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Professional Audio on Linux?
Posted by
Cliff
on Tue Oct 16, 2001 12:51 PM
from the good-enough-to-make-music-with dept.
from the good-enough-to-make-music-with dept.
twilightzero asks: "Recently a friend of mine who is chief engineer at a medium size recording studio/radio station has become increasingly unhappy with Windows (and would like to stay away from Macs) and has asked me if there is any sort of professional audio solution for Linux. Has anybody, anywhere ever tried this? Is it possible to buy a pro audio card with Linux drivers and just run Sound Forge in WINE or do you need an entirely native package?" This is one of those questions that just needs to be answered. What Open Source sound packages out there are good enough for even the professionals to use when they need to make their squeaks, squeals, and whistles. Also, what can they use to put their created sounds together into some semblance of music?
As an addendum, coasterfreak asks: "Being an avid Linux user and composer is a bit of a problem right now. I've never run across any decent music creation programs for Linux. I've used Finale and Cakewalk before, but have yet to see them for Linux. I've heard rumors of something coming from the Debain crew, but nothing more than rumors." Can anyone confirm or deny them?
Just as a bit of a helpful hint, how many of you have tried Audacity yet? It looks to be a fairly feature rich sound editor, and it supports mixing tracks, plugin sound effects, and is cross platform, to boot! Maybe this is a decent spring board for those of you looking to start experimenting with sound under Linux, but I'm not quite sure it's ready for professionals yet...this based on the version number of 0.97 rather than any actual experience, so I'd take the word of those who have said they have used it rather than mine. It would be great if Audacity is further along than it looks.
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Linuxsound.at (Score:5, Informative)
Have fun!
That's pretty much it, isn't it? (Score:5, Funny)
Nice way to kill a story - provide the entire answer in one small, compact link. You've earned your Karma with barely a
Geez.
It's over folks - nothing left to see here, move along.
Oh well - at least I've got some ammo for this ArsTechnica Battlefront [infopop.net] thread.
Soko
Obligitory book link.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/18864113
Macs? (Score:4, Informative)
check out Demudi (Score:5, Insightful)
One of... no... The most powerful, flexible, and extensible sound synthesis programs is Csound [csounds.com].
Pure Data, Jmax (Score:5, Informative)
There is an audio solution for hardcore sound designers, it's called pd or Pure Data.
It's basically an attempt at an open source version of Max/MSP which is a program that is mac only and is used by groups like Autechre, Aphex Twin...
What PD is is a visual object oriented music "programing" language. It lets you build synths, midi controlers, do math, store data, create generative (algorythmic) music, do interactive composition...
here is a good link on PD:
http://wonk.epy.co.at/
Demudi (Score:5, Informative)
The GNU/Linux operating system is widely known as a robust base for running Internet servers, but has not reached yet a similar audience as a platform of choice for the musician and the multimedia artist. The DeMuDi project targets one reason of this issue, the lack of a GNU/Linux distribution oriented toward music and multimedia.
The Demudi project (for Debian Multimedia Distribution) aims to provide for the musician and artist a GNU/Linux distribution dedicated to music and multimedia that would ease installing and customizing GNU/Linux for their needs. Demudi is not actually a distribution in itself. Taking advantage of the existing Debian distribution, it enhances a Debian distribution by a collection of packages containing music and multimedia applications or development tools. The Debian distribution has been chosen, because it is the only distribution that is developed entirely by volunteers over the Internet, just like a significant part of the GNU system, the Linux kernel and many applications. Additionally, it supports several different hardware architectures.
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Yes, I'm an AC - No, I don't feel like registering!
Rediculous (Score:5, Insightful)
this is a recording studio we are talking about, if they are at all proffesional they dont need to be dealing with the normally non existant support on linux.
so unless the guy is a big linux geek, or the idea of being fired sounds good to him. i say a Power Mac 9600 running Mac OS 8.6 should do the trick.
SWGS
Re:Rediculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Or could be because he doesn't want to work with Macs.
A linux solution may be completely free of new costs, sure there's his time, and time to aquaint the talent with the new software, but that would be incurred regardless. A mac solution would involve hardware and software as well.
He didn't say why this guy was getting tired of Windows, it might not be crashing that's the problem. He may be fed up with licensing in general, and a mac based solution isn't going to get him any further away from that problem.
I don't know of the software side, but (Score:5, Informative)
Their driver support for Windows is okay, but I believe their Linux support may well be binary only. That said, their drivers generally don't suck.
I'm not affiliated with them -- just a happy home user who enjoys using their pro-level cards for cleaner sound output under Windoze.
Commercial opportunity? (Score:4, Insightful)
"What Open Source sound packages out there are good enough for even the professionals to use when they need to make their squeaks, squeals, and whistles."
I believe the question posed was if there were any quality sound applications for Linux, why focus solely on Open Source?The critical mass isn't possible in Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
For $70 you can purchase Home Studio from Cakewalk (a subset of their SONAR professional package). It supports DirectX plugins (the standard now for adding third party mixes, effects, and instruments.) The amount of plugins available is mind boggling. If a Linux package doesn't support this forget it.
Also, on the hardware side. Is there any support for mixing board interfaces, or multiple in/out cards for when you need to get more than 2 channels in and out at one time?
It would be nice, but It ain't gonna happen soon. There features just aren't there.
Simple Linux Solution (Score:5, Funny)
It's that simple! Enjoy!
Soundcard: M-Audio (Score:4, Informative)
also, on the general requests. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a serious computer music hobbyist.
I currently run Native Instrument's Reaktor, Propellorheads' Reason & Recycle, U & I's Metasynth, and Bias's Peak on an iBook and an older mac.
I would much rather use open source programs for the simple reason that they would be massively cheaper, in addition to generally being in agreement with open source ideaology.
Here is what is needed:
A good multitrack Midi and hard disk audio recording/sequencing program that is actually as powerful as Logic Audio Gold or Cubase VST 5.0. This is absolutely vital. You need a Logic Audio Platnium or Pro Tools killer to get a serious studio to consider switching to open source and away from the Macintosh.
And you need a useful, well implemented plug in architecture for both virtual instruments and effect processors.
Once you've got that, then people just need to write the virtual instruments and effect processors.
Seriously though, the audio stuff running on Macintosh hardware is pretty fabulous, and Mac OS X is extremely suited to audio, able to get latency as low as 1 ms (just like linux.)
Don't use windows emulators (Score:4, Informative)
Audacity rocks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Also good is Ardour, which in my opinion has a *much* greater chance of becoming the professional workstation tool that we're all looking for - there's a lot of development occurring on it, and it's already made some serious headway:
http://ardour.sourceforge.net/
Personally, I'd advise your friend to look a bit closer at the Mac way right now, and try to put bias aside. Pursue the Linux side too, if you like, but keep a very close eye on the OSX way of life...
Mac OS X is an *excellent* operating system for professional media work, and there are some extremely exciting things on the horizon for OSX - which I can't talk about due to NDA's, alas, but I will say this: getting ready now for the release of some kickass Audio tools on OS X for June/July release next year is probably a *very* wise thing.
The advantage to this, also, is that any OSS Linux apps that are available now, may (fairly easily) be ported to OS X pretty soon
Some helpful places to check out: (Score:5, Informative)
That might be a little pessimistic, but there's some truth to it. However, there is usable software out there, even if it is not done. Broadcast 2000 was aimed at video editing, but was apparently useful for audio as well. Ardor is a hard disk recorder package. There's a lot of stuff out there - heck, just search Google and Sourceforge.
The ALSA project http://www.alsa-project.org/ [alsa-project.org] is an important site if you are looking for pro audio Linux drivers and software.
Now, about the hardware: http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/ [linuxdj.com] is a place to start.
Also check out http://www.boosthardware.com/LAU/Linux_Audio_User
The M-Audio [midiman.net] pro hardware has a lot of good cards [northernsounds.com] - everything from an inexpensive 24 bit / 96 Khz DA
The RME Hammerfall card is also supported under Linux. Other quality hardware (from Echo and other companies) is unfortunately not so well supported.
Personally, I'm planning on getting one of the M-Audio cards just for playing with.
Relevant Linux Journal article (Score:4, Informative)
Linux DJ (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been using Linux to DJ for about a year now at parties and as a resident at a local club. Linux IMHO is vastly superior as a performance oriented tool, due to it's efficiency and stability. Unfortunately on the music creation and creativity side of things, Windows and even the Mac are still quite a bit easier to get into.
My linux Dj configuration is an IBM thinkpad pentium 2 366. It allows me to re-mix music on the fly and send multiple soundstreams out through some external USB Digital Analog Converters. I run the channels into a standard DJ mixer where I can get twiddly with the EQ's and crossfader and the built in Kaoss effects processor. The software is called GDAM, and is available on sourceforge. Props to the geniuses who wrote the app, they have been very helpful with various problems I have had with older versions when it came to compiling. They have even implemented some of my suggestions into their code over the last year. [song searching case insensitive for example]
The whole thing is running on top of X windows, I use Blackbox to keep resource usage low, and in turn I can re-loop and remix up to 4 soundstreams on the lowly Pentium 2 366 without noticeable latency. I keep notes on my set using VI.
Of course i'm available for certain types of events worldwide. Demonstration sets are available at my website, though I imagine it will get slashdotted pretty quick so be gentle with me.
My sets [shutdown.com]
Audacity (Score:5, Informative)
While Audacity is nowhere near being a complete replacement for a full set of commercial audio tools, I believe it's one of the best editors available for Linux today and has a lot of potential to be extremely competitive with commercial multitrack audio solutions within the next year or two. Here's what it has going for it:
(For those of you who have tried the current release (0.97) and are having audio I/O problems on Linux, rest assured that the latest version in CVS has much improved audio I/O and should solve all of those problems and more...)
There are three or four active developers of Audacity, and another dozen or so people who contribute code or bug fixes from time to time. We're definitely interested in more help - visit the web site and contact us if you're a C++ whiz (or have some other skill which might be useful for us) and want to join the team!
It's still not there yet.. (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend has a studio and a few years ago, i convinced them to dump their protools package (cuz seriously, who wants to be locked in and protools excels at that!) for pc software. over time, we got a decent machine, with full scsi, and started tracking his new project. We used Cool Edit Pro and it started barfing here and there. You can't afford *any* drop outs or variations in a track. otherwise, it's useless.
A few months back, they switched back over to protools on a G4. i think part of their problem was lack of experience tho. they have a 'producer' in now using their equip and he's recorded some major label projects. he likes the setup. so i guess it works. however, it *cost* them quite a bit.
my home studio has a athalon 750, 512mb ram, ata-100 raid 0 40gb hd setup, and - ugh - win98. this is *only* because the company i bought my digi audio card - tascam pci 822 (dont go for that crappy soundblaster stuff, u wanna track 24-bit, at least 44khz, *at least*). that connects into my tascam tmd1000 mixer. this is pretty kick ass for a home/project studio. i actually *read* a lot of stuff for disabling read-ahead cache (bad!) and various other things. At most I've had about 36 tracks of audio goin whithout a hitch. Using Cool Edit Pro as well.
Obviosuly, I'd prefer to use linux, but the drivers and the software are *the* major hitch. I mean, tascam (funny, how there's scam in the middle of their name..) can't even get their shit together to write Win2k drivers (which wld be far more robust than 98). So I think it would be difficult to get the appropriate linux drivers.
I do have faith in Linux tho. Esp since a lot of CG shops are using it more and more. Just needs the software and drivers, thats all. And coming from a analog/mixing board kinda view, the software has to be easy to use. I feel cool edit is pretty straight forwars. I gave up on cakewalk and all those others. I personally don't have much need for midi.
So, remember, if you really care about your proj/home studio, you'll record in at least 24-bit/44khz. And for that u need a beefier card than the crappy sound blasters. And that card will require custom drivers. Kinda a weird cicken and egg syndrome.
waiting for Cakewalk Sonar (Score:4, Informative)
My only complaint is that while the software is sturdy, the operating system under it isn't. More than once, Windows has "burped" in the middle of critical recordings. I recently set up a church with RealAudio Producer for Linux for precisely that reason. I didn't want an operating system getting in the way of a 20 minute sermon.
My hope is that Greg H. get's the innovation bug that's made him a hero in the industry, and provide a Linux solution. When that happens, you can kiss Windows goodbye in my own studio.
Pro Audio (Score:3, Informative)
Is it possible to buy a pro audio card with Linux drivers and just run Sound Forge in WINE
Last time I checked, Sound Forge was not something to be used for PRO audio.
Tell your buddy to wake up (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, really, take a look at new Macs ; it's really worth it. And then you won't wonder anymore why musicians swear only by that in magazines.
Macs, Slashdotters, This Question (Score:3, Insightful)
The simple answer is probably that the "friend" mentioned here is chief engineer of the self-assembled PC in his basement and can't afford to buy anything that would cost money. Though there's nothing wrong with this plight, I don't understand why we must lie about things to get the information we want.
Anyone not on crack who's a chief engineer at a recording studio would not "avoid macs." They are the absolute standard in virtually all audio and most video production. There are numerous software and hardware solutions at the professional level and if you want to create quality recordings for your artists, then there is but one choice.
Why in God's earth anyone calling themselves a professional audio engineer would try and duct tape together a platform of pre-beta, open source (read: no paid-for, reliable support -- and I'm talking about the applications here, not the operating system)software in an OS that obviously nobody is using for audio production is beyond me. Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion above that there is no real "friend" looking for advice here.
I really would love to see open source, professional quality audio developed for Linux. Unfortunately, anyone who's spent more than a week on Slashdot knows for a fact that this sort of stuff isn't around. Yes, there are a few things for doing amateur digital audio work, but nothing that could drive the hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment any real studio would have.
Audio latency (Score:5, Informative)
There's a paper, Audio Latency Measurements of Desktop Operating Systems [jhu.edu], which might give you some useful information. Mac OS X's CoreAudio provided the most consistant latencies regardless of loads, although a suitably patched Linux 2.4 kernel has better latencies under no-load conditions.
"All of the current desktop operating systems offer excellent latency performance under some conditions, though most of them cannot deliver this performance in all situations. This is a substantial improvement over previous results (Brandt and Dannenberg 1998; Freed, Chaudhary, and Davila 1997), but because of the inconsistency of the results more improvement is necessary before reliable low-latency performance can be expected from desktop operating systems.
"In conclusion, Linux showed the best performance in the tests without load while MacOS X showed the best performance in the tests with load. Windows and MacOS 8 and 9 produced some of the best results when using a professional soundcard with the ASIO API but showed poor performance when using the standard APIs and consumer-grade soundcards."
you could always ask people who know ... (Score:4, Interesting)
MacOS X Latency (Score:5, Informative)
In tests, audio was sampled at 44.1KHz with 16-bit or 24-bit precision. Apple's machines were the only ones on test that didn't require a soundcard.
The best latency test results for systems without load were as follows (time in milliseconds);
- Mac OS X running on a 400MHz G4: 2.83 ms.
- Soundcraft Desk: 1.81 ms.
- 933MHz Pentium 3 running Linux 2.4.1 with a third party audio software patch: 2.72 ms.
- 933MHz Pentium 3 running Linux: 2.72ms.
Mac OS X performed outstandingly when under system load. It offered the same latency speed as before - 2.83 ms. Previous competitors in the unloaded category dropped out of sight. Its nearest rival (with 4.3ms) was again Linux 2.4.1 OS, this time running on a dual processor Pentium 3 with a pro audio card installed and additional software.
The article was authored by:
Karl MacMillan, Michael Droettboom and Ichiro Fujinaga of the Peabody Institute - part of John Hopkins University in the US.
You may also want to look at the following links:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/audio.
http://developer.apple.com/audio/
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0110/05.aud
You may not like the Mac or the MacOS but I would have to say that OS X looks like it has a very, very good chance of holding onto and attracting a large chunk of the audio market.
I am not a Mac/Linux/Windows fanatic, just someone who uses the best tool for the job and to me it appears like in the near future OS X will be the system of choice for audio professionals.
No real sound cards (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't misunderstand me, i'm not saying these cards are horrible or that they suck, but if you think you're gonna replace 2" tape with your audigy, think again.
The real pro-level sound systems like sonic solutions [sonic.com], protools [digidesign.com], motu [motu.com], and to a more semi-pro extent midiman [midiman.com] and echo audio [echoaudio.com] have absolutely no linux support. For now, studio level audio with linux is a total dead end. The most you can hope for now is to use it for audio processing or creation does not even involve a sound card, and that's a pretty limited use.
BeOS could have made it, in fact they were starting to, but then they made the brilliant decision to "change focus" from multimedia to networking, good call guys.
All is not lost however, because OSX will bring light. Mac is THE platform for pro audio, protools is native to it, as is sonic solutions. This means that before too long all the biggies will be offering drivers for OSX (midiman already does), and if they are smart enough to offer the source with them, then they'll be ported in short order to linux i'm sure.
Linux audio now? bah! Linux audio in three years? definately!
Re:No real sound cards (Score:4, Insightful)
* Large numbers of channels
* Support for 96kHz sampling rate
* Support for 24-bit samples
* Manufacturer's web site talks about "audio I/O" and "Multitrack recording" rather than "3D Surround" and "Explosive Bass"
* Price > $300
* Far too many odd-looking connectors
So, are these cards suitable for Linux pro-audio (in which case the problem IS the software after all) or am I totally out of my depth?