what you are saying, but I have a different view.
I have two DAWS, an iMac and a Mackbook. The iMac was bought as a DAW. The Macbook is a general purpose PC that I use as a simple DAW amongst other things.
The iMac I have never hit a limit. Maybe I will with 8 USB channels.
The Macbook I hit limits all the time but it will mix 8-10 tracks or record at least 4 simultaneously. Fundamentally the issue with the Macbook is memory, so I get more out of it if I shut everything else down before I run GB.
The point being that I understand your point about two disks, but I am not hitting that limit at all so I am not worried about it.
Related question....have you ever thought about building a DAW on a really small Linux distro...something like Damn Small for example, or Puppy. Could it be done or would you have to bring in so many other things that it would just become bloat city?
Something like Damn Small + Jokosher on a netbook could be really useful. If I ever find myself with time on my hands I may try and build it. Or I just put the idea on forums like this and see if anyone comes back and says "I had a rainy afternoon and was bored...here's an ISO"
I know what you are saying, but I have a different view.
I have two DAWS, an iMac and a Mackbook. The iMac was bought as a DAW. The Macbook is a general purpose PC that I use as a simple DAW amongst other things.
The iMac I have never hit a limit. Maybe I will with 8 USB channels.
The Macbook I hit limits all the time but it will mix 8-10 tracks or record at least 4 simultaneously. Fundamentally the issue with the Macbook is memory, so I get more out of it if I shut everything else down before I run GB.
The point being that I understand your point about two disks, but I am not hitting that limit at all so I am not worried about it.
Related question....have you ever thought about building a DAW on a really small Linux distro...something like Damn Small for example, or Puppy. Could it be done or would you have to bring in so many other things that it would just become bloat city?
Something like Damn Small + Jokosher on a netbook could be really useful. If I ever find myself with time on my hands I may try and build it. Or I just put the idea on forums like this and see if anyone comes back and says "I had a rainy afternoon and was bored...here's an ISO"
I don't know enough about Mac specs to comment on your success with a single drive. But it is good you are getting thoswe results.
I think I mentioned I am getting ready to switch to Arch. In essence Arch is a lightweight distro and pretty close to a roll your own distro setup. Fedora was my choice at first due to experience in the RPM world but I have leaned more towards building (from scratch) with distros that after install leave you at a CLI login and nothing more. FreeBSD and Arch are becoming my main environment for my home office now.
Damn Small and Puppy carry certain overhead from their parent projects despite their small size (Debian and Red Hat, if memory serves, although Puppy might be Knoppix). Arch shares one thing with Fedora as it is bleeding edge.
It is funny you should mention Jokosher. I have a lot of interest in that project for the main reason that it is written in python. However in practice I have found it limiting and there are better performing lightweights out there, well lightweight when compared to say Ardour. The bottle neck in most netbooks is the Atom processor. It was designed for power saving not performance. Even in a dual core Atom arrangement it just cannot handle significant levels of realtime DSP. It is not unusable but I would not try to do a recording session with one. Combined with a small USB audio interface (I have an ART two channel for mine) it can make a very portable mobile production station. However the keyboard and built in mouse can be difficult to work with.
For mobile production I would strongly consider the Ipad, and a program like NanoStudio. I have NanoStudio on my iPhone and it is incredible. The NanoSync program and the free desktop NanoStudio program both work perfectly fine in Wine. In fact I have a post about it on the NanoStudio forums detailing the one issue with Sync that is easy to work around. I still don't have an iPad but will at some point. I have an Android tablet but at this point the music programs on it are barely worth the time. The only "music" use I have for it is for my set lists and cheat sheets as needed. In that it works very well. I will probably start using it a bit for DJ applications as well. The problem is Google did not see fit to use a realtime kernel in the Android OS and that is a HUGE mistake IMHO on a Mobile OS.
Ken
I can see why Arch would make sense. Are you putting a GUI on it (I assume you would have to for most apps). I thought that might be where bloat came in.
I only raised Jokosher because it was small and simple. No particular allegiance there. Actually if they would add audio capability to LMMS it would probably interest me more.
Netbooks, the other hassle that bugs me more than keyboard or mouse is screen size.
When you put something together, have you considered publishing an ISO?
Yeah a Gui is a necessity these days with most any audio production or recording app. For lightweight I use Fluxbox, for eye candy when presenting I typically choose KDE. For a middle of the road I use LXDE. Fluxbox really gets the most use for me though. I use it a lot for VNC sessions and the shortcut keys work well and it is easy enough to customize through editing a couple of text files.
I have high hopes for the Jokosher project and if I should ever get the time to contribute with development on it I will.
Netbook screen size is another hurdle you are right. I am trying to do away with netbooks more and more. I will tell you even with the latest generation 10" screen LMMS is a chore on a netbook as are many other apps.
LMMS is good for quick song idea formation, just like Fruity Loops excels in that way. At least for loop/pattern based music. My biggest gripe with LMMS is two features it is lacking.
1. You can only export a full mix, sub mixes are in the roadmap though so we shall see. I want to be able to export individual tracks or better yet phrases to audio file to import into Qtractor with a project.
2. A fuller jack implementation where you have more than just a stereo out to connect to other programs from LMMS. This would somewhat mitigate the lack of feature 1. LMMS' Jack implementation is an afterthought at best.
Still LMMS is easier than LASH/Ladish IMO. However another fun MIDI composing environment is Seq24 combined with Ladish and numerous soft synths. ZynAddSubFX is an awesome soft synth under linux and in combination with Qsynth and LinuxSampler and Hydrogen you have a great sound palette to trigger from Seq24. I plan to move more to Qtractor as my main environment in the future. I have to learn more about LASH to get it to work better in my environment, but I see a lot more potential there than just LMMS, but there is a larger time investment to get to the same level of out the gate functionality.
I don't particularly see myself publishing an ISO. That is a lot of work and one of my problems with "forking" a project that way is that often studio specific distros lose too much connection to the parent distro and this can affect overall system reliability and security. Granted in the pro world what is a studio machine is just that, it wears one hat. But in the real world of working musicians that studio computer plays many roles and to cripple the machine for other roles to fill one role I don't consider practical. The most I could see myself doing is working on a howto blog or site to organize a lot of the info out there into a more cohesive guide. There are many out there already with great info, but many of them I feel the info could be better presented to musicians approaching linux. They are more written now to computer saavy people who happen to be musicians coming to studio setups.
Before the end of the month I will probably start on the Arch setup and I will be documenting that for future publication. It will be freely available at that time and I will try to work on getting lots of audio samples up and running for those purposes.
Ken
