


The Fix Is In: Ardour Set For Summer Release 254
uprightcitizen writes "Good news for the open source audio recording world! Ardour creator Paul Davis has announced a feature-freeze and has set a binary release date for the now-famous
GPL multitrack audio recording application. Ardour has recently been featured
in Sound on Sound and has been mentioned
on Slashdot many times (here(1), here(2),
etc..). The feature freeze is effective as of May 4 and the binary release date
is set for sometime in July or August. Good Job Paul!"
Sounds like they went through a real (Score:4, Funny)
more pro use of linux (Score:5, Interesting)
These may be relatively small markets compared to desktop users, but they are extremely solid ones. Once GPL software is usable there and the savings are being made (come on now, free software compared to over $14,000 for Pro Tools in audio) the hold will be unavoidable.
It's a coming of age
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:5, Insightful)
The ProTools software is FREE.
$0. No money spent.
The $14,000 you spend on ProTools hardware is for the very powerful (and very much worth the money) DSP cards that make ProTools -the- premier audio recording application among serious studios. I know that some people are going to respond with some justification as to why the MOTU 828 or the HammerFall is better then DigiDesign, and that's fine... we all have our preferences... but the DSP's offerred in addition to the audio interface in the ProTools TDM systems make them so much more powerful then CPU bound rigs for large projects.
To compare what you get for $14,000 from DigiDesign to what you get for nothing in the OSS world is a very invalid, and very misinformed. There is simply no comparison between what you get.
And don't even get me started on the rest of your examples. GIMP is cool, but Photoshop it ain't... Film Gimp is -really- cool, but it's not even close to Shake.
Being part of the open source world, I'm so happy about the efforts and advances we're making in various places... but let's not get our heads stuck in the famous "reality distortion field"... there is a VERY LONG way to go before the projects discussed in this comment rival their commercially available conterparts.
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2)
I'm very grateful for what open source has given me, but the open source community needs to get their heads out of the sand. There are some very decent applications, but-- like you said-- some just don't cut it compared to their proprietary (expensive) counterparts. In some situations, the open source product may suffice, or even be preferable, but that's not the same as an equivalent. Photoshop has its place. GIMP has its place. GIMP != Photoshop.
What I'd like to see in The Gimp is
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Earth to AC, the software packages that the big boys are completely proprietary and often developed in-house. Not all software that runs on Linux is open source. For example, you can get Alias|Wavefront Maya for Linux but it certainly is not GPL'd.
There are no open source tools that could come even close to Maya (or other high-end packages for that matter). With the insane budgets that Hollywood movies have I doubt that they will choose inadequate tools just because they are free, beer or speech.
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:1)
I understand people being defensive about software investments. However, I would love it if an Open Source package came along that could repl
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2)
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:1)
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Did you know... (Score:1)
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2, Funny)
Oh. so it shouldn't be renamed "Sound Gimp"?
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2, Informative)
honestly the best reason I can find to use the 888 is that it supports pro-tools.
Re:more pro use of linux (Score:2)
Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:5, Insightful)
This same scenario has to apply to many others out there. My small group of musically talented friends can't be the only ones.
Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:1)
Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:2)
what's the use of an OS that doesn't have the apps that caused you to get a computer in the first place?
I can't imagine a better way to describe why Linux addoption hasn't become the norm; and like the former owner of mp3.com, I have a vested intereset in seeing Linux used as a desktop OS.
Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:2)
I don't see this making a difference to all but the very casual home music hobbyist. And even th
Re:Solid audio software is the breaking point (Score:1)
Pro Tools for free (Score:2)
[digidesign.com]
free version of ProTools...I think it is cripple-ware, not a time limited demo. Don't know, though, since I've never used it, so YMMV.
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree [digidesign.com]
Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:5, Interesting)
For shorter tracks, ardour is used for more user friendly recording. (Audacity and sweep cause choppy audio in my experience)
In addition, I have made command-line full duplex recording possible. (where the instrument track is done first, then vocals laid on top of it) However, be warned that you'll need to make a small program to write raw instructions to the soundcard if you want to turn off the audio loopback, as the CMI* OSS/free driver doesn't implement this for some reason. (I haven't checked if ALSA does this or not)
One major bug that slowed it down was only recording
I have been getting extremely good sound out of it, however. In addition, I have only had to write about 50 lines of code. So if anyone has tried without success to record with a CMI8738 soundcard on linux - don't give up. If you want me to send you the fixes to the problems that I have created, contact me.
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:1)
I'm not even going to say anything else.
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:2)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:1, Funny)
Can you just not create the problems in the first place? I mean... that works for me
(ok I couldn't resist. sorry. good points otherwise
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:1)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:1)
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:1, Funny)
Translation: "I wish I had posted this AC"
This isn't flamebait! The guy makes a perfectly vaild point, and I am sure he is correct in his assumption.
Translation: "I knew what I meant when I wrote that, and I'm sure I was correct in my assumption"
Re:Church audio recording setup with ardour (Score:2)
But which church? (Score:2)
The joyful message you're spreading is that if we use free software, we'll have to labour for hours correcting it and extending it before it will work adequately.
Own up -- you're really preaching for the Other Side [slashdot.org].
Mixing things, Freedom of Religion (Score:2, Funny)
Somebody mentions that he goes to church and
instant flamefest (mostly about evolution)
ignites?
I hope most of you know that freedom of
religion is right there among other basic human
rights.
Would you eg. not hire somebody, because
you assume that he is stupid since he believes
in Jesus? What if he is from different culture
or perhaps physically different, but still fit
for the job?
Would you be friendly and polite to him?
How about trying to feel what he feels like,
or even helping
Re:What the hell are you going to church for? (Score:1)
BTW: The "intelligent designer" was an alien [rael.org].
If Christians believe what you say (intelligent design) then there's no reason why we weren't placed on earth by aliens.
You see, here's the difference between your theory, and the truth:
The process of science:
Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Debate
The process of religion (intelligent design, ie: Genesis, without God):
Fiction -> Asserting -> Insisting -> Twisting Fact -> Torturing
For a thoughtful debate o
Re:What the hell are you going to church for? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:What the hell are you going to church for? (Score:2)
Have you even written a genetic algoritthm? (Score:3, Informative)
To claim that white noise guided solutions can't give rise to more complex systems is to say that the premise of annealing processees are false. Yet molten rock sometimes forms diamonds, so there must be something to it!
Re:Evolution is proven (Score:2)
Laws are for mathematics. You mean it should be made a fact or a theory [reference.com]. Oh, wait - it's already both [talkorigins.org].
Re:No, a law (Score:2)
Well, that's an example of three laws, but otherwise you are right. I was being flippant.
Not it can't. You gave an opinion, you made assertions, but opinions and assertions aren't proof of anything (unless you're George Bush), nor do they define the requirements of a scientific law.
Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Where inroads will be made for now, is in small productions that have no choice. Where once their project was impossible due to monetary constraints it will now be one step closer to reality.
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Some Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) do a pretty good job of being able to have effects and such act as controllers, filters, what have you. But with the source code, a lot of really, really interesting things could develop that haven't been thought of.
Now you have a few companies that all try to copy each other in getting certain tools in the hand of their users. And that's great, but we're better off opening the ability to creating tools to a lot more creative people.
Would we have the electric guitar or a saxaphone, if it wasn't for the common man taking a hack at building an instrument?
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:2)
Excellent point... you hit the nail right on the head. I believe that the greatest opportunity for open-source systems, in general, lies not in the already-entrenched markets, but in markets that have yet to be explored due to current cost constraints.
Why does Google use Linux on its machines? Linux did not become the best solution for high-end web servers overnight, taking large portions of that particular market share from proprietary rivals. Instead, by becoming the first* widely-used, affordable (read
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:1)
Possibility to run remote via X might be interesting for noise.
(but the ardour website has more points about that)
On the downside, many people are trained to use protools. but they can learn.
NOTE : many people tend to think about the big music software companies. Ahem. This market is
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't mean to make a value judgement on it, just that there are some subtle characteristics, especially in the vocal effects department, that scream out at me "yep, protools."
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:2)
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:2)
the default setting of the vox flanger."
Damn straight!
Which you can bet is usually because...
The singer they are working with has a voice that requires hiding behind effects.
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:3, Funny)
*cough* Kelly Osbourne *cough*
On the flip side, I love listening to old Zeppelin albums and hearing the bleed between tracks. Ah, magnetic tape. What has the world come to. Oh baby baby, you're killing me.
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:2)
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:2)
Besides of that, if you hear the same effect come back over and over again, it strikes me as a creativity problem of the producer, and not as a problem that ProTools itself has. (Except, but that doesn't seem likely to me, if the "vox flanger" has only 1 setting, and is the only
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:1)
What is needed is a standard way to save edit lists, to allow interchange between diffrent packages.Don't expect any help or support from protools. But ardour should shake things up a bit.
Re:Won't replace Pro Tools anytime soon (Score:1)
However, the playing field has changed tremendously since Protools came out. Significantly, CPUs are way more potent, to the point where I'd say that if you have a 2Ghz CPU, you can probably do more realtime FX than a Protools system can anyway.
Now, by saying
Just some thoughts on OSS. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Before, we had to get sound up reliably, window managers etc.. all that chewy good stuff. Windows was ahead of "us" on that since the boom of unix on the desktop didn't happen 'till a little later.
MS can only inovate so fast. Problem is, duplicating what i
ardour still not a "big boy" (Score:1, Informative)
However, it's still not ready for prime time. A couple more years and it could be.
The DSP framework needs a complete rewrite to fix some limitations, and the phase vocoder is 2nd generation, when most commercial tools use 4th or 5th generation.
Re:ardour still not a "big boy" (Score:1)
Boy, it sure sounds like you know what you're talking about here, but I'll bite.
What is meant by a "2nd generation phase vocoder", please?
Re:ardour still not a "big boy" (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW I've also supplied a few patches to ardour and have written several phase vocoders for Linux.
- Steve
Re:ardour still not a "big boy" (Score:2)
It would be cool to make the whole process Open Source.. we dabbled in LINUX before but, jesus is it complex for the average user....
Open Source music is soon very soon...
Re:ardour still not a "big boy" (Score:2)
F/OSS: Conquering new markets! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know - I don't mean this as a troll - but I really have to wonder what the hell is going to happen to all the software developers working for closed source companies when mainstream users start adopting free products in droves.
After all, if Microsoft's Palladium is successful, that could mean the end of software piracy - which probably accounts for a good chunk of the market. What will all those users do? Will they go out and spend $200 on Windows, $500 on Office, and $600 on Photoshop? No, they'll come running to Free and Open Source Software! And pretty soon, they'll be able to find replacements for EVERYTHING they need.
(Sorry for jumping from topic to topic, it's late.)
Re:F/OSS: Conquering new markets! (Score:3, Interesting)
If this results in a smaller total number of employed software developers, does that mean the
Sync? Timecode? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah but the people who won't understand this, are the same people who don't understand why the lack of CMYK support is such a limiting factor for Gimp.
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:1, Insightful)
RGB works just fine for monitors, be they LCD or plasma or CRT or even projection, and it works well for RGB printers such as Durst Lambda or Fuji Pictrograph. Not only be RGB printing but continuous tone and hence without the bother of screening.
The longer CMYK is supported as a legacy technology, the longer we'll be using outdated processes to provide inferior output.
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:1)
Er... who said they did?
That's fine (Score:1)
The people who do matter understand that CMYK is important. There's not much to be done about it, though, because it is patented technology.
As long as we're not dealing with a standard that is patent encumbered, it will come in due time. (Due time being the time of those who feel like working on it. They aren't on anyone else's time table.)
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:1, Informative)
http://ardour.sourceforge.net/ardour_faq.txt
* functioning as a MIDI Timecode master (it generates MTC)
* functioning as a MIDI Timecode slave (experimental; send reports!)
From browsing the mailing list archives, i gather that ardour does not directly support true SMPTE (which is timecode encoded as an audio signal); but if you have a hardware MTCSMPTE box you might be able to use SMPTE.
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:2, Informative)
honestly it's not all that hard to compile from CVS if you're familiar enough with GNU/automake-type
Re:Sync? Timecode? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, but it's not. How many people do you know that have done image manipulation at some point in their lives with a computer? Lots, I'd expect. I know I do. How many of them need support for professional printing equipment? None.
You'd be totally amazed at the number of people out there who write music using their PC, keyboard, sample editor and guitar. I
killer audio editing app for radio producing (Score:5, Interesting)
How close are we to this?
Re:killer audio editing app for radio producing (Score:2)
Re:killer audio editing app for radio producing (Score:2)
MIDI sequencer? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MIDI sequencer? (Score:1)
Re:MIDI sequencer? (Score:1)
Re:MIDI sequencer? (Score:2)
JACK is a low-latency audio server....it focuses on two key areas: synchronous execution of all clients, and low latency operation.
Great (Score:4, Funny)
hmm (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the problem
Another is of course
Re:hmm (Score:1)
Please don't hurt me.
sri
Re:hmm (Score:2)
VST instruments I'm not sure about, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could do the same trick as for VST plugins.
Too bad there are no specs for the CreamWare cards, but I guess binary only drivers are better than none. Open hardware is clearly going to be another days battle.
Audacity, Freshmeat (Score:3, Interesting)
And was anybody else bugged by ... -- ?
Re:Audacity, Freshmeat (Score:2, Informative)
Now Audacity is a decent multi-tracking program for beginners. However, there are many limitations to the control users innately have. For instance, the compressor in the latest release has absolutely no settings -- it just compresses
Re:Audacity, Freshmeat (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't. Or hardly doesn't, at least. Ardour is a full featured professional recording application, designed to tackle any audio recording task you can throw at it. Have two studio quality sound cards, giving you a total of 20 cannels in/out, at 96Khz/24bit? Want to record a rock show, with live drums, backing vocals, and enough microphone cables to make AOL's server room look tidy? Ardour can handle it, and then some.
Want to take that 20 track show, and overdub the guitars in the studio, while the whole mess is mixed in real time? It can do that, too.
Ardour is the open source equivalent of Pro Tools (mentioned on slashodot a few days ago). Audacity isn't.
Now, if you're not interested in any of these things, Ardour is probably overkill for you.
And if anyone deserves the marketing here, it's Paul. Ardour is a massive piece of code, that took years of uncompensated full time work to get to its current state. It's well designed and well coded. No corners were cut in the making of this piece of software. Go get it, and pay for it.
Re:Audacity, Freshmeat (Score:3, Informative)
Ardour does what it's designed to do: studio recording in prof
Re:Audacity, Freshmeat (Score:3, Informative)
Like Christmas in July... (Score:1)
I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas. Hurry 'dem binaries, pleease!
This might get me to switch (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This might get me to switch (Score:1)
Usability (Score:1)
Does it "just work", like my Mac does?
Does it interface perfectly with all my audio hardware?
Can I export directly from it to a DVD editing package on the same machine?
road map (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, an official feature freeze and subsequent binary release have been announced. However, the release date of the binary is june 13. This will be followed by four weeks of the main developers absence. The binary is a 1.0.rc1. All the c++ dependencies will remain statically linked so it's likely that Debian won't be including this binary in official releases. I think the objective of this release is to increase testing from users but not create an all out marketing assualt.
Reguardless, the announcement is seriously encouraging.
IMO, a commercial studio owner and engineer/producer, professional audio production in linux is close to being a reality. To prove the point to myself, about six months ago I produced a commercial album from start to finish in Ardour. At the time, it was a serious challange which I expected. Since then, Ardour and JACK have seen alot of serious developement.
Unlike what one commentor stated, syncronization in the form of MTC and MMC does exist and it mostly works. You're probably well advised to inquire about syncronization on the mailing lists.
Equally interesting to Ardour is JACK which is a low latency, high bandwidth audio server. It enables port connections between software applications which is serious stuff.
While many linux audio solutions are not > 1.0 there are interesting solutions for preproduction, production and postproduction audio work.
My partners and I have been in business for 19 years. We've had four major studio redesigns and without hesitation I will say that the linux based solution is more interesting than any of the others.
Re:road map (Score:1)
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?arch
http://n.ethz.ch/student/robertjo/download/rj-deb
Libraries. (Score:2)
Sound cards (Score:2)
Rus
I never knew... (Score:2)
I'm more the 3D guy rather than a sound fiddler and helped buy Blender (www.blender.org) free, but this is so cool I'll think I'll donate a little here too.
If you've got a paypal account allready, spare an Euro, Dollar or two, it's a good deed for the day.
ProTools versions and prices (Score:3, Informative)
ProTools Free runs purely in software, using off-the-rack, home sound cards, and is free (beer, not speech). Nobody uses it for real work, but it makes for an okay functional demo.
ProTools LE is targetted at home and small studios, and uses generic pro-level audio adapters. The software and hardware together come out in the $500 to $1000 range.
ProTools TDM is what the big studios use. It requires proprietary hardware with extensive use of onboard DSP and dedicated control surfaces. This is the one for which the hardware and software together fall in the $10000 to $15000 range.
The mid-level LE version is not a toy
Binary = stable in some many people's eyes (Score:5, Informative)
A potential Linux user that doesn't have the luxury of a hand-holding-Linux-guru friend to help them install their desired software would view an easy to install binary application as a "big plus".
Re:Binary = stable in some many people's eyes (Score:1)
two words:
emerge ardour-cvs
Re:uhhh.... (Score:1)
Re:Nowhere close to ProTools (Score:2)
I know this whole reading thing is hard, but try it sometime.