The PyDAW thread!

Audio Plugin Hosts and other audio software applications discussion
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Admittedly, you probably won't find PyDAW too compelling on the audio facilities alone, but if you use a lot of MIDI, that part might be good enough to make up for the primitive nature of the audio sequencing...

But the audio sequencing will be getting better, and if all goes according to plan, quite a bit better at the next major version... If I may show the timeline:

PyDAWv1: Nov2012: MIDI only, there is no audio
PyDAWv2: Feb2013: Now with audio, but it's not that awesome
PyDAWv2: Now: Audio is a lot better, but nowhere near as good as the MIDI
PyDAWv3: ???2013: Next level audio, automation and plugins, evolutionary MIDI improvement

Then I expect PyDAWv4 will probably come early 2014, then perhaps PyDAWv5 around the end of 2014... But somewhere along that time I suspect it will be very mature, and I'll stop releasing major version updates unless there's a very good reason for doing so...

BTW, I just found/fixed a bug when smoothing pitchbend envelopes, it was all screwed up... I'm going to try to finish up a few other things I'm working on and release it all within a few days...

Post

jeffh wrote: I just don't see the same fanfare for Reaper that it had years ago, even on it's own forums...
I have the benefit of learning from the mis-steps of Reaper.
Better to avoid the mis-steps of Cubase, Pro-tools, Ableton, & Cakewalk,
whose expertise enables, neigh/bray, guarantees Reapers success.

Now, developing PyDaw on the merits, enables avoiding manifold pitfalls,
while commercial projects maintain daft legacy workflow, forced
into competition in their shrinking marketplace, which is not the same as
actually improving their product.

Reaper entered the fray with some serious advantages,
like competing against teams routinely blasting holes in their own feet,
and not being owned by a hardware manufacturer.
Cubase 7 installer = 4.9 gig :-o reaper installer is under 7 meg :roll:

Which is better, an army of knuckle-heads each with hundreds of megs
to perfect and maintain, or a small team, dealing with hundeds of K?

Now I'm sure Reaper's miniscule code dwarfs PyDaw, so who will get
the award for most DAW per K? :hyper:

Stay tuned, folks, the Fat Lady hasn't even got her shoes on yet :hihi:

Post

glokraw wrote:Now I'm sure Reaper's miniscule code dwarfs PyDaw, so who will get
the award for most DAW per K? :hyper:
I've got them soundly beaten... :D My source tarball is only 600kb, and that includes real plugins that are actually usable, not perpetually pointless stuff like ReaSynth... and my entire live DVD operating system is still smaller than Cubase...

Seriously though, what's the point of ReaSynth? It's not even remotely usable for anything other than testing if your soundcard works, why bother including it at all? ReaEQ and ReaComp are useful enough, but some of the Reaper "extras" just baffle me...

Post

keep us informed on this - it seems many people are going different ways at once here, wouldnt it be great if we could get them all thinking about a serious linux audio distro that pro's can use. perhaps they could come together and create something that kicks the shit out of whats out there. except studio1 of course, im contractually obliged to say that :D

Post

jeffh wrote: Seriously though, what's the point of ReaSynth? It's not even remotely usable for anything other than testing if your soundcard works, why bother including it at all? ReaEQ and ReaComp are useful enough, but some of the Reaper "extras" just baffle me...
They have to keep the zip file bloated with stuff, magazine reviewers require
6 megabytes minimux DAW size, before considering doing a review.
You may need to include 5.4 meg of Euphoria samples in the source package,
to get some national/international ink

And ReaSynth is very usefull to test wineasio in any linux distro you
are trying for the first time. Not that there are many of us...
Cheers

Post

tweetor_eator wrote:except studio1 of course, im contractually obliged to say that :D
LOL, you've got to admire this guy's honesty :D

...but if you were to use your industry pull to get Studio1 ported to Linux, I wouldn't complain... the more the merrier I say.

Post

jeffh wrote:Admittedly, you probably won't find PyDAW too compelling on the audio facilities alone, but if you use a lot of MIDI...
But the audio sequencing will be getting better...
Basic audio is enough, especially since you do aim to improve it in the future.
jeffh wrote: BTW, I just found/fixed a bug when smoothing pitchbend envelopes, it was all screwed up... I'm going to try to finish up a few other things I'm working on and release it all within a few days...
Please make a post when you do. Does the iso get updated as well?

Post

Dl new version, tested... midi not working here.
It is connected in the alsa tab of qjackctl. I also connected it in midi jack just in case. No dice.

Still, even though I didn't get to actually try it... this region - item - piano roll from hell seems not to fit my style :D

Post

urlwolf wrote:Dl new version, tested... midi not working here.
It is connected in the alsa tab of qjackctl. I also connected it in midi jack just in case. No dice.
If it's showing as connected, then it's just not sending any events... Sorry bro, but I don't think there's much hope for getting your combination of controller/interface working on Linux...
urlwolf wrote:Still, even though I didn't get to actually try it... this region - item - piano roll from hell seems not to fit my style :D
Fair enough, I've said plenty of times that PyDAW's alternative concepts wouldn't please everybody... I do have a solid round of piano roll improvements already committed to Git though :D

Post

xNiMiNx wrote:Please make a post when you do. Does the iso get updated as well?
Will do, I'm thinking it will be tomorrow, I'm trying to add a few more goodies to this release...

...and yes, I always update the .iso on every release... I have it all pretty automated, it takes only about 15 minutes combined to make the source tarball, the 32 and 64 bit .deb packages, and update and respin the live DVD/USB image...

Although if I wasn't rocking an octo-core CPU, that SquashFS file system compression would probably take an hour by itself :lol:

Post

xNiMiNx wrote:Please make a post when you do.
As promised, the new release is up... I fixed that bug, and also some nice new features for the piano roll, and better, more consistent looking sample graphs on the audio items...


The other big announcement is that I'm starting the development of PyDAWv3, which means updates will probably be few-and-far-between for months... PyDAWv2 and PyDAWv3 projects won't be cross-compatible, but you will be able to have both installed at the same time...

It's just a simple matter of "How not to wind up with a big, buggy, bloated application 101". Today PyDAW has some parts that really work, and some parts that don't work... That which doesn't work so well today will be removed, and that which does work is going to be improved and expanded upon... The DAW UI should see some consolidation, and wind up smaller and sleeker than now, and the plugins should see some major improvements and new features all around... Also, audio sequencing and MIDI CC/pitchbend automation should see massive improvements, with more consistent and intuitive UIs...

Post

jeffh wrote:
xNiMiNx wrote:Please make a post when you do.
As promised, the new release is up...
Thank you for the heads up sir, downloading now. Good luck with v3

Post

As a last ditch... my midi controller sends to channel 4 by default. Could this be the reason pydaw doesn't get midi?

Oh, and @jeff what is your opinion on whysynth and AMS?

Post

urlwolf wrote:As a last ditch... my midi controller sends to channel 4 by default. Could this be the reason pydaw doesn't get midi?
I can't remember if it accepts all events, or just channel 1... Or maybe that ALSA might only like channel 1... Sorry, I don't recall off the top of my head how that works, but I think you ought to try channel 1 or "all channels" for sure...
urlwolf wrote:Oh, and @jeff what is your opinion on whysynth and AMS?
Alsa Modular Synth? If that's what you meant, I think the general consensus is that it's kind of buggy (and so it was in my experience)... Neat little app for sure, but as someone who grew up with Reaktor, it's nowhere close to feature-parity, usability or quality compared to Reaktor, SynthEdit, SynthMaker, etc... hence there isn't something equivalent to the Reaktor User Library for it... if that's what you were looking for with AMS... I also seem to recall that CPU usage was awfully high relative to the complexity of the patch, and all of my PCs are pretty robust...

I haven't used WhySynth enough to form a proper opinion on the overall quality of it, but the UI looks a tad hideous and cumbersome not unlike Zyn/Yoshimi(but at least WhySynth? uses tabs instead of multiple windows, 2 or 3 tabs is fine, but not like 15 tabs or whatever it has)... unless it's changed since I've looked at it... It could very well sound good though, I don't remember...

Post

It's been a while since I've been engaged with the community (you know, like release announcements and shit :D ), but PyDAW has continued making the same relentless progress with a new release approximately once a week...

What's new in recent months:

Audio sequencing went from being the red-headed-step-child to the star of the show. New stuff:
* A vast array of time-stretching and pitch-shifting modes, including the ability to set the start/end pitch/time independently. All are done offline with super-high-quality settings for superior sound quality.
* Up to 8 per-audio-item effects for each audio item
* An audio glue function that mixes all of the splits, fades, stretches and per-item-effects into a single item

^^^^all of which makes PyDAW a pretty gosh-darn effective tool for mangling audio now

Midi sequencing:
* Option to show a key/scale of your choosing on the grid
* Visual feedback of which keys you are pressing on your external MIDI device

Euphoria sampler:
* Much better setting of sample start/end and loop start/end

UI:
* Various parts of the window/tabs are resizeable (and/or hide-able) now
* Nicer looking sample graphs everywhere
* The user manual has been replaced with tooltips-based documentation directly in the UI

Other:
* Performance should be much better on ye olden single-core CPU (although don't expect too many miracles, old/slow CPU is still old and slow). OTOH, audio sequencing is not that CPU intensive, it's mostly MIDI+instruments that eat up CPU, same as it works in every other DAW.
* Much more accurate playback cursor (actually is updated/corrected directly by the audio/midi engine now)

...and many other minor improvements and fixes...

I'm in the process of adding the last few new PyDAWv3 features (mostly new effects), then I'm going to commence work on a fairly sigificant re-write of the audio/midi engine (mostly for future-proof-ness/cleaner-code/performance and to fix a couple of known issues with audio items not retriggering correctly when looping), then once I'm sure all of the bugs are worked out I'll begin work on PyDAWv4.

Post Reply

Return to “Hosts & Applications (Sequencers, DAWs, Audio Editors, etc.)”