New MusE Release, A Step Toward The Linux Studio

spamatica writes "In these times when multimedia on Linux seems to be on a roll, it's my pleasure to break the news that one of the most powerful midi/audio sequencers on Linux, MusE, has just had a new release. This release is a major milestone featuring things such as Jack-transport and win32/VST-Instrument support. Moreover it has been much improved concerning usability, stability and functionality. The Linux-based studio is looming ever closer -- in fact, it's here!"

Exciting..

[superhoe]

.. all I need now is to get my professional audio card to actually work under Linux.

Re:Exciting..

[abe ferlman]

My Delta 1010 works just fine, as does my Turtle Beach USB MIDI adapter.

Your Echo Darla, Gina, Layla or RME Hamerfall card would be supported by ALSA as well, among others. Linux audio may have issues, but a lack of professional sound cards that work is not one of them.

Re:Exciting..

[Kiryat Malachi]

According to ALSA's own page, they don't support my professional sound card. [aardvarkaudio.com]

A lack, maybe not, but they don't support everything, and for most people they won't be willing to buy a new card for Linux compatability.

Also, as another poster here said: we really do want manufacturer drivers, so we have a throat to slit when it fails to work, or when there's some obscure conflict.

Re:Exciting..

[abe ferlman]

perhaps someday there will be a sufficiently large market to support a service industry supporting free software drivers and you'll have someone to blame if you need to. Until then we're forced to choose between a company's desire to protect its reputation and the ability to use free software thereby avoiding lockin/no source code/etc. I understand we choose different sides of this divide, but I hope one day we won't have to choose.

Re:Exciting..

[zerblat]

Actually it's the other way around, Aardvark doesn't support ALSA. Had they supplied the ALSA people with sufficient specs, I'm sure your Q10 would be working in Linux right now. Have you contacted Aardvark and told them that you would be interested in support for ALSA?

Re:Exciting..

[Ricdude]

As with any OS, you must check the hardware compatibility lists before purchasing hardware and expecting it to work. The point is you *can* buy pro quality cards to work under linux. Whether or not you choose to or not is up to you. Personally, I tend to buy hardware that works on Linux and Windows. I had fun once with a hardware modem that didn't work under Windows until I downloaded the right driver (via Linux). There are very few things that can't work well on both. I make a point of buying hardware

then bug Aardvark

[halfelven]

Send them an email, ask them to support Linux, etc.
They don't have to write the driver themselves. Often, a company will sit on their card's specs and not release them to the open source community. This will prevent a free driver to be written.

Re:Exciting..

[3Suns]

Yeah, I was talking to a sound professional this weekend actually, who has his own studio running mostly on Mac with a few PCs. What's holding Linux back in the studios is (1) lack of familiar professional mixing/software (one app doesn't cut it, they need a whole suite of very full-featured, professional apps and utilities), and (2) hardware support for the piles of miscellaneous equipment that gets used all the time. The newer hardware is all digital, and there are linux drivers for a very small percent

JAMin

[halfelven]

lack of familiar professional mixing/software

Have you looked at JAMin [sourceforge.net]?

Re:Exciting..

[gallir]

It's free soft^W^Hdom, freedom, stupid!

Re:Exciting..

[AliasTheRoot]

agreed, free^H^H^Hdom is all well and good but if it involves crap software that is hard to use and doesnt perform as well as commercial software then I will spend my dollars.

contact the manufacturers

[halfelven]

If the customers don't ask them to support Linux, how would they become aware of the need?

Re:Exciting..

[Unknown Lamer]

Ardour [ardour.org]

It certainly looks (and works since I use it) like a DAW to me.

Re:Exciting..

[rmull]

mLan is a superset of normal firewire audio (IEC 6something), which is starting to get some attention in JACK [sf.net] via the firewire generic driver. I'd do it myself with my fa-101 [edirol.com], but the standard is kind of expensive.

Finally,

[Lispy]

I can put my old Atari 1040ST to rest. No, seriously, this is another killerapp that kept some of my friends from switching to Linux so far. I am really curious if it is competitve enough and easy to use for all those Apple switchers.

Re:Finally,

[CdBee]

I suspect if it's really that good it'll get ported to OS X anyway, many othr GPL apps of this kind (Think AudaCity) get ported eventually.

Re:Finally,

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I can put my old Atari 1040ST to rest. No, seriously, this is another killerapp that kept some of my friends from switching to Linux so far.

I'm curious: you do know that Cubase exists on Windows and Macintosh, right? Heck, you even have the choice of using Cakewalk or DP on those platforms.

What's this Atari ST nonsense? I can't decide whether you're trolling, or you're such a hysterical Windows and Mac hater that you're willing to not use anything but your Atari until something's available for Linux...

Re:Finally,

[Threni]

> What's this Atari ST nonsense?

So you know little about audio software, right? Cubase on the ST was more stable and usable 12 or more years ago than the same software under Windows. I gave up trying to get accurate, fast hihats on my PC, instead using Cakewalk (which is inferior to Cubase in practically every other way). Cubase on the ST is rock solid, with out-of-the-box midi support, and many studios still use it. You're suggesting people upgrade from STs just because they're old? Why? That's just not how things work once you get out of the PC industry. People upgrade because there's a point to it, or because they have to, not just because they can.

Re:Finally,

[IANAAC]

Cubase on the ST was more stable and usable 12 or more years ago than the same software under Windows. I gave up trying to get accurate, fast hihats on my PC, instead using Cakewalk (which is inferior to Cubase in practically every other way).

Couple of things...
Cubase from 12 years ago is nothing like Cubase of today, ST or Windows. They do very different things, although MIDI has always been there. If you want what Cubase offers today, there's no way to get an ST to handle everything it does. You

Re:Finally,

[AliasTheRoot]

I agree with the poster, I owned an Atari ST and an Amiga, and now both are rusting away in the Garage because everything they can do can be done on modern hardware with modern operating systems faster and better.

If you really insist on booting your OS off a 720k floppy and waiting another 3 minutes for your application to come up, then being limited to 100k for a sample then who am I to stop you...

Re:Finally,

[tolan-b]

The Atari ST has very low MIDI latency. Also, the OS is on firmare, so you don't have to boot off floppy.

Re:Finally,

[LizardKing]

limited to 100k for a sample

Some of us aren't totally enamoured by software synths and samplers. I'd rather use hardware devices (analogue preferably), and just use the computer as a sequencer and patch editor/librarian.

Re:Finally,

[Kiryat Malachi]

If you do that, then why do you need the kind of timing ST owners blather on about? There are outboard sequencers that would do you just fine.

Re:Finally,

[LizardKing]

If you do that, then why do you need the kind of timing ST owners blather on about? There are outboard sequencers that would do you just fine.

I don't need anything out of the ordinary when it comes to latency. The main reason I use the ST instead of a hardware sequencer, is the better interaction via mouse, monitor and keyboard. Saying that, I do have an ancient Roland MC-300 sequencer that I use for live stuff (it's a rugged little beastie).

Re:Finally,

[Kiryat Malachi]

I was thinking more along the lines of one of the modern sequencers that can accept sequence data from a PC; edit on a good interface, dump it to the hardware sequencer for timing reasons. But if you want the better interaction, but don't have special timing needs, why not upgrade from the ST?

I don't know. All my current live stuff is about as far away from sequenced as you can get (improvised, nothing pre-recorded and nothing pre-planned), so it's been a while since I've had to fight with a sequencer.

Re:Finally,

[LizardKing]

I was thinking more along the lines of one of the modern sequencers

I borrowed my brothers Akai MPC a while ago, and it was a very nice piece of equipment. I couldn't justify the cost of one for myself though, as I'd never use half the features. I'm also hopeless at sampling, so I'd end up using third party libraries.

Re:Finally,

[LizardKing]

What's this Atari ST nonsense?

I still use Steinberg Pro-24 (the forerunner to Cubase) on an Atari ST. It is far more stable than any version of Cubase that I have used on a PC. I don't own a Mac, but I do hear that recent versions of Cubase have been rock solid on that operating system. So if I upgraded that would be they way I'd go. Then again by the time I can afford a decent Mac, Rosegarden (http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/) may have reached a stable release ...

As for the poster below who talks about booting from a 720Kb floppy, my ST has a SCSI hard drive, and boots in seconds.

Re:Finally,

[chegosaurus]

Amen. I still use Bars and Pipes on the Amiga. Not anywhere near so stable as Pro-24, but it just suits the way I like to work.

The people saying you should junk the old hardware and software which help you work are idiots. Making music isn't like compiling code - a faster computer doesn't necessarily make you more productive.

When a person creates, the tools they use are important. Some people like oil paints, some like acrylics. Some people like Pro-24, some like Cakewalk. Some like digital, some like an

Re:Finally,

[Anonymous Coward]

Timing on the ST had nothing to do with the OS. I'm not sure of the particulars, but the MIDI clock was a Integer mutiple of one of the base hardware clocks, that's why it's rock solid, no rounding of floating point numbers like you get these days.
The same chip is still being used in brand new broadcast timecode generators right now.

Re:Finally,

[Elektroschock]

I would Band in the Box, a crappy old tool that does what the musician *really* needs. From a usability perspective it may be bad, from a usefulness perspective it is unrivaled

Re:Finally,

[sploxx]

I can put my old Atari 1040ST to rest.
Why should you?
Now is the time to port MusE to Linux/m68k [linux-m68k.org] on Atari ST! :-)

Re:Finally,

[Ford Prefect]

Can't stop from posting something in favor of Atari, especially the 1040ST and the Falcon 030. The only 2 computers I've ever owned that fit the bill as "music computers."

I had an ST myself, and while I never used it for music stuff (apart from farting about in Quartet), I always wondered why the MIDI ports were there. Yes, they helped the ST become a favourite machine for music work, but which Atari engineer decided to put them into the design in the first place, and why?

Were there any other home comput

It looks fully functional but..

[alex_ware]

if they made a live distro outof it, then it would help people change. do people want to dump windows before even trying the software: no

Re:It looks fully functional but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is: http://www.agnula.org/ [agnula.org] and here is the MuSE tutorial: http://www.agnula.org/documentation/dp_tutorials/m use/index_html/view [agnula.org]

This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Saven Marek]

This is where Apple has traditionally worked, and it's been a strong position for them.

While the market isn't big, it is fiercely loyal and worth money to them. Now that Linux based solutions can compete and strip away that advantage, Linux too will embed itself more concretely in the mindset of Yet Another Subculture.

Heh. Why would you now spend $50k on a mac recording studio when you can get a Linux based one for the cost of cheap 2nd hand hardware?. Revolutions baby...

The Nets Biggest Adult Anime Gallery's [sharkfire.net]

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[proj_2501]

well, there are reasons to avoid cheap 2nd hand hardware for a studio. if you can't get low latency or a low noise floor out of your sound card, or if you can't get linux drivers for the card, what's the point in saving money?

also, there's no ableton live for linux, which is key in my book :)

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Anonymous Coward]

oh cripes. 90% of the noise floor in a studio is the equipment before the computer.

the Mackie mixers that are typical in home studios have almost a 5 db hiss sitting there with all controls potted all the way down. (5db from silence not from the bizzare zero db refrence that is so prevalent in audio.) then you have how your cables are run, the low end microphones you are using as well as the noise levels coming out of the guitar's, effects pedals, the keyboards and synth modules themselves (alesis = high

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[drinkypoo]

It's still not necessary to spend the big apple-style bucks to build a studio on linux if the software is there. You can buy 24 bit 96 khz four channel audio cards with linux support for under $250 each - I can't remember who makes them, though, because I don't have that kind of money to spend on sound cards anyway :)

good sound card

[halfelven]

MAudio [m-audio.com]

You're probably thinking about Audiophile 2496, or maybe even the Delta 1010LT.
Still, the "big" Delta 1010 (not the LT) is perhaps better, since it has balanced analog. But it's more expensive (about $600).

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[winchester]

Some people actually just want to use the software to create, not tinker around with deboggers and compilers, learning how to do driver development under Linux.

Interesting though it may sound to develop your own drivers, I just want my machine to be usable as a music production tool, not as a tinker device in a perpetual state of change.

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Dylan2000]

Here you are, Mr. Bowie, your studio is finished, you can start recording your next 'Space Oddity' now!

"How come I'm not hearing any sound?"

Oh yeah, I forgot, here's the manual. And a copy of 'How to learn C++ in 21 days'. Don't forget to recompile your kernel once you've written the driver.

"Colonel? Chauffeur??"

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[kfg]

If it were a propritary system you could be waiting months or years for support that might not come.

I'm not sure quite how to break this to you, but the essential problem is that the architecture of professional sound cards is a propriatary system.

You cannot write a driver worth a crap against a secret spec. If the card manufacturers will not release those specs you are stuck waiting for support that might not come.

It isn't enough for your software to be open source. Your hardware must be open spec as w

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[ajs318]

And therein lies the problem.

When the US constitution was written, nobody could have foreseen that one day, the technology would exist that would enable a manufacturer to sell something which effectively kept a secret from its rightful owner. If you bought a locked box, you could always split it open. If you bought something tiny, you could always look at it through a microscope. It just wasn't anything to be bothered about. (This is the same thinking as "you could always sneak off into the woods somewhere to be sure of having a private conversation".) It was simply inconceivable that that "right" could be violated, and therefore, it wasn't viewed as worthy of protection -- it would have been about as sensible as a law today issuing speeding tickets for anybody caught travelling at more than 300 megametres per second. Furthermore, the Founding Fathers wanted to keep the laws fair and few. Banning the impossible would have been a Bad Law -- it was redundant, because there was no conceivable way to break it, and also it might encourage future lawmakers to create redundant laws.

Fast forward 200-odd years and see how things have changed. Now it is physically possible to attempt to keep details of a purchased product secret from its rightful owner, with a high barrier to discovery; though this is clearly at odds with common law property rights. And the rest of the world seems hell-bent on adopting US-style law.

What we basically need is a new law clarifying -- for it is not, by any leap of imagination, a new right, but dates back to the time before it was physically possible even to violate that right -- that the rightful owner of a piece of hardware is, by sole virtue of such ownership, automatically privy to {but may be bound to keep} any and every secret contained within that piece of hardware. For manufacturers to attempt to keep secrets from the very people who pay their wages is very broken, and should not be tolerated. There might be some predictable protest from manufacturers, upset at the though of competitors knowing their secrets -- but the chances are that your competitors have already reverse-engineered your secrets. (side note: should we try ATI for open source nVidia drivers?) Furthermore, there are such things as patents, which oblige other people to pay you money before they make any money out of your ideas (at least until such time as you ought to have made enough money out of them and now it's everyone else's turn) which actually can be used properly.

(Of course, such a law may turn out to be unnecessary: it is entirely conceivable that a future technological change will restore the situation where keeping secrets from your customers is impossible.)

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[LizardKing]

This is where Apple has traditionally worked, and it's been a strong position for them.

This may just be my experience, but I've found that in the UK studios are more likely to have PC's than a Mac. however, in the States the opposite appears to be true. I haven't seen an Atari ST in a professional studio since 1996 though ...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Saven Marek]

I was under the impression none of this is really necessary. After all ur working digitally, and can do all ur audio straight from what ur working on into a CD ISO.

Burn it to CD and their is the master, no AD/DA necessary

The Nets Biggest Adult Anime Gallery's [sharkfire.net]

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[pesc]

After all ur working digitally, and can do all ur audio straight from what ur working on into a CD ISO.

You need a professional soundcard because:

1) You may want to record good quality audio. Maybe from several sources simultaneously.

2) You may want to listen to what you are doing before burning a CD.

3) You need a professional soundcard with latency of a few ms (and good drivers) so that you can play a note on a MIDI keyboard and not having to wait half a second to hear it from your softsynth and effects.

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Marc2k]

1) You may want to record good quality audio. Maybe from several sources simultaneously.

That 'maybe' is an 'absolutely' if you're remotely thinking about recording drums. At that rate, even a decent 16-channel input is going to cost a few thousand.

Re:This is where Apple has traditionally worked

[Kiryat Malachi]

Your impression is wrong.

First, you need good A/Ds if you have *any* external instrumentation. If you're using hardware effects (and pros do) you'll need good D/As as well. I have *severe* doubts that the free plugins available will necessarily sound as good as some of the really nice ones from people like Waves or Universal Audio, and many still won't use those plugins, preferring to use outboard hardware (how much is an LA-1 going for these days? Anyone? Bueller?) And those plugins go for damn near

ardour?

[MancunianMaskMan]

anyone know how this compares (quality-wise, cpu-hunger-wise, functionality-wise) to ardour [ardour.org].

I can't try it out because my pII-233 is a bit weak...

Re:ardour?

[JohnWilliams]

Ardour is a hard disk recorder. Muse is a MIDI sequencer with some support for audio tracks. They are not competitive, but complementary.

Re:ardour?

[Elektroschock]

There is only one tool to compete with: http://www.pgmusic.com/bandbox.htm It is a user-centered product, not for professionals, for musicians. It features everything musicians really need.

Re:ardour?

[Pecisk]

Ardour is more Pro Tools, sound tweaking tool, as MusE is full audio/midi sequencer. I guess in future Ardour and MusE could be in battle for good meaning, but Ardour is more really for sound tweakage. I'm really getting more and more excited about Linux pro audio, as I have Ice1712 based (ALSA drivers fully support this cipset) sound card from Terratec EWS88MT. It rocks. And Jack and Ardour shows big improvements. Of coarse, there are still long road ahead for fully user friendly Linux audio studio which

Re:ardour?

[Unknown Lamer]

You can always run the output of a MuSE track into Ardour via JACK ;)

Re:ardour?

[rmull]

Can you sychronise the transport now? I tried that a few months ago, to no avail.

not Ardour but Rosegarden

[halfelven]

Muse is comparable with Rosegarden, not with Ardour.

Muse and Rosegarden are sequencers (MIDI and stuff), while Ardour is a DAW (digital multitrack sound recorder).

Pushing for multimedia power in Linux

[Zorilla]

We can all troll that Linux still has trouble supporting sound, decent system-wide hardware MIDI beyond KDE's aRTs MIDI (or a really nice software wavetable synth like WinGroove's), more-than-2 channel support for sound, and difficulties playing DVDs and WMV9 systems (which still seems impossible for the video portion even if the WMA2 stream plays), but I think this could be a push for improvements to all of the above.

(Wow, that was just one sentence)

Re:Pushing for multimedia power in Linux

[AliasTheRoot]

I'm happy to troll about it, I spent 2 days trying to get my soundcard working in Linux and eventually gave up and switched to the onboard sound chip, which breaks every other kernel release.

Re:Pushing for multimedia power in Linux

[FooBarWidget]

And my soundcard worked out-of-the-box after installation.

Which begs two questions..

[msimm]

Which sound card are you using?

Which distro?

Not all distros are alike, and some do a better job at configuring things for you. If you trying to write off Linux as a whole (how'd you get modded insightful?) you need to give at least a couple of actual details (otherwise as far as I'm concerned your a potentail Microsoftie out on FUD partrol).

Copies of the changelog

[djcapelis]

The slashdot effect is starting on the poor site and the database only allows 32 connections at one time... so I figured it would be best to post a copy of the news summaries that it digs out of the database: .7 and .7-PRE4 don't have much changed in the way of news. .7-PRE3

# Configuration and customization

* Shortcuts for 'arrowing around' in arranger added
* changed default start behaviour to open default.med template
* Lots of new icons ;-)
* A proposal for MusE logo (tell us what you think!)
* Autodetect of browser for help system

# MusE general:

* FluidSynth: added support for drum patches
* MusE now will not start if RTC is not available.
* show one more measure in pianoroll and drum editor
* list editor: implemented input mode for program change messages

# Fixed bugs:

* fixed: pitch bend handling and import fixed
* fixed: 'edit - delete track' hangs MusE - bug
* fixed: routing for stereo LADSPA plugins used in mono strips
* fixed: midi import problems
* auxSend chorusSend and reverbSend enabled in midi mixer strip if corresponding controllers are added
* implemented 'Add New Controller' in list editor / edit controller
* midi controller values now saved in .med file
* updated roland-XP30.idf instrument definition
* And a number of other bugs fixed (and added?)
* Also check the TODO for currently known issues. .7-PRE2

# Custom guis for plugins work again
# Splash screen
# LADCCA/LASH support updated
# Cleaned up shortcuts
# Single key shortcuts for edit tools
# Update marker list on tempo change
# Allow adding markers from the ruler with shift-click
# Metronom now sends proper note off events
# Clip list editor deaktivated
# After loading of template, treat current project as 'untitled'
# Song format changed due to bugfixes
# Shortcuts to bug reporting tool and homepage from help menu
# Updated AboutBox
# Fixed QT version check in m4/qt.m4
# And a number of other bugs
# Check the Changelog for a complete list of changes.
# Also check the TODO for currently known issues.

Me alone?

[ceeam]

Who else has read the title as SusE? This miscapitalization is silly.

I've been waiting for MIDI...

[no longer myself]

I've missed messing around with MIDI since I left MS Windows, but this still looks a little too tricky for a convert like me...

~~~ Requirements (paraphrased)
- QT: Qt 3.2.0 or above
- ALSA 0.9.x or newer (cvs)
- gcc 3.x.x
NOTE: you _must_ compile MusE with the same compiler you used to compile QT
- libsndfile 1.0.1 (current 1.0.4)
- Linux kernel with rtc (RealTimeClock) driver (device /dev/rtc)
- JACK
- fluidsynth-1.0.3 (formerly known as iiwusynth)
- of course: a soundcard and/or some midi gear
- (if you compile from cvs:) automake 1.7 and autoconf 2.54
~~~~

I don't even know "JACK", and just looking over these things I'd have to update every single one of these requirements except for the ones I don't even have installed in the first place. I guess I won't be installing this for a while... :-(

Sadly all my boxes have that on-board AC97 audio, and it has no hardware MIDI support at all. Otherwise, ALSA does a great job, and I never needed to configure anything for wave output. Just no MIDI.

(Side note: I never could get things like TiMIDIty to work right either... Guess, I'm just not quite geeky enough... yet.)

Re:I've been waiting for MIDI...

[infolib]

Wait till it comes out for your distro. Proprietary software is often written and packaged in the same company and they release nothing until installer etc. etc. is ready. Open source programs are often written and packaged by different persons, and the first person considers the program "released" when the tarball's ready.

Midi really ought to work though - even if you're not "geeky". What distro are you using?

Mandrake has no-brainer rpms...

[msimm]

If you happen to be using it or don't mind switching. You just need to set urpmi up to use alternative sources (you should always do this immediately).

Take a look: rpm.nyvalls.se [nyvalls.se]

To add this as root type:

urpmi.addmedia thacs.rpms http://rpm.nyvalls.se/10.0/RPMS with hdlist.cz

to add PLF and some other useful ones:

urpmi.org/easyurpmi/ [urpmi.org]

Looks like thac has already packaged Muse 0.7.0 along with a load of other sound related software. Good stuff. :)

Rosegarden

[javilon]

How does Muse compare to Rosegarden [rosegardenmusic.com]?

Re:Rosegarden

[Chris Cannam]

> How does Muse compare to Rosegarden?

Well, they're both audio and MIDI sequencers for Linux. They both support outboard MIDI gear, native Linux ALSA soft synths, and audio and transport synchronisation through JACK. Both look and feel somewhat like the big sequencers for other platforms. Both use Qt for their GUIs, though Rosegarden also uses the KDE libraries. I happen to think Rosegarden has the more polished GUI, but I'm biased (see disclaimer at bottom).

Both support arbitrary numbers of MIDI and audio tracks, with audio mixing and routing capabilities. Both support LADSPA effects plugins, of which there are hundreds available free. Both can (with some work!) be made to use VST effects through vstserver [notam02.no]. MusE can host VST instruments with libfst using Wine; either of them can drive VST instruments hosted separately using jack_fst [linuxaudiosystems.com]. None of these VST solutions is currently at all easy to configure and build, but see here for more information [djcj.org]. Rosegarden is implementing the DSSI synth API [sf.net] and will probably ultimately use a DSSI wrapper for VST instruments. Rosegarden can also be run without audio support if you only want MIDI or score, whereas MusE always requires JACK.

My rather fuzzy impression of the difference in "feel" between them is that MusE feels like it came more from a studio/MIDI gearhead background, Rosegarden more from a composition background. MusE is a bit further ahead with things like instrument plugins, audio routing (send/returns etc) and automation. Rosegarden places a lot more emphasis on the score editor, whereas the one that used to be in MusE was actually removed completely for the 0.7 release.

Rosegarden is a somewhat bigger and more complicated program than MusE (c 200K lines of code vs 130K LOC), which you may see as good or bad depending on whether the extra code happens to do stuff you want or not. They're both written in C++, should you happen to care.

On the subject of soundcard support: the usual quick answer is "it's probably supported unless it's FireWire or made by MOTU". In particular the current M-Audio, Terratec and RME semi-pro gear mostly works fine, as well as most consumer cards. The lack of FireWire audio device support currently is a pain though. Anyway, see the ALSA soundcard matrix [alsa-project.org] for detailed information.

(Disclaimer: I am a Rosegarden developer and, although I track MusE CVS, I have never actually managed to get MusE 0.7 to build because I don't have the right libraries and autotools. So do take all this with a pinch of salt.)

MOTU..

[Marc2k]

Out of curiosity why are MOTU cards not supported? A friend of mine uses a 24-channel I/O card of theirs, and I was just wondering.

Soundfont support?

[crivens]

Yes but does it support loadable and selectable Soundfonts with my SBLive! Value?

Yes, but...

[Ed Avis]

Does it run on SuSE?

Editing music without a MIDI keyboard

[ElMiguel]

My problem with MusE is that it has a Steinberg-style interface. I'm not proficient enough with a MIDI keyboard to use it for any serious work and trying to write a song with Steinberg's and MusE's mouse-based note input facilities is a nightmare.

Trackers, on the other hand, were designed to be nicely usable with only a keyboard and mouse, but ever since Impulse Tracker died I haven't found one to my liking.

I know of many trackers for Linux and Windows, but all of them are too unstable, their developme

Re:Editing music without a MIDI keyboard

[KodaK]

I haven't used it a whole lot, but Cheesetracker [reduz.com.ar] seems to fit the requirements you've listed.

HTH,

Close, but no cigar

[iamdrscience]

Good MIDI support, sequencers and virtual synths are all great stuff, but there is one hugely crucial element to "the linux studio" that's missing, and that's support for professional sound cards.

It's always been a bit of a trick to get sound working on Linux, but it's always getting easier too and most desktop oriented distros (i.e. Mandrake, Redhat, Suse) make it no problem in most cases, but there is really zero support for most of the established professional audio interfaces (i.e. Motu, Audigy, etc.). I've had a few friends adventurous to consider playing around with Linux audio programs, but when they ask if their $200 (and up) interfaces don't work and the best I can do is point them to the O'Reilly book on writing Linux drivers, it's (understandably) a real turn-off.

In summary: If anybody out there has the time and knowledge and is looking for a project, this is a great one. Work on writing drivers for the upper-crust interfaces. I'm sure there are even a few nerds out there willing to lend you their cards so that they can get a driver for it.

Re:Close, but no cigar

[zerblat]

[...]but there is really zero support for most of the established professional audio interfaces (i.e. Motu, Audigy, etc.).

The problem is that Motu haven't been willing to release necessary documentation. Audigy? Are you talking about Creative Labs's SoundBlaster Audigy? And using it in the same sentance as professional?

There is support in ALSA for decent audio hardware from e.g. RME (who have been very supportive of the ALSA developers), M-Audio, Echo and others. The problem is that many of the hardware

Re:Close, but no cigar

[mabinogi]

How is this the problem of the audio application?

It's definitely a problem for linux audio in general, but it's a little unfair to use it as a point against MusE.
Are you saying that they should give up until every MOTU card is supported out of the box on Linux?

Hell, even if SBLive! was the only audio card supported, then this application (and the other audio projects that seem to be maturing these days - JACK, Rosegarden, LADSPA, Ardour, etc) is still a great step forward for Linux audio.

You're not going

Re:Close, but no cigar

[Unknown Lamer]

A Sound Blaster Audigy is not a pro sound card (and that's a non-issue anyway because ALSA has working drivers for it anyway). A pro sound card is something like an M-Audio Delta 1010[-LT] or an RME Hammerfall which both have working drivers.

It's a lot of the low-end pro sound cards that aren't supported. Bug the manufacturers about releasing specs to the ALSA developers and maybe that problem will go away.

Re:Close, but no cigar

[marsu_k]

but there is one hugely crucial element to "the linux studio" that's missing, and that's support for professional sound cards

FWIW I have Audigy up and running, but that's hardly a card I'd call professional. So lets see... ALSA [alsa-project.org] currently supports several RME cards (with ADAT I/O), several M-Audio cards (most of which are 200$ and up) and some cards from SEK'D and Echo, for example. Granted this is not by any means a complete selection of pro audio cards, but you can get a pro card that'll work with Linux i

Re:Close, but no cigar

[Lumpy]

I've had a few friends adventurous to consider playing around with Linux audio programs, but when they ask if their $200 (and up) interfaces don't work and the best I can do is point them to the O'Reilly book on writing Linux drivers, it's (understandably) a real turn-off.

Of course, you're being an ass to them by playing the elitest RTFM! game.

Linux supports a WIDE range of professional sound recording cards. if you would have actually searched instead of acting like a snide know-it-all to your friends you would have known this....

Here, I'll help you...

Alsa sound card matrix. [alsa-project.org]

it shows support for the Sonorus medi/o and studi/o professional 24 channel recording cards.

Oh look it supports the RME hammerfall card 52 recording channels at 24bit resolution.

There are lots more supported, I leave it up to you to find the rest in the link above.

I strongly suggest you actually learn about the ALSA support of professional soundcards and the PRO MIDI interfaces.... the midiman usb midi devices are also well supported and used extensively by professionals. Handing out advice to people when you do not know the facts only spreads bad information.

and as always, find out what is supported and then go buy it. buying something at random and then hoping it is supported is always a silly thing to do.

Yamaha UX16 USB Midi works w/ Linux

[bach37]

This [music123.com] usb midi device to connect your midi keyboard works excellent in Linux. The module is snd-usb-audio. I've done all the midi-type applications (rosegarden, NoteEdit, etc) and this midi/usb works great. Plugged it in and it works.

Just wanted to make a post in case others might be interested.

Korg Triton Extreme USB Midi and USB Storage

[KodaK]

Just wanted to make a post in case others might be interested.

Well, in that case: my newest toy, a Korg Triton Extreme [korg.com] works too. It has a built in USB-MIDI interface and you can access the compact flash slot as usb-storage (the EX must be in usb-storage mode). I had to patch usbquirks.h in alsa to get it to work, but the changes have been added to CVS.

FWIW, I also have a Radium 61 key [maudio.co.uk] and a Midisport [maudio.co.uk] (this device is sold under many names) working just fine in Linux.

So, yeah, Linux audio isn't that p

Check out PlanetCCRMA

[theManInTheYellowHat]

There is a great deal of work that should be reviewed by anyone concidering Linux sound / video production and I am supprized that someone has not mentioned it yet.

Planet CCRMA [stanford.edu] is awesome! This is such a good start for everyone who says "I am not geeky enough to get {insert package here} working". I suspect that the FC2 iso's are close to coming out, the ones for FC1 are excelent. You basicly install FC and then there is a kernel iso and an app iso which installs most of the known linux sound apps. The mailing list is also quite active and the people very helpful.

Strong work from Fernando Lopez-Lezcano!!!

OT: Linux replacement for Cakewalk

[Zebbers]

I've used the cakewalk line of programs for years now and it's one of the few reasons I still run windows on one of my boxes....are there any replacements?

I have a dedicated box for it, so its highly unlikely Id ever switch unless it was as polished as CW.

Mac to Linux: "What took you so long?"

[poot_rootbeer]

The Linux-based studio is looming ever closer -- in fact, it's here!"

Great. But why would any pro or semi-pro studio migrate from the ProTools and OS X solution they almost certainly already have?

I think it's great that Linux supports tools powerful enough that they could conceivably be used to run a recording studio, but realistically I don't expect market penetration to be significant.

Terrible user interface

[caseih]

From the screenshot I see one thing immediately that I absolutely can't stand: little volume knobs that you have to "turn" with the mouse pointer. There cannot be a more lame widget to try to use in a mouse-based user-interface. Sure you can probably use the scroll wheel.

The entire interface looks cluttered and not well-suited for use along side our current GUI apps. There are reasons why certain things are and aren't done in GUIs. We can't always make our programs look just like the physical objects

Re:still no vst support...

[Queuetue]

Why would the use of WINE prevent low latency use? One more time, WINE is an implementation of the same win32 spec as MS Windows is - not a slow emulator. It therefore can and often does run just as fast as windows - and in some cases, faster.

Is the latency an educated userspace vs kernel space issue you can expand upon, or just a personal bias against WINE?

Re:still no vst support...

[nmoog]

I dont know who you were addressing that initial question to, but I do agree that VST support is (almost) essential to anyone wanting to do pro audio.

There are a couple of really decent attempts at using vst plugins under wine. Check this excellent tutorial from Dave Phillips [djcj.org]

I have got all my favourite VSTi and VST plugins going a treat thanks to this.

Now quit whinging.

Re:still no vst support...

[Kiryat Malachi]

I'd worry about the Waves authorization method breaking; last set I used was still dongle-authorized, I don't know if its changed since then, but its probably something equally noxious.

Re:still no vst support...

[mabinogi]

You know, I have no problem whatsoever not using a single VST plugin or VSTi instrument.

Though I do use plenty of DirectX plugins and DXi instruments.....

But Cakewalk's ability to get plugin developers to write DX plugins shows that there's nothing holy about VST...If linux starts to show promise in the DAW market, then there'll be commercial plugin developers writing LADSPA plugins soon enough. Though I'm not sure if anyone's come up with a virtual synth standard for Linux yet..(unless LADSPA also cover

Re:Thats nice

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

How about some of these super-star coders make things like simple audio work properly on Linux? Hands up if your soundcard doesn't work properly with ALSA, or aRts doesn't work properly

I have a shiny sixpence here that says you have a VIA, i8x0 or other such insanely bad integrated sound device.

I mean honestly, ALSA is usually nothing but flawless with any decent soundcard. Even the $15 SBLive works great. Granted, ALSA isn't the easiest thing to set up, but once it's done, it works. As for aRTs, well hmm,.. it's aRTs you know, but at least with a soundcard that supports hardware mixing, it won't tie your audio out.

Audio on Linux is a joke,

Traditionally that's true. But fortunately, some people want to improve it instead of just whining about it like you.

Oh and also, just so you know, your post was OT, since the article is about a MIDI sequencer, not PCM audio through the soundcard.

Re:Thats nice

[mccalli]

Oh and also, just so you know, your post was OT, since the article is about a MIDI sequencer, not PCM audio through the soundcard.

Not in this case - the article specifically references VST instruments. VST will be played through the sound card, so Linux sound card drivers and latencies are very important indeed in this case.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Thats nice

[superhoe]

I mean honestly, ALSA is usually nothing but flawless with any decent soundcard. Even the $15 SBLive works great.

Exactly, but let's go a bit further. Even the $15 card works fine - but $500 card doesn't. That's the main problem. There is a need to support the pro cards (with all features) until you can go pro with Linux audio.

I can definitely get my SBLive working with ALSA, but that's unfortunately not the card I produce with :P

Ok, ok, it's the manufacturers..

Re:Thats nice

[13Echo]

Agreed. And anyone that says that audio on Linux is a joke needs to have their head checked. Not only is the latency lower than Windows, but the ALSA/Jack subsystem is becoming more functional than DirectX in many respects.

If people would stop buying crappy integrated chips, they'd realize that Linux audio is certainly not a joke. It may not be perfect yet, but in a few years it will be THE system for audio. The framework is already there. We simply need more support from hardware manufacturers.

Re:Thats nice

[jimicus]

We simply need more support from hardware manufacturers.

Unfortunately, the manufacturers are saying "we can do this but to justify it we need more users". Circular dependencies, anyone?

Re:Thats nice

[mabinogi]

No, _MOTU_ are not ready for linux, that's their problem (and their customers')

But there are [rme-audio.com] pro audio sound cards made by companies that actually support Linux.

Not that I'm suggesting you go and change your setup just so that you can run Linux. I can't see any sense in that myself, if your current setup works fine, there's no point in messing with it.
But don't make the blanket claim that it's not ready just because your brand doesn't support it.

Re:Thats nice

[ignatus]

Audio on Linux is a joke

No it's not. Allright, not every soundcard is fully covered. And yes, that's mostly the manufacturers fault for not revealing the specifications and refusing to implement a driver themselves.

But on the other hand, unlike windows, linux has a lot more configuration options. Some year ago, i usually argued that my live! soundblaster just sounded _better_ in windows. Until i discoverd i could costomize the build-in 5-band equalizer in linux (i didn't even know it was there because w

Re:Linux + Guitar

[ptaff]

In addition to the audio/MIDI editing stuff that Muse now has, I'm looking for some decent guitar-oriented analog effects

This would have to be pipelined in Jack. As you'd put your pedals between your guitar and your amp, you'd put a software soundeffect program between the input source and MusE, via Jack. One of the available pipeline filters is JACK Rack [arb.bash.sh], which does what you want.

Re:Linux + Guitar

[ScottGant]

Also, for the couple dozen linux guitarists that are out there: what does everyone out there use to reduce hiss in the incoming guitar signal?

I'm a traditionalist and just mic it off my Twin Reverb and I'm really not standing anywhere near my monitor when I'm playing anyway. But then again, I'm usually playing the LP which has the buckers on it so there is no hum....but when I strap the Tele on I practically have to stand in the next room. But you can't beat that twang!

As I said, I'm a traditionalist and

Re:Interesting

[Tarential]

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/lmuse/muse-0.7. 0.tar.bz2?download .tar.bz2 - good enough?

Re:VSTi support??

[wulfhound]

In theory this allows all Windows VSTs to work. In practice compatibility is somewhat less than 100% due to bugs in the VSTis themselves, or lack of support for nasty things like PACE copyprotection drivers which quite a few VSTs (including, I think, TC) use.

Re:VSTi support??

[spamatica]

It works through the wonders of the beautiful projects Wine [winehq.org] and libfst [linuxaudiosystems.com]. So, basically all your favourite plugs are compatible.

Though this technology is still quite young, your milage will vary (it works better than expected though). Eventually all plugs will work!