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Music Media Software Linux

Dave Phillips' Linux Sound Updated 118

Posted by timothy from the not-just-line-noise-anymore dept.
f-matic writes "Dave Phillips' Linux Sound website has been updated (for the first time in a while) with lots of new software links and news from the recent BYOL conference, plus links to some interesting Linux multimedia articles. Seems like things are getting pretty interesting in the linux audio world, with a Supercollider port in the works, not to mention February's Linux article in the prestigious Sound on Sound magazine."
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Dave Phillips' Linux Sound Updated More

Dave Phillips' Linux Sound Updated

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  • Linux sound (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24, 2003 @01:51PM (#6778287)
    I use linux as an audio recorder myself. I just use OSS/Free with my CMI8738 sound card to get great quality audio and pipe it directly into oggenc or flac. It works wonderfully, and doesn't crash. The best part with doing it with Linux - it runs only what I want it to. There's no windows interface that may crash if pushing it too hard.

    • The best part with doing it with Linux - it runs only what I want it to. There's no windows interface that may crash if pushing it too hard.

      The fun part is that with a GUI it's really hard to push a program hard.

  • The most recent version of PLANET CCRMA and AGNULA project, DeMuDi & RehMuDI, will be presented during the BYOL.

    Anyone knows when those two will be out??
    • heh, my first reduntant:)

      For a completely valid question:)

      http://www.agnula.org//project/dynamic_schedule
      Rehmudi (Agnula) seems to be a day or two late, or is it more than half year). I guess dynamic_schedule just isn't so dynamic

  • Hardware is still tough... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:02PM (#6778340) Journal
    Here is a copy of an email I sent to Aardvark:

    I am the proud owner of an Aardvark Q10. I have been very happy with it so far, and it is far more versatile than my freinds ProTools Digis and Mboxes. (Which I remind them of often :)

    I have a few questions and concerns, however.

    I realize that you are working on the OS 9 drivers with OS X to follow and must be rather busy with that. Now that OS X has matured and the G5s are out, I have considered investing in a new Mac for my Q10. Is there any sort of timeframe for OS X drivers?

    Connected with this: When the OS X drivers are released, are there plans for Linux drivers? Support of Linux would drive hardware sales as there are many Linux users out there who would love to use Aardvark. (Linux users love your specs :)

    Finally, I am a avid BeOS user. Be Inc. is no more, however OpenBeOS and YellowTab Zeta are bringing it back. OpenBeOS is an open source implementation of BeOS that is binary compatable, and Zeta is, for all intents and purposes, BeOS 6 (licensed from Palm). Development of BeOS software is on the rise, and there are several new Audio programs being worked on currently, as well as new drivers being released everyday. See www.bebits.com for details.

    In doing some research before purchasing my Q10, I read that Aardvark was working on BeOS drivers, which influenced my purchase of your hardware to some degree.

    On your (old) site: http://www.aardvark-pro.com/aark24_faq.html#17

    Quotes from head honchos: http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/WNAMM99/Aardv ark/BeOS-Support.html

    My questions: Are there beta/unfinished/finished BeOS drivers for Aardvark hardware? If so, can the drivers/source code/documentation be released or purchased?

    I understand that you may have little interest in 'niche' or 'dead' OS support, but a release of drivers or specs would only drive adoption of your hardware. You could even release them as "unsupported", or as binaries (if opening the source is out of the question).

    Be Inc. may be gone, but BeOS is being replaced as we speak. I have followed and used BeOS since 1999, and am seeing interest in it swell more and more. If Aardvark released drivers or source code, you would make many friends rather quickly and raise more than a few eyebrows (in a good way :). More people are trying BeOS every day, and would like to use it for the same reasons Aardvark had when announcing support.

    I debated for quite a while whether or not to email and make these requests. I understand if releasing source code sounds impossible or ridiculous.

    With Windows becoming more and more of a DRM crippled, embedded "Media" OS, I, as well as many others are looking for a new way to make and record our music. Personally, I think that BeOS making quite a comeback. I urge you to look into it, and the possibility of supporting or helping out the burgeoning community, which in turn will help you with sales of your hardware.

    The Response:

    Thanks for the email. Right now we're trying to finish up the Mac OSX drivers, which hopefully will be out in a few months. Beware though, Apple changed a lot of things on the G5 so all software and hardware will need some changes. For instance, they changed the PCI bus voltage so normal PCI cards won't work in the G5, they have to be redesigned. So for OSX I'm pretty confident it will be out and work flawlessly, however I can't say for the G5 yet until we get one in here. FYI - many hardware company's have the same issue.

    There are still no plans for Linux of BeOS drivers. They're both great operating systems and we wish more end users would use them, but the cry is for Windows and Mac only, so we have to do those first.

    Aardvark
    www.aardvarkaudio.com

    I would love to see linux and BeOS drivers for this hardware (obviously), and if you are the owner of Aardvark's hardware and reading this, you probably do too.

    Please let them know that you would like to see drivers for linux/BSD/BeOS...

    I know there is other hardware out there that supports linux (and BeOS), but the Q10 is really, really good. I want my cake, and eat it too :)

    • PCI-X voltage? (Score:4, Informative)

      by krilli ( 303497 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @05:03PM (#6779212) Journal
      "Apple changed a lot of things on the G5 so all software and hardware will need some changes. For instance, they changed the PCI bus voltage so normal PCI cards won't work in the G5, they have to be redesigned."

      This puzzled me. I went and searched around.

      from http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pcix_20/pci_x :
      "[...] if conventional PCI devices are installed in a bus capable of PCI-X operation, the clock remains at a frequency acceptable to the conventional device, and other devices on that bus are restricted to using conventional protocol."

      from http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs :
      "Q: All of the recent technology releases from the PCI-SIG are built to 3.3V. What is happening with 5.0V?

      A: The PCI-SIG believes that migrating to 3.3V signaling is keeping pace with the industry's migration to 3.3 volt technologies and the need for higher performance within the system. Both high-end and mobile environments currently implement 3.3V signaling (no 5.0V) and this trend will soon migrate to the workstation and desktop level (3.3V signaling will replace 5.0V signaling when the newer technologies can no longer support 5.0V signaling)."

      So. What's the damn use of having a PCI-X bus backwards compatible in therms of clock frequency if it's volt incompatible?

      • Re:PCI-X voltage? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @06:26PM (#6779627) Journal
        So. What's the damn use of having a PCI-X bus backwards compatible in therms of clock frequency if it's volt incompatible?

        Probably due to the fact that it's pretty easy to change voltage, but a pain in the ass to generate a host-synchronized, extremely precise different clock signal. So it's easy to wrap an existing 5V system in a 3.3V card. It's a wee bit more difficult to take existing circuitry and redesign it to work at a different clock rate.

        It doesn't affect users directly, just engineering firms.
    • LOL! "Can you please write drivers for every obscure OS with What's the matter, AmigaOS not good enough for you?

  • argh (Score:4, Funny)

    by stardome ( 692971 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:07PM (#6778358)
    i'm deaf, you insensitive clod!

  • [Neo] Whoa! [/Neo] (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:09PM (#6778368) Homepage Journal
    I am impressed by the sheer numbers of Linux apps for audio now available. I suppose the question now remains: how mature are they? Can you rely on them like you can rely on non-Free stuff like Sound Forge and ACID and so on? When this question can be answered in the affirmative, it will be the day I can "deassimilate" my next-to-last Windows PC from the Redmond Collective.

    • Re:[Neo] Whoa! [/Neo] (Score:2, Insightful)

      by L-ViS ( 5612 )
      Very good point. I run a semi-professional studio with a couple of friends - built around a PC running Windows 2000 and a HoonTech DSP24 soundcard along with Emagic Logic Audio. I would love to replace Windows with Linux and Logic with an open alternative (especially as Apple won't be supporting Logic for the PC from now on), but the alternatives are at best like an early beta Windows alternative.

      This is not meant as being offensive towards free software developers, but there no open project that can repla

    • Re:[Neo] Whoa! [/Neo] (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I work in a profession studio environment and we've made a pretty complete transition from proprietary software tool, will never go back.

      I like Sweep better than SoundForge: fast, light, looks great, has some extras, _free_. Then there's Ardour, set to release 1.0 in a matter of weeks, fast, stable Pro-tools/Nuendo rplacement, _free_.

      And if you haven't seen it yet, there's also the JACK audio server, perhaps the best thing that has happened to real-time audio ever, allows you to connect I/O to/from any a

      • Re:[Neo] Whoa! [/Neo] (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Amizell ( 565760 )
        24 bit audio file support? Standardized plugins? User interface that won't scare studio clients used to seeing Cubase and Pro Tools? Workable MIDI editing? High resolution file compatibility? Session import so I don't lose access to everything I've ever recorded?

        • Ardour has 24-bit audio support (assuming that you can capture it) and uses standard LADSPA plugins. Basically every single Free Software audio application uses LADSPA. Midi editing is a bit weak in Ardour (well, it doesn't exist but it is possible for it to generate MTC or bind controls to MIDI control surfaces, which makes editing much nicer), but the unreleased version of Rosegarden in CVS is a huge improvement over the current release. If libsndfile supports a file format, most applications can use it (

    • Here are some of my experiences with Linux sound apps. Remember, I'm just a dabbler =) My general advice is that it's good enough to poke around and experiment with, and probably even good enough for serious work, but there are still rough edges and bugs and general unpleasantry. Save early, save often! People with adventurous minds may find the applications quite interesting; People who need rock-stable solutions they can trust their life on now will be disappointed. Unless it's typesetting.

      Typesetting m

  • We're almost there... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by soupforare ( 542403 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:17PM (#6778420)
    I mostly use Cubase and FLStudio under Win2k/sp2 and am quite pleased with the set up. Low latency drivers, no random crashes or unexpected headaches.
    I use debian for servers at work and at home
    My continued use of Microsoft products, at home, once win2k is left by the wayside is unlikely.
    Hopefully, by then, linux will have more support for custom music hardware and a port of Cubase.
    I want to get my linux boxen out of the closet and into the studio!

    • Re:We're almost there... (Score:5, Informative)

      by iread ( 697421 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @03:24PM (#6778756) Homepage
      I use nearly that exact setup for my commercial work now, but for experimental music, I've used Planet CCRMA to move my setup to linux. Ardour is shaping up nicely and compares favorably to the wave editing capabilities of Cubase (minus a few features which I'm sure will be added as development continues), and jack is like having low latency ASIO and rewire wrapped into one (with a sophisticated and well implemented patchbay functionality). Give hydrogen LADSPA effects on individual channels and it will be like fruity a few versions back. The progression of linux audio software is fantastic and it's really hitting the threshold of accessibility to industry professionals with all the turnkey systems available.

      It takes some work to get everything functioning properly, but the time you are investing in free software ultimately means that you are supporting software that everyone can enjoy and learn from. NOW is the time to get on board with linux audio software. . .already there is enough to keep an experimental and technically minded person busy for hours, but it won't be long until UI refinements make it friendly and practical for everyone - but only with the help of artists who get involved and express their needs to developers.

      -e

    • I use Slackware for servers at work and for play at home. I can have great fun doing low level sound design with PD on Linux, fool around with the excellent modular softsynth SpiralSynthModular, edit the recorded output of PD and SSM in Sweep (or Audacity, if that's your thing - I prefer Sweep), but I've yet to find an app that makes creating music as uncomplicated and enjoyable as FLStudio.

      So unfortunately I still spend *way* to much time in Windows :(
      • It's true fruity is a simply amazing program, but to reference the original poster, there is *no* way I will move to XP for audio stuff and eventually, someday, 2000 will not be supported by fruity. so now I'm putting in time with linux because it's something I believe in... and hydrogen is much like the very early fruity, have some fun and jackrack it- record the wavs into ardour and go. what's been really interesting me now is the ecasound perl module... yummy audio processing scripting. PD is great and d
        • I'm with you on 2k.. and the 'insta-easy-l33tb33t-ocity'(?) of FL now.
          Under the hood though, it's still a horribly advanced prog. A testament to Delphi's greatness ;)

          *Anyway,* I mostly play windsynth, so my main gear is outboard MIDI stuff, too. I've been fooling around with Renoise a bit because I want to get back into trackers
          I know, I know, trackers are the pits sometimes, but with a windsynth, I'm chucking a whole hell of a lot of CCs at my sequencer.
          Cubase's midi is great, but it's a little bloat
          • I bought one of the fry's thizlinux $200 specials and am beating away with it. I got jack working on it even, but I know I need to tune it more. CCRMA works great. I love trackers, too, buzz has been a source of great joy for me.

            I like fruity's piano roll better than cubase's, but I have sent large amounts of CC any further than my own computer.

            No disrespect to fruity, it's amazing and _very_ versitle for experimental work, especially with all the great/unique/weird vsts and vsti's. for me it's just t

  • Sound Mixing.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LamerX ( 164968 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:18PM (#6778421) Journal
    Yes, but when will my computer be able to mix sounds on the fly? I like to hear XMMS playing and have it not tie up the sound card for Xine, or even have it not tie it up for the system beep in KDE. I know that ARTS mixes sounds, but it's too delayed (the sounds play after a 2-3 second delay. Mabye it's just my sound card?

    • Re:Sound Mixing.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vann_v2 ( 213760 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:23PM (#6778451) Homepage
      Many ALSA drivers supports this in hardware if the sound card actually supports it. My emu10k1 card, for example, can play multiple sounds at the same time without using esd or arts. If your sounds card doesn't support this in hardware then you do need to use arts or esd, which cause a lot of headaches for people trying to configure them. I'm not sure about your problem specifically, but it isn't an issue with Linux in general.
      • Ideally, ALSA would support mixing regardless of whether the hardware did it (that is, if the hardware or driver doesn't support it, it would be done in software). Probably the right way to handle it would be for ALSA to do it in userspace if the hardware doesn't support it.

        Having only some machines need an external mixer (with a different API) is just a bad idea.
        • In fact it does support this, look into the dmix plugin which mixes direct into the DMA buffers, with no sound servers necessary. It's still quite new though. I guess it's up to the distro to set it up correctly.
          • Mike, this looks very interesting indeed. If this is what I think it is, and it gets the support it needs, it will finally fix a longstanding and huge hole in Linux desktop usability.

            Just so that I'm sure (I've skimmed a few Google searchs, and am still not sure), is this a fallback-capable system, or just a mixer with an ALSA interface? Does it use hardware channels as available until out of them and *then* do software mixing, or is it just another software mixer?
    • Mabye it's just my sound card?

      Yes.

    • Re:Sound Mixing.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by theno23 ( 27900 )
      For "professional" applications there is JACK (http://jackit.sf.net/) that allows applications to route audio between each other and the soundcard. The majority of the good apps for linux audio support this.

      It requires apps to run thier audio thread with SCHED_FIFO scheduling though, so its not really ideal for simple mp3 players.

    • Re:Sound Mixing.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:56PM (#6778594) Homepage Journal
      When you buy a card with a hardware mixer...

      The Alsa Soundcard Matrix lists all of the cards that support hardware mixing. And card indicated with a (4) next to it should support hardware mixing.

      http://alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/

      An alternate approach is to buy (yes, I said buy) some drivers from 4-Front at http://www.opensound.com. They have a real-time software mixer that works with ALL chipsets. Latency is nonexistent, as far as I can tell. I use it with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card (I have the PRO upgrade with advanced recording) and it works great. However, when kernel 2.6 becomes mainstream, I may switch. The ALSA drivers have hardware mixing for the Santa Cruz cards, while the OSS drivers do not.

      A final alternative is to buy a Soundblaster Live or Yamaha YMFPCI card. They have great support and mixing, regardless of the driver set. Even the simple kernel OSS drivers can handle it with those cards.
      • An alternate approach is to buy (yes, I said buy) some drivers from 4-Front at http://www.opensound.com. They have a real-time software mixer that works with ALL chipsets. Latency is nonexistent, as far as I can tell.
        So does ALSA. Check out the "dmix" plugin. It requires a fairly beefy CPU though (P150 or better).

  • amazingly article (Score:5, Informative)

    by killthiskid ( 197397 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:18PM (#6778427) Homepage Journal

    I really like the fact that 3 paragraphs into the article there is a huge biline on how and why linux is good. It also explains the GPL, BSD, and it all seems accurate! I don't know who 'Daniel James' is (the author of the article), but it is obvious that he has done research... stuff like:

    Of course, there is nothing to stop programs from the proprietary tradition being made available for Linux. As long as those programs don't make secret changes to Linux itself, then they are perfectly acceptable to most users and developers. The message that anyone porting their program to Linux will be forced to make it Free Software has been put about by the likes of Microsoft -- but this is clearly not the case. As one spokesperson for the company put it, IBM has a lot of intellectual property and a lot of lawyers, and they aren't worried about the possibility.

    ... now this is a good way to present open source software... and an accurate one, and he even throws in a little jab at Microsoft, allbeit a level headed one...

    Another factor often cited by people who have migrated to Linux is the supportive and knowledgeable user community. If you have a problem with your Linux machine, there are lots of places to ask for help -- both with local user groups and on the Internet. Linux users tend to be self-documenting: when they find the solution to a problem, they will often create a web page describing the fix to share their knowledge.

    Yeah, or the community might tell you to RTFM... =)

    A greater problem could be back-catalogue work stored in proprietary formats. Most of the audio formats from Windows, Mac and UNIX are supported by the equivalent Linux programs, but complex projects combining multitrack audio and MIDI could be a problem. If the original software vendor supported open standards, it wouldn't be difficult to create a tool to transfer the project from one platform to another. Where that file format is binary and a trade secret, however, the user may have no choice but to fall back to standard file types for exporting projects, and some of the information might be lost.

    This sounds familar... and I find it humorous that we just had a article about Gnumeric where leagues of people bitch about putting all that effort into supporting all of excel's formulas... this is way. Backward compatibility... if we are to generate the software of the future, it must work with the software of the past.

    Thanks, Daniel, for a very insightful, level headed look at linux sound.

    • The self-documenting aspect of the community actually makes "RTFM" useful, because there is documentation written by people who have had your problem for the community to point you at. It's more helpful than people trying to write a new explanation of the solution every time someone has a question. Asking your question and getting told "RTFM" is sometimes more effective than trying to determine for yourself whether TFM will answer your question, or even finding the applicable documentation.

      It also starts t
      • "RTFM" useful, because there is documentation written by people who have had your problem for the community to point you at.

        RTFM assumes that you've already run into a problem.

        In Windows installing new software means just a few clicks in the install shield. No RTFM. That's good software packaging. RTFM should be completely unnecessary.

        • I don't think RTFM is unique to the process of installing software... many times user ask very basic questions that are easily answered by simple exploration of the software or even a cursory glance in the manual.

          I'm fairly certain this doesn't have anything to do with 'install shield' or 'good software packaging'... I'm pretty sure this has to do with more complicated issues.

          An example: a user in word wondering how to 'bold' text. The option is available in the toolbar and under formatting. IF you u

        • With a reasonable installer, installing new Linux software is a matter of determining the name of a piece of software you want. "apt-get install " should suffice, and shouldn't need anything other than your root password to complete. Good software packaging isn't exclusive to Windows, these days.

          TFM generally doesn't have any information on installing stuff, although there's generally a lot on getting things configured the way you want, which is the stuff that the InstallShield wizard wouldn't support.

    • I really like the fact that 3 paragraphs into the article there is a huge biline[sic] on how and why linux is good. It also explains the GPL, BSD, and it all seems accurate! I don't know who 'Daniel James' is (the author of the article), but it is obvious that he has done research...

      I had some problems with that section of the article. In general, I found the section could have been significantly shorter and less confusing had it referenced clearly written essays distributed by the GNU project.

      • T

  • Other multimedia players (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vann_v2 ( 213760 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:28PM (#6778473) Homepage
    He doesn't mention other, very nice multimedia players like Rhythmbox [rhythmbox.org], JuK [slackorama.net], or Zinf [zinf.org]. For anyone like me who became frustrated with XMMS' slow development and lack of features these are the things you should check out.
  • Observe this quote from the article in the 'prestigious' Sound On Sound magazine:
    The AGNULA project, the name of which is an acronym for A GNU/Linux Audio Distribution, has been created to design and build
    aversion of Linux specifically for professional musicians and recording engineers. (emphasis mine)
    Clearly, we are being threatened yet again by the BSA/SCO/CompTIA FUD-brigade.

  • linux quality (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:33PM (#6778488)
    Well, i'm sorry but i found sound drivers is the one thing that can't be matched in linux.

    Sure older cards such as the Creative AWE32 can be easily matched, but newer cards are much more complex.

    My Live 5.1 has about 50 mixer controls with alsa drivers (most of them dont do anything), so it can be very inconvenient at times. The routing to the ac97/i2s output is very messy in linux. In windows i can easily select 'microphone' as recording input, and it will route it to ac97 and mute i2s. In linux i must set it as recording device, set the microphone volume to 0 (to mute i2s) and then raise the 'igain' volume, if that isn't logical i don't know what is. Sometimes the best drivers are the ones created by the manufacturer, unfortunately Creative's work on their drivers [sourceforge.net] have been limited (and only for OSS).

    Also such 'extra' features like EAX is not to be even talked about.

    I'm not sure of experiences with other modern sound cards, but mine with the live 5.1 is poor.

    • Re:linux quality (Score:3, Informative)

      by 13Echo ( 209846 )
      Then buy another card or get different drivers. A lot of those "features" that you get in Windows are useless Creative Labs software effects and things.

      Plus, ALSA is a bit immature right now, but development is moving fast. You claim that the routing in ac97/i2s is messy in Linux, but I've got totally different experiences. Maybe its just that I've got a different card and driver set than you do (not to mention that I use the OSS API instead).

      http://zborgerd.freeshell.org/mixer.png

      As for EAX, such thi

      • Re:linux quality (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Coneasfast ( 690509 )
        Then buy another card or get different drivers. A lot of those "features" that you get in Windows are useless Creative Labs software effects and things.

        you are kidding right? im not going to buy another card just so it works with linux..

        this is quite wrong, just because these features are useless to you, doesnt mean it is to everyone...

        but I've got totally different experiences

        probably card dependant, and yes OSS mixer is cleaner..

        As for EAX, such things exist in Linux. They just aren't used becaus
        • I purchased my 4-Front OSS driver set because I use only Linux, and I'm serious about getting the most out of my card. I see that you'd feel differently about some things, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want.

          If Creative was more interested in developing more feature-rich drivers for their cards in Linux (they've stopped assisting with OSS driver development some time agao), then we'd probably not be having this conversation. EAX isn't exactly the best documented API, from a non
          • I'm just not certain how one would benefit by "ruining" MP3s with some form of EAX effects. Just what do you use it for? EAX is most useful (in my opinion) for gaming.

            i just like messing around with it, for fun, it doesn't ruin it, it just gives the sound an effect which i occasionally like, also sometimes i like using effects like this for watching movies to give it a 'theater-like' sound...

            but yes it is very useful for gaming, but i dont think EAX will come to linux though, it will just be openAL....
            • Such sound distortions are not desired by the audiophile or professional community. Additionally, there are plugins for XMMS that can do anything you can do with Creative's drivers, like chorus, reverb (see Freeverb), echo, etc.

              Gaming doesn't require hardware 3D; I can usually tell when, for example, someone's behind and to the right of me in Counterstrike with software.

              • Such sound distortions are not desired by the audiophile or professional community. Additionally, there are plugins for XMMS that can do anything you can do with Creative's drivers, like chorus, reverb (see Freeverb), echo, etc.

                fyi, it's not called distortions, it's called DSP... big difference :)

                and yes, like i said not everyone wants it or cares about it.... that doesn't change the fact that it is a feature that is not supported by the linux drivers, this alone isn't a reason to not implement it .. tha

        • this is quite wrong, just because these features are useless to you, doesnt mean it is to everyone...

          You seem to be misinterpreting what he meant, as you left out the word software.

          Lots of stuff on newer Creative sound cards is done in software and has little to do with the actual sound card. Take for instance my SB PCI something. It claims to have have wave table synthesis, but that in fact is a lie. It effectively has a second dsp and a big chunk of memory. In windows it runs a process that loads s

          • You seem to be misinterpreting what he meant, as you left out the word software.

            ahh, you are right, my mistake... i didn't see the word software

            i did have SB PCI, and everything seemed to be software, even the bass/treble controls,

            NOT in Emu10k1 though, everything is done via the ac3 chip... not via software,... he may think this because the dsp effects/tone controls can only be applied to one source, that's because only one analog source can be routed through to the ac3 chip at a time, this is because
      • how did you get multiple sound cards working?
        • My card has dual DSPs. The Crystal CS4630 is actually actually a CS4297A and a secondary AC97 CS4294 chip. This is typical of cards like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Videologic Sonic Fury, and Hercules Gamesurround series.

          However, I believe that the OSS/Commercial drivers can handle multiple cards at the same time.
    • "Sometimes the best drivers are the ones created by the manufacturer, unfortunately Creative's work on their drivers have been limited (and only for OSS)."

      Probably because its proprietry? And as for only with OSS, thats actually not true:

      http://www.alsa-project.org/

      They use Emu10k also, oh and there is no mention of just using OSS, but more on OpenAL.

      Yes it can certainly be improved and the best people to tell is not here, but Creative Labs.

  • Where is good sound support for regular distros? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:40PM (#6778523) Homepage
    I had given up doing much with sound under Linux because everytime I tried something that looked interesting I would have to compile from source and it wouldn't compile because I needed some library or other. Then those libraries couldn't compile until I had installed some other library or created some device or something. It was always a huge hassle to even look at a sound program which was of dubious usefulness to me anyway. Then when I upgraded my system and loaded a newer distribution sound wouldn't work at all. Turned out there was a kernel bug that causes USB devices with sound capabilities to pre-empt the soundcard's DSP devices. I couldn't plug in my webcam (w/mic) because it that makes sound stop working on my SB card. I wonder if that bug has been fixed yet. I don't want to have to load a separate distribution just to play with cool sound apps.

    • Re:Where is good sound support for regular distros (Score:4, Informative)

      by LinuxGeek8 ( 184023 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @04:43PM (#6779081) Homepage
      Try the The Mandrake Audio Workstation HowTo at:
      http://groundstate.ca/mdkaw.html
    • Testify, Brother.

      I spent hours trying to get my FX-3d card (AD1816 chipset) working in Red Hat 9. No joy, regardless of whether I used Red Hat's system (that used to support this card, but no longer) or loaded OSS, or built ALSA from scratch.

      Seems like linux sound is there for those with lots of money or time on their hands, but those of us who scrounge hardware from the recycling bin are out of luck.

      I hope this isn't the future of linux...
    • You know, it probably just gave /dev/dsp0 to the webcam and /dev/dsp1 to the SB. So, change your software to use /dev/dsp1, or set up your audio drivers to load after the USB/webcam drivers, and voila.

      As for dependency handling with source code distribution, you should try Gentoo. The installation is about as hard as installing DOS back in the day (partition, format, install software), but software's a lot easier to install.

      It's definitely worth learning the command line just to be able to type "emerge
      • Yeah that's exactly what happened and I did just make a link to dsp1 instead not really understanding why it happened. But later I moved stuff around on my systems and it stopped working again. It took a while to find out what was going on. It's not a major thing now that I know. I may have to check out Gentoo since so many people speak highly of it.

  • Beware "supported" cards (Score:5, Informative)

    by marvin2k ( 685952 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:46PM (#6778546)
    While a lot of cards are listed as "supported" on the Alsa soundcard matrix that doesn't mean that it is actually fully functional. I bought an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card a while ago and Alsa doesn't seem to support it's midi capabilites and you cannot control the volume in a decent way. There is a tool available with Alsa that looks like the Windows version of the cards control panel but the routing seems to be broken and you can only control the volume for each individual analog channel and not both of them so if you want to turn up the volume you have to do so for the left and right channel individually. Luckily I was able to hack that tool so I can control both channels at the same time but I still cannot control the volume through e.g. mplayer or xmms.

    Sadly I still have to do all my audio work on Windows because of that which is the only reason I still have Windows on my HD at all.

    So if you plan to do audio stuff on Linux be very carefull what card you buy even if the card is known to be "supported".

  • I can't believe there are no karaoke players! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MarcoAtWork ( 28889 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @02:48PM (#6778553)
    Just yesterday I was looking for a karaoke player for linux and there are NONE! there is kmid (which outputs only to external midi devices and hangs all the time) kmidi (which doesn't give you the words until they are due, so what's the point!) and that's about it....

    Tried using vanbasco's windows karaoke player under wine, but no dice either, the program worked but wine didn't seem to want to play nice with midi (arts driver doesn't have it, OSS driver didn't work either)

  • You audio junkies... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GooberToo ( 74388 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:00PM (#6780888)
    ...be sure to test with a 2.6 test kernel to see if things react and work as you would hope and expect! Better to help shake things loose now rather than wait until after 2.6 is finally released.

  • I know a lot of people who own their computers solely to run Fruityloops/Cubase and the ZILLIONS of VST Synths and plugins out there. None of them are going to ditch there Fruityloops in favour of SoundTracker (Yes its got effects, vibrato, um, volume control...) I just killed my Windows for ever but am still hurting a bit from the lack of audio apps on linux. No use complaining, I guess. I have a copy of gcc. Better get crackin'.
  • if we're on the subject of linux and sound, then Ardor, the multi-track hard disk recorder for linux [sourceforge.net] deserves a mention and check out.
  • This is just a ploy to get us to buy more CD-Rs. The key to long CDR life is proper storage and
    handling.

    For instance,
    If you will be storing your CDRs in the hot sun, be sure to apply a layer of SPF 40 sunscreen.
    If you will be using them as frisbees, be careful not to get fingerprints on the unlabeled side.
    similarly, if they will be doubling as coasters, be sure the unlabeled side is down so that the coffee rings only form on the labeled side.
    Sandpaper makes a poor choice of material for st
  • I inherited some assorted gear that my daughter decided she did not want anymore (she got other gear to replace it):

    1. RCA Kazoo mp3 player (usb interface)
    2. Lexmark usb memory card reader.

    I am just delving into trying to connect these things to my linux box, and wonder if there are any drivers out there?

    Where would the best place to look for this, as well as soundcard configuration information beyond the basic howtos?

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