KVR Audio

alxstewart · Post by **alxstewart** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 9:27 am

For those, like myself, who would like to give Linux a try, but are on a too slow dial-up connection, here are a couple of resources I've found.

The Linux Store has a Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Complete 6 DVD set that's relatively inexpensive,

With this package you will never have to wait for downloads again. This package includes all the extra software available from the Ubuntu repositories on easy to use DVDs.

Includes:

* Install/Live DVD (1)
* Main Repository DVD (1)
* Multiverse and Universe Repository DVDs (3)
* Updates DVD (1)

http://www.thelinuxstore.ca/index.php?c ... ts_id=1302

(scroll to the bottom of the page to convrert the price to U.S., Canadian. Euro, or Pounds)

And,,the July issue of "Linux Format" has a DVD with 4 Linux Distos on a two sided DVD;

Issue 94 (July 2007) - The ultimate distro test!
Security, performance, support and package selection compared -- will your favourite flavour come out on top?

Massive 8GB double-sided DVD with distros galore: Ubuntu 7.04, Mandriva 2007 Spring Free, Debian 4.0 and SimplyMepis 6.5

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.ph ... ewArchives

-Alex

pgreenwood · Post by **pgreenwood** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:56 pm

Looperstar wrote:Anybody tried the Musix distro?

I've had it on my laptop for about a week now. I've used Debian for a long time so its nice to have that culture. I could never get a handle on how to manage packages with dyne::bolic even though I sense it may be a more "serious" DAW distribution.

Musix comes with a S#^tload of pre-arranged (and working!) combinations of MIDI and audio tools and apps -- softsynths, sequencers, JACK; office apps; browsers.

My hardware is a Compaq Armada e500 PentiumIII 745/12GB with 5GB currently devoted to the Musix partition. I'll soon be opening that up as it is now 80+% full.

If you try to run audio-intensive apps other than as root you will likely experience problems. I've got to figure out what is the right way to do this so I don't have to disconnect from the net each time.

hseiken · Post by **hseiken** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:20 am

Question for Ubuntu users...

Does anyone else have problems with distortion on their sound card? There seems to be some kind of digital clipping that windows can take advantage of that Ubuntu can't use, thus, it's quite difficult to 'get loud'...I'm not an audio engineer, I just make music, so these issues REALLY ANNOY me.

Another question is...why use JACK when ALSA is just fine? I can't see what having some window with play and stop buttons open all the time achieves when the program I'm running supports ALSA.

Also, if you haven't figured it out, complete linux noob right here. I'm trying to 'get into' linux right now since there seems to be a shifting paradigm in the world of the OS and DAW...a rumor my favorite windows app is making the move has me really excited to dump the corporate shackles...so I need help now so I can fully enjoy the freedom when the rumor comes to reality.

rokkon · Post by **rokkon** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:10 am

hseiken wrote:Question for Ubuntu users...
[...]

Are you talking about Renoise?

I do not understand what you mean with 'taking advantage of digital clipping'.

It sounds to me that you should lower the output level in your ALSA mixer:

It's probably an ALSA configuration thing - I had in the past issues with Ubuntu where I could not set the mixer level to 0dB without getting clipping.
Something with signal amplification had to be off; the genuine 0dB seemed to be somewhere around 3/4rds of the slider.
It got fixed for me in one of the past releases, I forgot which one.

Jack is used for signal routing between apps. It also allows low-latency streaming, something which ALSA alone doesn't seem to deliver.
It might not seem needed when playing around with low cpu utiliasion, but once you start to push your processor, you'll get dropouts galore.

hseiken · Post by **hseiken** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:46 am

I have lowered the output, but the strange thing is that each program has it's own threshold. So 50% volume in, say, VLC will sound fine, but 50% volume in audacity is so distorted, you don't know if you're listening to a cheap clock radio in between stations or actual music.

rokkon · Post by **rokkon** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:23 pm

strange. No idea what to do. Look if you can lower the output level in the application. Also be sure that audacity doesn't record and playback it's output.

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:24 am

I'm definitely gonna have to look into this stuff. I really need to get off the buy-software bandwagon as much as possible.

fake · Post by **fake** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:22 pm

Shane Sanders wrote:I'm definitely gonna have to look into this stuff. I really need to get off the buy-software bandwagon as much as possible.

alxstewart · Post by **alxstewart** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:29 am

hseiken wrote:Question for Ubuntu users...

Does anyone else have problems with distortion on their sound card? There seems to be some kind of digital clipping that windows can take advantage of that Ubuntu can't use, thus, it's quite difficult to 'get loud'...I'm not an audio engineer, I just make music, so these issues REALLY ANNOY me.

You might want to check out this page,,,Don't know if it directly adresses your problem but,,,,

http://alsa.opensrc.org/Via8233#Poor_sound_quality

Also, here's another project I just came across for running VST's on Linux

http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=4

& an article about the project here;

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000192

-Alex

StudioDave · Post by **StudioDave** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:58 pm

alxstewart wrote: & an article about the project here;

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000192

Thanks for referencing my article, which is only one of the dozens of articles on Linux audio that I've written for my Linux Journal blog alone. I've also written many Linux audio-related articles for other magazines, including LinuxPro Magazine, Linux Magazin (German), Linux User/Developer, and the Computer Music Journal. If you're looking for more information about the field you could start by reading some of the articles listed here :

http://www.linuxjournal.com/user/800764/track

I've been using Linux for audio work since 1995. I switched to Linux completely in the late 90s, and I've never regretted it. Btw, a considerable amount of my music (made with Linux audio sofware) is online, I'll be happy to provide links if anyone's interested. Or you can just check some of it out at the Linux Audio Music site :

http://lam.fugal.net

I should point out that although I am a Linux devotee I'm not a zealot, and I believe in the power of heterogeneous environments. I use music apps in Linux that are running in Wine (Windows emulator), DOSemu (MSDOS emulator) and Xsteem (Atari emulator), alongside the usual native Linux audio apps (Ardour2, ReZound, JAMin, Audacity, etc).

Also, I'm happy to answer questions here, but I must add that I'm rather spectacularly busy these days and can answer questions only as I can find the time. Meanwhile, Google and the archives of the Linux Audio mail-lists can be your good friends too. You can learn more about the Linux Audio mail-lists and more at :

http://linuxaudio.org

HTH,

Dave Phillips

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:01 am

StudioDave wrote:
alxstewart wrote: & an article about the project here;

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000192

Thanks for referencing my article, which is only one of the dozens of articles on Linux audio that I've written for my Linux Journal blog alone. I've also written many Linux audio-related articles for other magazines,

snip

'8)' these articles are indeed very well done, and well worth reading!

hseiken · Post by **hseiken** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:58 am

Okay, so I've finally got me a little setup going.

Basically I'm using Aldrin (sorry to those guys that love VSTs and plugins in general, but Aldrin has the mentality of Reason in that linking is the key, not plug ins so that it's stable) coupled with audacity. It's working great for me right now. I'm also exploring gALAN, a strange interpretation of the PD format, but more logical for people wanting to just make music rather than know the innerworkings of EVERYTHING.

If you're going to check out aldrin and are using ubuntu Feisty, follow these steps to get it working (this is a known bug from the developers, btw...accident on their part)

1.) Use synaptic to get python 2.4
2.) use synaptic go get aldrin for feisty.
3.) open terminal and type 'sudo gedit /usr/bin/aldrin (this will open up the startup script)
4.) the first line should be pointed to python2.4, not python.
5.) save and exit.

After this, aldrin will work as long as you close all other programs (including firefox).

After it is open, you can open firefox and other apps that sparsely use audio. I was on the chat with some of the devs and there's an edit you can use to make it share the sound card, but it was over my head so i didn't pay much attention. I imagine in a future version there may be dedicated and shared modes for the sound card usage. Don't quote me on that or take it seriously...it just seemed like they were thinking about it.

Aldrin is a buzz like environment that aims to have a complete set of audio units to do everything you could want without being cumbersome in the sheer number of units. The sound is very good and it's modular routing allows very nice things (because CPU usage is so low). I was able to create a multiband compressor with it's basic units without any 'echoing due to improperly timed and delayed unit issues. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how to go about things.

james0tucson · Post by **james0tucson** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:54 am

pHz wrote:still plugging away at this

not entirely DAW related but - having spent many hours today digging around ubuntu and available linux apps (both audio and not) i have seen no mention of linux antivirus or firewall software

There is antivirus software for Linux, but it's mainly targeted for using Linux as an out-of-system tool for Windows...

Network firewall is built into the networking architecture. Read up on iptables. There's more to security than just firewalls though. There's all kinds of intrusion detection, user- and process-level security extensions, security best practices, support for cryptographic hardware, etc.

Read up on SELinux if you're paranoid. The logging architecture piece of that was contributed by my shop

dover666 · Post by **dover666** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 7:36 am

hmmm... i hope i can get dyne:bolic running on my system.... i'm in the middle of rebuilding my pc, and it looks like windows is dead.... i got featherlinux live cd to run, and it found a jump drive i had plugged in, but i don't think it was finding my harddrives... anyway, i'm hoping dyne:bolic will format my sata and install it self, guts and glory... if thats possible... i'm finding myself in noobworld again, what with building this computer and trying to get an os up on it... i'd like to scream... ut i think i've done that enough the past couple days.... as a last comment, i'd like to point out that feather linux started up instantly, like it was just always meant to be, and of course windows wouldn't boot or work or do squat, just reset and reset....

SE_Newbie · Post by **SE_Newbie** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:18 pm

toddyjoe wrote:I use Puppy Linux for a Linux DAW after I spent some times compiling and creating packages for that distro. Puppy is a very small-sized distro so it worked well for maximizing the amount of resources, memory and CPU available for the music applications as opposed to the operating system. If you check out the Puppy Linux website and forum, you will find about 40 "Dotpup" packages I created for various music applications such as the new Rosegarden, JACK, Ardour, Hydrogen, numerous soft synths, drum machines, samplers and sound/file editors.

did you make a puplet iso?

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