Linux and Audio Production: Simplicity Required (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Jul 22, 2005 22:23 UTC (Fri) by jimi (guest, #6655) [Link]

There are a lot of problems with this article.

First, the sound card should generally not be configured from the audio application. A dedicated application exists to do this task. The audio application should not even care what hardware is being used. A seperate tool such as hdspmixer is the correct tool to manage pro audio hardware - and this is true on Microsoft platforms as well. When you buy hardware such as an RME HDSP9652 it comes with MS Windows compatible software to control the card. This control is not in the audio applications themselves. I want to configure my hardware in startup scripts, not in audio applications.

Second, Ardour is written with the pro audio engineer in mind. An audio engineer does care very much about the technical specs of the guitars, amps, drums, mics, inputs, outputs, dynamic range, etc. To say, "When I am making music, I don't care for technology. I don't care about the spec of amps and guitars, I don't care about the technical characteristics of the mixer; I just want to plug in and record. The time between the birth of a song and getting it down on disk must be short - the creative mind is hampered tiny technical issues, and these issues are unacceptable." is to ignore what Ardour is all about: making professional recordings. Certainly you want to minimize any barriers that the technology places between you and your desired goal. But to say, "I just want to plug in and record" ignores the fact that recording spaces are vastly different, sound sources need to be listened to to determine their specific qualities, and instruments must be carefully combined to achieve a pleasant result.

Third, comparing Ardour and other audio apps to Firefox or Open Office is a little shallow. Neither Firefox nor Open Office have specific hardware requirements. They will run on pretty much any computer since they don't require specialized hardware to work. Audio applications are much different. An audio application that runs on a computer without a soundcard is not much use. As well, pro audio applications often require specific hardware features such as MIDI in/out/thru, ADAT compatibility, variable sample rate, bit resolution, and more. Without the appropriate hardware, pro audio applications cannot be simply "dropped in" like Firefox or Open Office.

Certainly the current situation with audio in Linux can be improved, both in integration and usability. And improvements will come. Fortunately helpful avenues exist for new users and professionals alike. Distibutions such as AGNULA provide integration and support for serious audio work. The mailing lists for ardour and the #ardour IRC channel are both filled with helpful people.

Posted Jul 25, 2005 17:33 UTC (Mon) by ssavitzky (subscriber, #2855) [Link]

Ardour is probably the worst application to use if you just want to record -- it's basically an editor and sequencer designed for a professional audio engineer. Sometimes you need that, and if you have a pro engineer in your home studio to run it while you record, great. I don't.

For me, Audacity gives a good balance between simplicity when you're recording, and the minimal amount of editing you need in the minutes afterward. It has the additional advantage of being cross-platform, so I can ship a song off to a collaborator without having to worry about what platform they prefer using.

Posted Jul 28, 2005 13:55 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I am no musician, but I liek to play around with this sort of stuff.

Having the hardware be controlled by the application is obviously silly. It may work with windows, but in Linux your going to end up having dozens of applicatoins running at once becuase no single application has the full featured-ness that commercial windows tools are going to provide.

On the other hand all Linux has things like Ladspa and especially Jackd low-latency server as well as the control that alsa drivers can provide.

Also we have a maturing realtime-preempt and such so that latencies are potentionally much better then anything in Windows.

I am thinking that this guy just isn't to familar with the state of Linux audio technology.. it does have some very compelling aspects that other platforms do not offer.

I especially like the nature of jackd audio server. Being able to route sound and midi sequencies from application to application and stuff like that is great.

But like I said I am no real musician, it's just my two cents.

For ease of installation and such there is Demudi distro, a debian-based distro that is specificly designed for making a pc into a digital audio workstation and it's counterpart Redmudi which is based on Redhat.. both aviable from Agnula.

Then there also is a live CD at http://dynebolic.org/ that has is designed to make any computer, even older ones, into usefull audio workstations.