New Red Hat Multimedia Oriented Distribution 209
ezadro writes "I just spotted this article at LinuxToday about Redhat being directly involved in a new distribution that will be known as ReHMuDi, which stands for Red Hat Multimedia Distribution." The goal seems to be
a system for professional audio composers and engineers. Don't expect it
for awhile- they have 24 months scheduled to do it, although it looks like
releases will start by the end of 02.
Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Too much
Redhat has the chance to make massive profits too (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Redhat could easily make money from this because music unlike art, everyone can appreciate.
An Open source music portal site could be created after enough musicians are using the open source software. It could really grow into a real community.
RedHat Multimedia distro (Score:2, Interesting)
Digital Audio Workstations (Score:5, Interesting)
Soundtracks, film scoring, and even some album production is being done increasingly on DAWs, pronounced just like it's spelled. A typical configuration is a tricked-out PowerMac (Sun Ultras used to be the platform of choice) with maximum RAM and a fast RAID array (i.e RAID 0 -- don't laugh, I'm not kidding. RAID 0 is used to lower latency on the drives) and a MIDI adapter, for both driving sound modules and inputting music on a master keyboard. Add a copy of ProTools, some Mark of the Unicorn software, a DAT drive, a CD-burner, a mixer, some rack effects, and maybe a high-end audio PCI card for when you hit the limits of the Mac's decent but not that great on-board audio. This is not a sub-$1000 iMac rig were talking about here. If you want a good DAW, you go to the bank in your best suit and tie and apply for a loan.
Of course this makes no sense to an amatuer composer/musician. You might ask what's wrong with a stock PC with a good sound card, a quality microphone, UltraATA disks, a MOD Tracker with WAV/MP3 export, any old MIDI synth with velocity-sensitive keys, and CD-RW/DAT drive? Nothing really, if you want you music to sound like it was created on a computer. But that's not what a real DAW is for.
A DAW has to be _FAST_. The software used (like ProTools) is used to edit and master a gigantic audio file of CD-quality sound. Document sizes are often routinely in the gigabyte range, unless you're just editing small leadins for TV or commercials. You can use MIDI and samples to provide voices in the soundtrack, but the goal of a DAW is to have total control over the audio in the file, just like you have over a photo in Photoshop. It should be just as easy to work with a "real" audio recording (like a studio session recorded with a real orchestra) as it is to use sythentic music (samples from a microphone or synth, MIDI sequences, etc) and tweak the finished product to sound completely natural, as if real musicians had played it that way start to finish in the first place.
So any latency you have in the DAW can put skips or glitches in your recorded input. You need a workstation with enough RAM to avoid paging, fast disks that don't cause the CPU to have to wait (DMA/SCSI), and good all around performance to prevent bottlenecks: fast OS, fast graphics, fast CPU, fast audio chipset, etc.
Linux is perfect for this, because comparatively MacOS 9, MacOS X, and all versions of Windows except CE are complete pigs. Linux just lags in solid support for audio input, mixing, MIDI, and audio applications, etc. the way Macs and PCs do.
This distro isn't something you sell to end users (though they may) but to OEMs and VARs who want to sell Linux-based DAWs but want a vendor for the operating system beside Apple, Microsoft, or Sun. Other people have mentioned how poor musicians and DJs are. If you could make and market a Linux-based DAW out of PC parts with comparable performance to a ProTools rig and a substantially lower price, you could make a place for yourself in the market and do pretty well. Anything in the music equipment world that is both "really good" and "pretty cheap" and word gets out. Selling distro CDs just raises money and hopefully creates good PR for the concept of Linux as a good enough OS for a DAW.
we need a standard audio API (Score:5, Interesting)
What I would like to see is a implementation of ASIO and VST to linux. That yould help alot since the protocol is already tune for audio. And porting any original program like cubase or reaktor would be alot more easier. Same thing for VST which is already a standard plugin interface, and the IRIX part is already done...
Re:Digital Audio Workstations (Score:1, Interesting)
IF ( a big IF) redhat can offer a good set of support programs that give some people some STABILITY and PREDICTABILITY with this OS THEN I KNOW BOATLOADS OF PEOPLE WHO WILL MOVE OFF WINDOWS AND ONTO LINUX. BUt this it is going to take someboady like Bob Latini to port SAW studio to linux. BUT I SWEAR, if you had one good app (samplitude, SAW studio, Cubase, maybe sonic foundry would make a multi-tracker for linux) ported that operated well with a RME adat lightpipe card, then i know tons of people who would buy. If redhat provided a PAINLESS way of upgrading these machines and improving their performance, AGAIN, BOATLOADS OF POEPLE WOULD MOVE FROM WINDOWS TO LINUX.
I really really think this is an important market even though it is small, there already many people using linux for special effects/rendering, there isn't any reason why a decent multi-track DAW should be developed for Linux. STeinberg or IQS , some software provider got to realize that there a nice little market for it !! hmmmmm...... very interesting
Benjamin Duke
Re:why must Linux be all things to all people? (Score:3, Interesting)
2. ok, so it may be a nice server OS, but it will never get on the desktop
3. ok, it may be a desktop OS, but it will never ever enter the professional graphics and 3D animation market
4. ok, it may be used by many of the major animation houses, but it will never be a professional audio platform
see a pattern developing? This whole "there is no software" argument is great, but here's a little secret (I feel confident saying this, as I am a developer) - people actually write software! Software that does not currently exist, can come into being through the efforts of mere mortals. Of course a relatively large software company getting into the market has absolutely nothing to do with this...