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Ubuntu Studio Announced
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jan 21, 2007 04:54 AM
from the another-toy-for-ubuntu-users dept.
from the another-toy-for-ubuntu-users dept.
lukeknipe writes "Ubuntu has set up a page for the April release of the Ubuntu Studio. An ambitious project, it is described by Ubuntu as a 'multimedia editing flavor of Ubuntu for the Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional who is already familiar with the Ubuntu-Gnome environment.' They've set up an Ubuntu Studios Wiki for the project, and their stated goal is to have a the package ready for use in time for 'Feisty Fawn'."
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Last Rev (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Last Rev (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Last Rev (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Last Rev (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Last Rev (Score:4, Funny)
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*ducks*
Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a neat idea, but I wouldn't put much effort into it if it was my baby, and I certainly don't approve of the slashvertising of it before it's really even started. Vaporware is a BAD thing for Linux.
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Oh, good one! Now you've just blown *any* chance of us ever seeing Duke Nukem Forever come out for Linux...
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If the apps were all top-notch already, I could see it being worthwhile. I prefer Kubuntu over straight Ubuntu m
The Ubuntu Way of doing things ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Seeing this, one knows that OSS will prevail and Ubuntu will be at the helm. Nice prospects indeed.
Re:The Ubuntu Way of doing things ... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean a millionaire prepared to spend lots of his own money with no prospect of short-term return? Yeah probably. Maybe if Linux distros became even more like sports teams, we'd have cheerleaders as well!
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Great Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
One may be working on a job that will take hours, while the other may need a quick reboot ASAP. One may need 99% uptime, while the other serves it's purpose just as well at 95% downtime. One needs quite high-end hardware, latest drivers, and frequent updating of software, while the other is better handled by older, lower-power, more reliable hardware and old, known-good software. One can be tucked away in a corner, while the other often needs to be nearby. etc.
Plus, it's no secret that many multimedia tools are a serious hassle to get up and working in the first place. Different toolkits and widely varying interfaces abound in this space. Good luck trying to INTEGRATE them with each other, on your own. My multimedia system is filled with shell scripts, which do the job pretty well, but aren't very elegant solutions. Doing something in a convoluted way is sometimes quicker and easier than trying to adapt the scripts that, for example, convert between formats for different editing tools.
The wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just build packages than can be installed to the main Ubuntu distro(s) already out there?
Re:The wrong direction (Score:5, Informative)
To us pro-audio guys this is great news. My guess is you're not into pro audio. You must have missed my other post [slashdot.org]. You'll see, the number of applications is significantly bigger than that.
Secondly, pro audio is a field that places some very specific requirements on the OS. For years on end, I've needed to manually rebuild my kernel to include Ingo Molnar's low latency patches. Without these patches, linux audio will either suffer dropouts (not a huge deal for gaming but intolerable for pro audio) or feel sluggish. For quite a while, doing pro audio on Linux meant following endless HOWTO's, patching the kernel, and so on. A fork prevents this, without bothering other users with features that are not ready for prime time. *That* is the point.
I'm thrilled to see that after years, a lot of the progress that has been made has found actually ended up finding its way into the mainstream kernel, and I'm sure this will keep happening. I'm particularly happy about ALSA being part of the kernel now. I've also gladly welcomed the O(1) I/O scheduler, and recently, at last, as of kernel 2.6.18, Ingo Molnar&co's low latency patch finally made it into there. No more re-compiling the kernel for realtime support!
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Re:The wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's easier for the end user to have something that gives them most or all of what they need out of the box, rather than forcing them to scour around for the packages they need to get their job done. And once you have a solid reusable core OS like Ubuntu, building specialized distros tailored to specific types of users isn't all that hard.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, it's the best of both world.
Linux audio software (Score:5, Informative)
The rest is a matter of finding the right audio and music software. Here's a list of the software that I've actually used personally and that I consider the best of breed audio and music software for Linux. You will find these packages to fulfill most any audio need you might have. If you are going to get started on Linux audio for the first time, check these out before anything else.
Transport:
JACK audio connection kit: supported by almost all linux audio software.
Allows routing audio between jack-enabled applications. Use with qjackctl.
Mixing:
Ardour: Multi track Digital Audio Workstation. Very complete and definitely very usable. Main downside: Not all mixing parameters can be MIDI-controlled by an external mixer (yet), this is currently my main obstacle to integrating my mixer into my linux audio chain.
Audio editing:
Rezound: A decent wave editor. Feature rich, although not very suitable for multi-track work.
Audacity: Another good wave editor.
mhwaveedit: A small wave editor, which, although a bit limited, I've found very reliable for recording jack streams.
Gnu Wave Cleaner: To remove noise, pops and crackle from recordings. Works well, but unfortunately is rather unstable. Make a backup of your audio before denoising it.
Soft synths:
ZynAddSubFX: A very nice virtual analog synth
fluidsynth: Sample-based synth, use with qsynth or (better) java-based fluidgui
LinuxSampler: More powerful sampler than fluidsynth, albeit with higher latency
Aeolus: A virtual pipe organ. Believable to the untrained ear.
Composition:
soundtracker: IT-tracker style music editor
hydrogen: A drum machine (or more accurately, a drum sequencer).
Rosegarden: A MIDI sequencer. Use in combination with one of the above soft synths. I've experienced some trouble combining both MIDI and audio inside the same project.
Real-time processing:
LADSPA plugins: Effect processing for almost any purpose. Most prominently absent is a good pitch corrector/auto tune.
freqtweak: Create all kinds of interesting effects by tweaking parameters in the frequency domain.
Jack-rack: Process incoming JACK audio in realtime.
Other:
amidi: Command line utility to dump incoming MIDI traffic and send MIDI traffic.
Very useful for MIDI diagnostics
hd24tools: A jack-enabled suite that allows playing disks recorded on Alesis HD24 recorder.
Main things I feel are still lacking:
- Replacing audio peaks by drums: I've written a small tool, drumreplacer, which does this for a single audio channel. However it is rather limited and uses a lot of CPU. Still a far cry from the capabilities of drumagog.
- Auto tune
- A tool to 'unwobble' wobbly drum tracks in real time
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You should check out Aubio http://aubio.piem.org/ [piem.org] It does what you want, and more. It turns my guitar into a midi instrument when combined with jack configured to ultralow latency via my beautiful M-auio 44 soundcard.
Jokosher (Score:4, Interesting)
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No use without HW support... (Score:3, Interesting)
Until hardware suppliers ship Linux drivers (with all the interoperability issues of standardising drives for so many things) its pointless. I'm sticking to Windows for my video editing and music mixing. Linux for everything else though...
If you can't wait: 64 Studio (Score:3)
I've been trying out 64Studio [64studio.com] v1.0 over the last couple of months. Debian-based, with a core set of audio apps that fit on a single CD, and JACK to glue them all together. Ardour and Rosegarden work well, and it wasn't hard to get my USB audio & MIDI gear working with standard modules. Includes some decent graphics / video programs too, Blender3D, CinePaint & more. If I have one wish, though, it's for more synthesisers in the base package, and even a general-purpose sampler. (QSampler only supports GigaSampler files so far, not building your own sample sets, as supplied.)
Go back to sleep (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wake me up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone can plan a well-polished gnome based distro, but Ubuntu are one of few who've delivered.
I'd give alot more credence to a well funded organisation with a proven track record than the announcement of YALM project.
If they're announcing, they're probably confident about delivering.
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Prior Art (Score:4, Interesting)
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Serious.
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And yet, we work with >2GB video files without problems. If you have a 56GB bmp image or something like that, there's nothing wrong with being able to edit that taking whatever is in your viewport into memory. I'm not saying it'd be easy, pretty or even useful, but it's certainly possible. But if that's the best FUD they can come up with, GIMP has come a long way in any case...
Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:4, Insightful)
Your advertisement for Photoshop belongs elsewhere.
If this is your only specific complaint, I can quite easily dismiss you by saying that a great many paid professionals don't want or need to handle "56 GB" images.
What theoretical "guys" use is irrelevent.
Everything is still in development, so that list will change. Besides, you aren't even constructively criticising, you're just bitching and whining that proprietary apps are (magically?) better.
You are, and it still is.
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Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:5, Informative)
3D Studio Max, XSI, Maya, Zbrush, Avid, Fusion, Nuke, Combustion and Photoshop.
Only one platform runs all of those: Windows.
None of those programs are included in this "multimedia pack for professionals". So uhh yeah, my complaint is with the parent... this isn't a professional package at all.
If you use Photoshop day in and day out you would know that Gimp isn't acceptable. And it's not because it doesn't load obscenely large files it's because it's a sub-par application.
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Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:5, Informative)
3D Studio Max, XSI, Maya, Zbrush, Avid, Fusion, Nuke, Combustion and Photoshop.
Only one platform runs all of those: Windows.
None of those programs are included in this "multimedia pack for professionals". So uhh yeah, my complaint is with the parent... this isn't a professional package at all."
You clearly haven't tried the latest version of Blender
Of course Blender isn't suited for all 3D animation tasks currently - I'd recommend against it for photoreal rendering involving animation of people; and against if for special effects work involving smoke and flame (ie volumetric rendering) and certain complex particle effects.
However that is a subset of all animation work - and those can and ofter are handled with specially dedicated software.
Just because a set of software that meets your professional needs isn't provided, doesn't mean that the professional requirements of others aren't being met.
LetterRip
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this isn't a professional package at all.
If you're saying that because professionals don't use it, I'm wondering what kind of logic you are using because it doesn't exist yet.
Secondly, if you are reasoning "I'm a professional, and I don't use this software, therefore if someone uses this software, they aren't a professional," then I would also be rather skeptical of that line of thinking. Being a professional usually has to do with whether or not you are generating income, and I doubt that no one has e
Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:5, Interesting)
I've tried Gimp. I worked at a start up studio and for a while they were still even in the buying phase and hadn't picked up a copy of Photoshop yet for the modelers. So we all used Gimp. It was obnoxious. I don't hold any sort of dogmatic appreciation for one piece of software over another. I am constantly changing software and hold no allegiance to manufacturer, distribution model or OS. I use Shake on Linux and Mac (the linux version is much much faster, or at least it was before 4.1 and Intel processors, I havne't used that release yet.). I use any tool I can find that does cool stuff and helps me work faster. If Photoshop became "Gibbed" and was released as open source, and Gimp got renamed as "Photoshop" I would migrate to Gibbed. If something really cool was as good or better than photoshop and was Open Source or even just free I would grab it immediately. I just learned Zbrush after several years and now Mudbox is out. After playing with it I want to add it to my toolset as well.
When it comes to editors: There is Avid, Smoke, Premiere/FCP (practically the same application) and Vegas. Vegas is annoying as hell to edit with on anything longer than 10 minutes so that leaves two options. The current offerings in the Open Source market are useless. Although Smoke does run on Linux, so that would be my preferred "Linux Video Editor". Avid/Premiere/FCP is just a matter of preference and platform choice.
So while I don't say what I use are the only options (far from it, and even then I didn't even list all the stuff I use. I'm using premiere right now at work while editing a reel. I've used FCP on projects in the past. I've sat at a smoke station briefly.) I do know what my options are because I've tried just about all of them. I've talked to people who have also tried them. I research products. I read reviews. And this package is not all that useful for a working professional right now in the visual fields. And not just because of small things like when a Nuke compositor is annoyed with Fusion. These are big huge deal breaker problems in just about every single selection.
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Here is one: Color management. Its a HUGE missing feature from GIMP (and Linux display systems). I'm not saying Windows color management is good (like in multi monitor support on one graphics card....), but it at least works. So no, for many professional users
Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Yep, bloatware, and a mediocre one (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem I've had with just about every single large Open Source project is it requires me to contribute. I don't want to contribute to it, I want to use it. If I had time to contribute I would be a software developer not an artist. This is why projects like Apache do very well in an Open Source environment. People who use it, contribute to it and make it better, because using it is improving it.
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That state of the issues is very sad. You might think it is a problem of the open source communi
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Re:Pronunciation? (Score:4, Informative)
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Some of the meta packages get an ISO made for people to install directly to that branch, but not all do. Ichthux is a community branch and they produce th
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Ardour [ardour.org], Jack [jackaudio.org] and Sweep [metadecks.org] are not "professional level"? Pixar use and sponsor development of sweep, Ardour is supported by SSL and Harrison. When I was at college, professional level for video editing was a pair of hi-band decks. We trained on VHS with a crappy Panasonic vision mixer and I shot and edited a short on Super8 cine. Tools don't make someone a professional and "professional level" work has been don
Re:Would be great... (Score:4, Informative)
For those unfamiliar with the history of Cinelerra, the developer(s) are anonymous so as not to jeopardize their current employment status; apparently the author(s) believe there might be a conflict of interest with regard to their day job(s). Regardless, Cinelerra is an excellent product though it is probably overkill for most home users. The learning curve is relatively steep as well. There is a slightly dated (circa 2003) yet interesting article which has an interview with "Jack Crossfire" (pseudonym for the developer(s)) that covers some of the directions the software is taking which can be found here. [linuxdevcenter.com]
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Unless... (Score:4, Interesting)
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