Again: linux and recording

H

Havoc

New member
Went through some older threads, but found nothing to my liking. So some questions to clear the path and find more info:

1: anyone here using linux and willing to share info (on or off this forum)

2: are there other forums that have more info on this particular topic

Every other bit of info is welcome....really.
 
To be honest, i'm quite curious to the answers to the above post as well.
It might be a worthy alternative, maybe in the long run and with the right softwarehouses releasing an even beter system for audio.

I still wipe away a tear every now and then for BeOS. This could have been (and should have been) the multimedia-os.
 
Gee, I was about asking the same question yesterday... :) I never had any experience using Linux, but I'm so curious about these OS'es. I'm into networking thingee right now... BTW, I found these forum good...

http://forum.hackinthebox.org/index.php

Anyone know how to install Linux for audio minded computer user ? Which distro ? What version ? What to do first ? Thank's guys !!!

James
 
Audacity: I have it installed and have mixed feelings. I can playback a wav already on the disk. I can record a wav from outside. But when I save the recorded file, I can open it, but there is nothing in it. (if I open with something else like muse then the recording is there!)

Ardour: high on my list, but next to impossible for an absolute linux beginner like me!

Alsa: the documentation describes 0.3.0. Nice, but everybody uses 0.9.0! It recognises my RME9652, but I cannot find any doc saying how to select an input.

Played a bit with ecasound. I can record to a file (only 16bit, anything more and I get errors), but playback freezes everything.

I think "someday" will not be before I retire (so they have still 30 years or so). RH crashed 4 times today. This is almost the user friendliness of MSDOS3.2 and the stability of W95. I refrain from comment about fonts on the screen :)
 
James: your post came while I was typing.

As for distro, I went with Planet CCRMA. This is not really a distro, it is more a package put together to do audio on Red Hat (7.0, 7.3 or 8.0). It is a start, but see post above for my (not so good) experience. http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

Or you could go to Agnula http://www.agnula.org If I cannot sort this out, I'll try that one. This is Red Hat or Debian. The RH is a full install, the debian follows the ccrma way.

It is a pain!

I forgot: muse plays back nice, but crashes once you hit the record button :(
 
Thanks for the infos and links Havoc !! I'll give it a shoot... Wait... don't go too far, I will need you again :) Stay near... ;)
 
I still wipe away a tear every now and then for BeOS. This could have been (and should have been) the multimedia-os.
Click to expand...
Amen brother. I heard they were going to open source Be, but I really don't know how useful that will be to anyone.
 
As a huge linux fan I wish I could say the state of pro-audio on linux was great, but it isn't. There are a few problems.

1) Hardware support -- sound cards we have MOTU, Steinberg, Aardvark etc sell only 10s of thousands in a year, SB Live sells about 100,000 per year, therefore they get drivers, we don't. I do think it is quite stupid that most companies now offer support for OS X but not linux, they could most likely just do a few modifications and then have it done, but not everyone like linux.

2) Software, it's really difficult to program good audio software. It's even more difficult to make it so it can run on any number of platforms. Keep in mind linux runs on a intel/amd box, a PowerPC box, a friggen Mainframe from IBM, and everything in between. There isn't anything really standared about all the hardware, so the software needs to work a bit differently. Additionally, VST and DirectX are quite native to Steinberg and Windows. It would be nice if they were an open standard, but since they are not, you can't use commercially available plugins. So free software isn't really cutting it. I haven't seen any major software say anything about linux either, Cubase SX on linux would rule and I would pay for it, but I don't think it will happen in the near future. However, there is quite a lot of Pro Video stuff being done on linux now, so maybe that will help our cause.

I know I didn't say much, but if its Penguin news, I try to keep up with it. When I find something worthwhile, i will let everyone know.

--MIKE
 
Well, I'm not yet giving up (but making an old pc ready with W2K). So far I tried audacity, museand ecasound. None can record AND play without problems/crashes.

Mastahnke: your observations are right. But as far as soft goes, there is enough (for me at least). Only problem, it looks af if the programmer made something and never, never fired it up. So it probably works on his/her pc, none else! As for hardware, rme and midiman support linux (well, cooperate), again good enough for me (one of the reasons I bought the rme). Apparently motu, roland are also on the train, as are usb devices.

If you need some vidoe: look at cinelerra. http://www.heroinewarrior.com

There are efforts, but as long as the linux community does not understand they need some kind of standardising body, they will never make it.

Other info: there is an article in Sound On Sound, februari issue.
 
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