The PyDAW thread!

[glokraw]

OK, but you're probably using either a built-in soundcard or a PCI soundcard, the problem is believed to specifically affect USB cards, which are by far the most common now that PCI is dying and PCIe soundcards never really took off. The problems with Jack in Ubuntu 13.04 and 13.10 are very real, just because you claim not to be affected by them does not mean they don't exist. All 4 of my PCs (An AMD Piledriver desktop, an AMD Trinity laptop, and AMD Llano laptop and an Intel Ivy Bridge laptop) were all unusable with Jack and Ubuntu13.04+.

...and I think that establishing a working jackd is often equivalent to rocket science, ask anybody on KVR who tried Linux and promptly gave up...

I have mAudio pci, and usb devices, both use the same kernel module,
and work. Never met a distro where they didn't,
been harping on it for years...Anyone here who tried linux and promptly gave up,
has, or soon will have, spent a few $Large on various DAWs and apps,
and also given up on most of them. Giving up, is a symptom, not a solution.

Anyone minimally crafty with a search engine, can quickly determine which
hardware is supported by linux, and paths to success. Lazy people can't be helped, whether using windows, 0S-ex, or a linux.
Daft hardware designs, daft software selection (and bloat)
daft/lazy users... and then there is your Bachmaninoff example,
who loads a large session because he heard a riff in his imagination,
when a yoshimi synth, or a guitar to rakarrack, would be faster to catch
such delightful events for future polishing.

And your retreat to 'it don't work on my stuff'
the old saw, 'all Indians walk single file. At least the one I saw, did'

And one side of the mouth says 'ubuntu is the one that just works'
but the other says 'All 4 of my PCs (An AMD Piledriver desktop,
an AMD Trinity laptop, and AMD Llano laptop and an Intel Ivy Bridge laptop)
were all unusable with Jack and Ubuntu13.04+.'
Thats either a very unlucky streak for a linux developer,
or ubuntu can be extremely schizo, rather than just working.
Why not just stick to mac and win? The 5 linux musicians (I know of 7!)
you mention, are such a paltry target.

I commend your coding efforts, look forward to a rollicking PyDAW success,
If you persist with a linux version, maybe it will mean not having to minutely examine ones every computer and hardware purchase?

But we all have two lines of people forming behind us. Not caring about,
and continually prodding, the less friendly of the two, (and to no avail)
won't shrink it, nor do much to grow a more friendly line. Sticking
to product announcements, descriptions and demonstrations, could
occupy all your forum time, and to very good advantage. One could study
the posts from Camel, U-he, Wusik, among many, and have to dig
extremely deep to find any negativity, justified or not, from the boss.
Cheers

[jeffh]

I'm not alone in my disdain for traditional Linux audio. For anybody with real experience in both (and no, trying Cubase VST5 back in the 90s does not count as experience with Windows audio), they know that modern Windows audio on it's worst day is still better than modern Linux audio on it's best day, the drivers/DAWs/plugins, all of it. Continuing to blame the users for not being able to use Linux audio (or even just not preferring it over Windows) will only ensure that Linux audio's global market share stays below 10 people total for the foreseeable future.

My goal with PyDAW isn't to have "as many users as possible", nor am I particularly interested in what random people on the internet think of me. My goal is to make a DAW that fixes all of my perceived shortcomings of using Cubase/Ableton/Reaper to produce electronic music, and if that happens to attract a lot of like-minded users, then so be it. But I'm more interested in fulfilling my vision than winning any popularity contests. I am many things, but a spineless politician type who is afraid to state the obvious for fear of offending somebody is not one of them.

[glokraw]

While not alone in your disdain, you are quite dramatic and persistant.
And there is plenty of disdain for every OS, not just linux.
I have real experience without the help of cubase, and have read many accounts
of 'windows on it's worst day(s)', virus infestations, fragmented filesystems,
rampaging drivers, comatose drivers, total reinstalls, epic plugin
re-authorization sessions, dongle wars, and the joys of Windows 8 My Startmenu...

Most users who flailed unsuccessfully at linux
1. failed to obtain supported hardware
2. failed to ask questions with system specs in hand, in useful forums
3. chose not to, or were unable to use search engines skillfully enough,
to gain the needed information.

Linux, on an average day, is stable, fast, secure, and I can use my windows
plugins in Reaper, along with my linux favorites, as a Reaper session
is seen as just another linux instrument output to be routed as desired.
I enjoy Amplitube and GuitarRig, but I prefer the linux Rakarrack
and Calf-plugins suite. I can use Absynth and FM8, but I prefer
zynaddsubfx/yoshimi, and Hexter (with the sysex hoardes from a previous century).
And I can blend those with the many great vst instruments from
U-he, IK, Wusik, Ugo, HG Fortune, AlgoMusic, NI, and in a variety
of custom environments, that are well beyond the gui boundaries of
the more corporate operating systems. It's also nice to use separate alsa inputs,
so I can record my Mustang amp's usb output, while it's line output is recorded
through a hardware rack, on the pci soundcards line input.

So, I hear you are you having trouble with random people on the internet
accusing you of being a spineless politician type who is afraid to
state the obvious for fear of offending somebody.
Hard times, indeed. But on the bright side, there are pills for that,
and they are not very expensive.
Cheers

[stanlea]

An audio system is an ecosystem. It lives from the contributions of as many people as possible. If you're alone, even if you're genius, you can't grow. What you did with pydaw is really impressive. I wish you success, but in my view you can achieve a good DAW, but you can't produce all the creative environment around : plugins, bridges, and so on. You think that you can offer an all-in-one solution. It's true, but it's more limited than you think. People like freedom, they would not like to get stuck with pyDaw.

[glokraw]

An audio system is an ecosystem. It lives from the contributions of as many people as possible. If you're alone, even if you're genius, you can't grow. What you did with pydaw is really impressive. I wish you success, but in my view you can achieve a good DAW, but you can't produce all the creative environment around : plugins, bridges, and so on. You think that you can offer an all-in-one solution. It's true, but it's more limited than you think. People like freedom, they would not like to get stuck with pyDaw.

Hi, Stanlea. Jeff has made fine instruments and plugins, as well as the PyDAW.
I may haggle over some things, but his works are numerous, and of great quality.
RayV, a ducking delay, a sampler...and many more, all in his 'spare' time
Cheers

[stanlea]

An audio system is an ecosystem. It lives from the contributions of as many people as possible. If you're alone, even if you're genius, you can't grow. What you did with pydaw is really impressive. I wish you success, but in my view you can achieve a good DAW, but you can't produce all the creative environment around : plugins, bridges, and so on. You think that you can offer an all-in-one solution. It's true, but it's more limited than you think. People like freedom, they would not like to get stuck with pyDaw.

Hi, Stanlea. Jeff has made fine instruments and plugins, as well as the PyDAW.
I may haggle over some things, but his works are numerous, and of great quality.
RayV, a ducking delay, a sampler...and many more, all in his 'spare' time
Cheers

I know that, and I appreciate all he made. That's why I wouldn't like this stuff to stay isolated from the rest of Linux audio.

[glokraw]

I don't see how it could be isolated? Everyone tests and chooses
what they like or need. Many people use more than one DAW, and often enough,
even for creating one song. There are a few plugins I use that won't
scan in Reaper/wineasio, but work fine in Cantabile. So maybe I would
use PyDAW sampler for drums and rythym piano, play the .wav back using
Aqualung while recording a zynaddsubfx ambient backing,
and then put all that in alsa audacity,
and record a guitar lead track on top...then (gasp) master it using
T-Racks in XP I think we are surrounded, not isolated

Cheers

[jeffh]

An audio system is an ecosystem. It lives from the contributions of as many people as possible.

I disagree.

If you're alone, even if you're genius, you can't grow.

I disagree again.

What you did with pydaw is really impressive. I wish you success

Thanks.

, but in my view you can achieve a good DAW, but you can't produce all the creative environment around : plugins, bridges, and so on.

I had written quite a few plugins before I'd ever written a DAW, I can definitely write the plugins and write them well... In fact, I even have plans to add an additive synthesizer and a fully modular synthesizer in the short term.

Bridges? Aside from my assertion that I most certainly know how to write one, what on earth would I even need them for? Bridges are an ugly hack Windows developers use for 32 bit plugins to get around just how badly Windows botched 64 bit support... With open source and GCC it's a non-issue.

You think that you can offer an all-in-one solution. It's true, but it's more limited than you think.

I have no delusions of grandeur about where the project is, but did anybody expect an Ableton killer already for a DAW that just turned 1 y/o with just one part time developer? The project still continues to make massive progress almost every week, I have plenty of big plans for it and I think that I've proven that I can deliver the goods...

People like freedom, they would not like to get stuck with pyDaw.

People like quality, especially when it's free of charge. I can deliver a lot more quality when I don't have to try to work with most of the rest of the Linux audio ecosystem, which is full of unfinished, buggy and low quality software. I don't force anybody to sign an agreement that they'll never cheat on me with another audio application, so they are not being denied any freedom. Furthermore, it's GPLv3, which grants a whole lot of freedom to do pretty much anything you want with it without depending on me to do it for you.

Hi, Stanlea. Jeff has made fine instruments and plugins, as well as the PyDAW.
I may haggle over some things, but his works are numerous, and of great quality.
RayV, a ducking delay, a sampler...and many more, all in his 'spare' time
Cheers

Even though we may not agree on everything, I appreciate the respect and acknowledgement.

I know that, and I appreciate all he made. That's why I wouldn't like this stuff to stay isolated from the rest of Linux audio.

They isolated themselves from me, not the other way around.

I've already vowed to create a new open plugin format, an alternative to Jack and a new conventional DAW, but I'm not releasing any of it until I've perfected and proven all of the concepts with PyDAW. Once finalized and released, they will then be totally free to participate(or not participate) in my ecosystem and port their applications to it if they choose, but I am under no obligation to recognize their standards or participate in their ecosystem any more than they are obligated to participate in mine. Isn't freedom great?

I don't see how it could be isolated? Everyone tests and chooses
what they like or need. Many people use more than one DAW, and often enough,
even for creating one song. There are a few plugins I use that won't
scan in Reaper/wineasio, but work fine in Cantabile. So maybe I would
use PyDAW sampler for drums and rythym piano, play the .wav back using
Aqualung while recording a zynaddsubfx ambient backing,
and then put all that in alsa audacity,
and record a guitar lead track on top...then (gasp) master it using
T-Racks in XP I think we are surrounded, not isolated

Cheers

This^^^^^

[jeffh]

After spending a significant amount of effort evaluating how best to make PyDAW cross-platform, I am pleased to announce that I have successfully ported PyDAW to the following platforms:

Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8
OSX Snow Leopard
OSX Purple Puma
OSX Aging Cougar
OSX Pussy Cat Doll
Solaris
Yes, really...



WTF, you ask? Well, I spent some quality time with MinGW and Cygwin for doing the porting, but came to the conclusion that those are not exactly quality solutions for something like a DAW that has to access PC hardware directly at a low level. So the alternative is to write extra native code for each platform, which will likely involve writing code not just for Windows and OSX, but about 4 different versions of each, and even then it may have extra bugs on specific hardware or software configurations.

So in the face of imminent failure, I had an epiphany; I thought to myself: "Jeff, you've already written perhaps the only DAW in the world that has acceptable performance when virtualized, why not use that to your advantage?". After getting back into the chair I had just fallen out of, I began working on a light-and-lean VM image that could be used on practically any OS. You can find that image here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/libmod ... s_and_mac/

It's just a simple matter of:

1. Install Virtualbox
2. Import the .ova file you downloaded from the above link
3. Profit

I find the performance hit to be negligible on my PCs (seems to provide maybe 90% of native performance), and latency is reasonable even with virtual audio hardware. Also, Virtualbox Guest Additions is pre-installed, so the size of the VM window can be properly resized.

Really though, this is an experiment to see if both people will buy into this kind of radically different distribution model, and also to see if it works for everybody else as well as it's worked for me. If the idea flops, I probably won't continue it, but if Windows and Mac users find it to be an acceptable solution, then it's a trivial amount of effort for me to continue offering this as an option.

NOTES:
1. 32 bit only ATM, mostly because some Intel/Windows laptops work badly with 64 bit guests, even if running 64 bit Windows
2. I accidentally left a 1-bar-long demo song of random notes playing a default synth patch, please ignore

[glokraw]

This may deserve a newly titled topic here, or rename this topic,
and edit the first post.

Also, two supplemental topics, describe the instruments
in the instrument forum, and the virtual box with Mac details
in the computer forum.

That may get the word out faster. Hopefully the people who rail against
using wine, will not show themselves to be virtuaphobic minority
Cheers

[jeffh]

This may deserve a newly titled topic here, or rename this topic,
and edit the first post.

You're probably right, I thought about making it a new topic, I can't really remember the reason why I didn't do it.

Hopefully the people who rail against
using wine, will not show themselves to be virtuaphobic minority
Cheers

Ah, yes.... This is a bit different though, WINE's shortcomings are primarily due to the fact that it's a reverse-engineered clone of a very complex piece of software(Windows), it's never going to be 100% correct or compatible.

What I'm doing it different; I'm not reverse engineering anything, I'm simply using virtualization as a new approach to cross-platform-ness. Some DAWs work better in Windows(Reaper, Cubase, Ableton), some work better on Mac(Protools, DP), some work better on Linux(Ardour/Mixbus), and none work equally well on all 3 (or even 2) of those platforms. I'm aiming to leverage virtualization to make it possible for a DAW to work equally well in any version of Windows, OSX or Linux.

[jeffh]

I found one issue people may run into, but it's easy to work around it. From my updated README file:

IMPORTANT, INTEL CPUs, PLEASE READ:

Intel artificially cripples their CPU virtualization on many different models to create "product segmentation"; If the VM refuses to start, you may have to do the following:

In Virtualbox's main window, click on 'pydaw' then click on "settings", then "system" on the left, click on the "processor" tab, change the CPU count to 1 using the slider.

AMD doesn't cripple virtualization on any of their CPUs, so none of this should be necessary on any AMD CPU made in the past 8 years or so.

This was discovered on an Ivy Bridge / Windows7 laptop. Once I implemented the above workaround, the VM booted just fine, and PyDAW ran perfectly inside the VM.

I'll probably go back and upload it again with the above settings, and leave "optimizing" it with more cores and enabled acceleration as an exercise for the user...

[arkmabat]

Does Hexter synth run in Pydaw on Windows?

[jeffh]

Does Hexter synth run in Pydaw on Windows?

No, but PyDAW has a built in synthesizer called "Way-V", which is a much more modern and user-friendly take on an FM synthesizer** . Also, most of Way-V's presets are classic FM type sounds like e-piano and percussion...



** Sean Bolton is still "the man" though, but perhaps he was a bit ahead of his time...

[Linux0s]

jeffh: What version of VirtualBox are you using for this?
Are the Guest Additions pre-installed or just included along with the download?

I've been steadfastly clinging to my old "repository" 4.1.12 version of VirtualBox mostly because Oracle seemed to be updating it a bit too frequently for my infrequent use. I'm sure you're using a more current version which may explain some of the problems I experienced. I found the VM starts and PyDAW launches just fine. But the shared folder created through VB could not be accessed (nor could a removable USB drive). And while the VM shows internet connectivity Midori wouldn't resolve any web pages. Repository lists are retrieved though although I couldn't complete the steps to install anything. Anyway as a result of the above I wasn't able to actually get an audio file into PyDAW. But it sure looks nice.

Not asking for troubleshooting here mind you, beyond what version of VirtualBox you are using. The reason I ask about Guest Additions is the repository prompts if you want to install them (which I know it will also do if they are already installed). I'd been looking at PyDAW for a while now and followed the other "big" thread for quite some time. After giving it a go I was rather surprised to find network connectivity/shared folders didn't work "out of the box" as it's probably been 5 years or so since I've experienced a "live" distribution where both didn't just work without doing anything special. That's when the thought occurred "Well you're not using the most recent version of VirtualBox here either". System alerts produced sound but that's all the audio I could really test.

Anyway, couple of thoughts. In your Read Me for updates you say "open Midori (the green leaf icon on the left)" which I'm sure there was when you wrote that... but it wasn't there on the .ova I downloaded... I had to hunt for it. Speaking of which, is there no easy menu type access to Applications from the desktop? I sure didn't see any or a simple way to enable such. I think that alone would drive me nuts. The only way I could quickly verify what software was installed was through the repository list. A newer user would be lost here and I admit I still don't know how the various applications are intended to be easily launched (other than PyDAW itself). The first jaunt into the Ubuntu Software Center of course comes up with a list of updates to the installed software but since this is a "custom" VM configuration I wasn't sure if it was safe to let it update or not.... for all I know this could replace a real-time kernel or something with an incremental update that kills everything. Might want to mention something about updates in the Read Me. Oh, and the default password... yes I know it's pretty easy...
Username: pydaw
Password: ***** (think real hard now)
Might want to add that to the read me too (unless it's some kind of sly IQ test).

I'll probably try PyDAW again in the future although as fast as you produce updates (which I admit is a little intimidating when a newer version is ready before your download finishes, haha) I may just wait for your "next big thing" which you've been hinting about. Any new word on that? I'm also anxious to see if VM is the way of the future for the project or not. Anyway one can easily see and appreciate the tremendous effort you've put into this project thus far and cannot help but hold excitement for the great things yet to come.

P.S. A little while back I gave your "nemesis" KXStudio a spin and installed it onto a removable USB. Stupid installer promptly added the USB drive to the GRUB on my system drive (and no, I wasn't asked) and quickly found I couldn't boot my regular Linux system drive without that USB drive in place. Now I normally take the precaution of unplugging all other drives when installing a fresh OS for this exact reason but I didn't in this case because I could think of no logical reason why a USB install (using a "USB Install "menu prompt) would do such a thing. It wasn't an insurmountable problem but I did have to download/burn a rescue disc to fix it. Grrrr! That was it. Never again (thought you might appreciate that).

~Linux0s