mutitrack recorders

[fingerbun]

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

I am very interested in what you are doing, but it goes way beyond the original point of this thread. You just keep ticking the right boxes. Fluxbox being another example Is there another forum where I can see your progress on all this?

And as a wrap-up in this thread....I agree with you about computer geeks vs musicians. Linux is powerful but not easy. One of the things I like about Mac is it gets the balance between powerful and easy to use right by my standards. (Opinions may vary and I don't want to get into flame wars with those who are more attracted by the advantages of Windows).

A lot depends on what you want from a DAW. In my case, what I am looking for is a GarageBand/Logic/Cubase clone - live instruments, virtual instruments, loops and mixdown capability all in one, and simple to use. Don't know a Linux project that does all that but if you merged LMMS and Jokosher it might come close. For those earlier in the thread who just want to record audio, Ardour is probably a good choice (I don't think it has sequencing, is that right? I understand its goal is just to be a really good sound recorder) Maybe throw in Hydrogen if you need a drum machine.

The other thing about Linux is so many of the apps are essentially backlevel recreations of major commercial apps. (EG LMMS vs FL Studio, Ardour vs ProTools) This is great for getting a lot of the function at no cost. I can't think of an example where the clear best app for anything is a Linux app, but there are plenty of examples where it is good enough. For those in the thread who don't have money, if you have time to investigate there is a lot of good OpenSource and Freeware stuff out there. I do have the money but I still use OpenOffice rather than MSOffice, GIMP rather than photoshop, etc. If I had more time and less money, I would certainly expect to be able to invest the effort and build quite a usable DAW on Linux on a cheap second hand PC.

 

[devilock76]

I am very interested in what you are doing, but it goes way beyond the original point of this thread. You just keep ticking the right boxes. Fluxbox being another example Is there another forum where I can see your progress on all this?

And as a wrap-up in this thread....I agree with you about computer geeks vs musicians. Linux is powerful but not easy. One of the things I like about Mac is it gets the balance between powerful and easy to use right by my standards. (Opinions may vary and I don't want to get into flame wars with those who are more attracted by the advantages of Windows).

A lot depends on what you want from a DAW. In my case, what I am looking for is a GarageBand/Logic/Cubase clone - live instruments, virtual instruments, loops and mixdown capability all in one, and simple to use. Don't know a Linux project that does all that but if you merged LMMS and Jokosher it might come close. For those earlier in the thread who just want to record audio, Ardour is probably a good choice (I don't think it has sequencing, is that right? I understand its goal is just to be a really good sound recorder) Maybe throw in Hydrogen if you need a drum machine.

The other thing about Linux is so many of the apps are essentially backlevel recreations of major commercial apps. (EG LMMS vs FL Studio, Ardour vs ProTools) This is great for getting a lot of the function at no cost. I can't think of an example where the clear best app for anything is a Linux app, but there are plenty of examples where it is good enough. For those in the thread who don't have money, if you have time to investigate there is a lot of good OpenSource and Freeware stuff out there. I do have the money but I still use OpenOffice rather than MSOffice, GIMP rather than photoshop, etc. If I had more time and less money, I would certainly expect to be able to invest the effort and build quite a usable DAW on Linux on a cheap second hand PC.

Not really, but if you want to learn from people who know more than me there is always linuxmusicians.com

Oh and Ardour 3 is supposed to have MIDI sequencing but it has been LONG awaited. They released an Alpha version I think earlier this year.

I will try not to rant geekery. I am having a disagreement with a BSD box this evening that I want to resolve before SOA comes on.

Ken

 

[seamonkey]

Linux is used in many embedded applications. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the standalone multitrack recorders use embedded Linux. You can't usually get a shell into an embedded linux, but it's amazing how scalable Linux is. All the way up to supercomputers.

I do expect that Google Droid and/or Apple iOS lightweight OS's used in cell phones and portable devices will be embedded in more and more other devices. Apple doesn't even use OS X in the iPad, and OS X is a version of Unix, BSD I think.

 

[devilock76]

Linux is used in many embedded applications. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the standalone multitrack recorders use embedded Linux. You can't usually get a shell into an embedded linux, but it's amazing how scalable Linux is. All the way up to supercomputers.

I do expect that Google Droid and/or Apple iOS lightweight OS's used in cell phones and portable devices will be embedded in more and more other devices. Apple doesn't even use OS X in the iPad, and OS X is a version of Unix, BSD I think.

No, but the core of IOS is OSX, it is a light version of the other. Just like no full blown computers right now use android and you also aren't running a full Ubuntu install on your phone. There have been embedded Linux music devices but they are rare to say the least.

Ken

 

[BulbousMoses]

Ken, I wonder if I can ask you about Ardour, specifically. Have you used it extensively? In your opinion, what are it's strengths and weaknesses?

 

[devilock76]

Ken, I wonder if I can ask you about Ardour, specifically. Have you used it extensively? In your opinion, what are it's strengths and weaknesses?

I am new to putting this more into production. I used it for a quick tracking of a bands session, did a quick mix of the songs in question. I got another tracking session coming up which will be for demo purposes so I will get more into it.

It is hard for me to say yet though the pros and cons. I really need to completely absorb the work flow, or at least absorb it better than I do now to really compare and contrast.

However strengths, sound quality is good, interface is clean, yet to find a feature I needed missing when I looked for it. Well MIDI sequencing is not there but I knew that going in. For high quality pure MTR duty Ardour seems nice, however that is not the majority of my computer music time so I am weak on real world ardour experience.

Ken