Audio production distro/programs recommendation
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| techiem2 May 12, 2008 8:46 AM CST |
Ok, so my sis has a Vista laptop (Dell 1721 as I recall), and it getting frustrated with Vista (what else is new).
She's probably going to have me put XP on it, and I told her I will put Linux on as well when I do. Along with her normal activities (writing, publisher, etc), she like to do some music composition and recording from her midi keyboard (I got her a midi-usb box for her laptop). So I'm wondering, what apps are good and fairly easy to use for composition via midi and via manual editting? What distros should I look at that have those programs available easily? I have started installing a bunch of stuff on my laptop that I need to try, but it might be better to set her up with a distro with such things easily installed and automatically configured (like things that need Jack...). Any suggestions from the audio experts out there? |
| Sander_Marechal May 12, 2008 6:58 PM CST |
Have a look at Audacious and Jokosher: http://www.jokosher.org/ |
| sleepy May 13, 2008 12:37 AM CST |
Hi techiem2, There is a huge variety of quality Linux audio apps available. A first port of call would probably be http://linux-sound.org/ with sections devoted to different categories of software including midi software and even distros specialised for audio work. There is also http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-10-Linux-Distributions-fo... which is a summary of the major audio distros. I'm not a musician, so I don't play with midi, but I believe Rosegarden is one of the better known options. Ardour is a fantastic digital audio workstation, but it doesn't (yet) do midi sequencing. It is, however, under rapid development. In the audio area, my main interest has been in recording and re-mastering old vinyl. For this, I have used at different times Ardour + Jack; Audacity + LADSPA plugins; Rezound; and GWC - Gnome Wave Cleaner. All of these should be found in standard repositories for most major distros. I found for my purposes that it all performed adequately without moving to custom kernels etc. QJackCtl reports a latency of 46.4 msecs on a standard Ubuntu 7.10 install. A 'multimedia' kernel should do better, if it matters. The one thing I did invest in was a decent sound card - in my case an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (which I'm disappointed to say is not recognised and set up properly by Ubuntu 8.04 - a pulse problem it seems, as Kubuntu recognises it). For a laptop, an quality USB external sound card from a manufacturer such as M-Audio might be useful. I believe some people prefer having the DAC outside of the computer, even if it is a desktop machine, to isolate it from sources of interference. I have recently been purchasing sound equipment for work to be used with laptops for multimedia presentations, and I have been told that all laptops, except Apple, interestingly, have power supplies that tend to induce ground loop hum into the audio circuit. We are investing in cheap hum eliminators. I hope this is of some help. I'd be interested in finding out how you/she get on with using Linux for audio applications. |
| nicsmr May 13, 2008 4:09 AM CST |
Sleepy, Can you please let me know the make/model, supplier and approximate cost of the hum eliminators? I am using a laptop for music for dance performances but am getting an annoying hum when the music is not playing. Thanks Nick |
| techiem2 May 13, 2008 6:40 AM CST |
Thanks. I'll look around at all that. My basic audio experience in linux has been using audacity to record and split tapes now and then. |
| sleepy May 15, 2008 11:09 PM CST |
Hi nicsmr, Sorry about the delay - I needed to check the details on the order. The hum eliminator we have had recommended is from Hosa, a company known for its audio cables & accessories. I believe its this model: http://www.binarydesigns.com.au/bdstore/HEM462.html We haven't received them yet, so I can't tell you how well they work. They retail for AUD$139. Sleepy |
| nicsmr May 16, 2008 4:08 AM CST |
Thanks Sleepy, I'll look into it. Nick |
| wjl May 16, 2008 5:15 AM CST |
techiem, regarding distros, you could give 64Studio a try - I think it's more or less Debian for musicians. Your laptop has to support 64 Bits of course, but other than that... Oh, and I think Ubuntu Studio more or less tries to do the same. HTH, Wolfgang |
| dinotrac May 16, 2008 8:24 PM CST |
I should mention that Renoise is also available for Linux. Very popular Tracker with some MIDI capabilities. Linux version is fairly recent addition to the family. |
| helios May 17, 2008 8:06 AM CST |
Concerning that hum... I no longer have an audio card that offers the mixer checkmark that produces that sound but I know which you are talking about. Go into your mixer settings kmix/switcher/? I believe the one you are looking to uncheckmark starts with an "E". It hassled me to no end until I stumbled around and found the culprit. I may not be correct here because if I remember right, the sound was a persistent and annoying hiss rather than a hum...you might also turn down the volume on any external mic you have...it could be as simple as that. h |
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