[cayenne]

Hello all!

I'm quite a noob to the guitar, recording and the forum, but, I like jumping in and learning a bunch of stuff at once.

I was inspired by reading the thread about the FREE 16 track home recording studio, that was all MS based.

I dabbled in this once on a computer I lost to Katrina..and almost had it working, but, am going to try again soon.

This software is all truly free...and open source...runs on Linux. I use Gentoo Linux (www.gentoo.org). Although I have heard that there are tweaks and patches to the linux kernel developed expressedly for low latency...There's an article here (http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...w_latency.html) about this.

Anyway, the tools I'm looking at for this project are:

Ardour: Diginal Audio Workstation
http://ardour.org/

Rosegarden: audio and midi sequencer..etc
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

Hydrogen: Drum Machine
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/

Audacity: Recording/editing tool
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

JACK: Low latency audio server to tie it all together
http://jackaudio.org/

All of these are available for Linux...many can be run on mac's too....

Anyway, I just would prefer to go the open source route...for many reasons, but, at the end, I figure once I really learn what I'm doing and how this all works, I might be able to tweak this since I have the source at hand..and possibly contribute back to the community. But, that's a LONG way off...I've still gotta learn to play guitar.

:-)

Anyway, just thought I'd start off this thread to see if there were any others here that were using Linux...or even OSX, and had played with these open source applications, or were planning to give them a try. I'll try to report back as I get time to learn things and put a system together. I'm still trying to settle down and find a home post Katrina ...so, still a little scattered...but, I'm trying to find time for the guitar again!

Nice to meet ya'll,

cayenne

[Smurf42]

Hello, fellow Linux user here of 6 years off and on (Mepis - Xandros)

Take a peek at Studio To Go. I have not had the chance to grab the download, but this distro looks interesting. And I don't have any problems paying for a Linux distro that has been put together and tweaked for me, I am getting to the point I just want to sit down and write/record some tunes. I have done all the make/ root stuff I care to at this point.

Ardour is really a strange one to get your head around, but it is a usable DAW with a lot of features. I have used Rosegarden off and on since it was knee high to a penguin, but it seems more towards the "composer" type. I am a drummer - bass - guitar solo band.

Hydrogen with the ns_kit sounds is a nice setup. Audacity is very workable up to 6 or 8 tracks, then it starts having "issues" for me on my 1.2 AMD with 640mb memory, a G-Force 64mb AGP card, and a Darla20 PCI card. Jack is THE piece of software that is going to make Linux the one to use for audio, this is a nice piece of software.

Here are some other links I check out once a week to see if anything is cooking.....

http://sound.condorow.net/ (this one kicks I think...)

http://protux.sourceforge.net/index.php

http://loss.access-space.net/

http://jacklab.net/

Also, tho unrelated, I just ran across this little distro 2 weeks ago called GeeXboX. It is a 8mb ISO download. You burn it to CD and reboot your system. It loads into memory, ejects the disk, and you have the Linux equivalent of the windows media OS, only this one works 100%, at least so far. It has played everything that I have thrown at it, including DVD's with most of the menus available, and all of my Quicktime clips (they play better on GeeXboX than they do on Quicktime on my system mentioned above).

Hope this helps in some way, and Enjoy The Journey!

[737blues]

Thanks both Cayenne and Smurf, very useful list of links. Running Ubuntu on a Mac powerbook and Fed. core 5, Debian, (or whatever distro's the mags are carrying this month) on a couple of often re-partitioned dual-boot desktops, so I am keen to have a look at some of those links ....... looks like my plan to invent the 36 hour day just became the 48 hour day. I wish! Now, if I can just find another spare box kicking around here somewhere, GeeXbox sounds very juicy!

[joe_strummer]

Thnx guys for the links, i use pc linux, and suse on occasions, always wondered if there was software for recording, many thnx

[Smurf42]

Your welcome folks, and I hope you find something you can use!

I forgot to mention in my post that I have also used DeMudi 1.2.2. and altho it worked OK I just did not like Gnome. I have also used Turn Key Linux and Planet CCRMA, and they both were OK also, plus all 3 of these are "ready to go" and free.

Have Fun!

[fly135]

"Take a peek at Studio To Go."

It appears that you have to boot this from a CD and write your files to a flashdrive. Weird.

[cayenne]

Originally Posted by Smurf42

Your welcome folks, and I hope you find something you can use!

I forgot to mention in my post that I have also used DeMudi 1.2.2. and altho it worked OK I just did not like Gnome. I have also used Turn Key Linux and Planet CCRMA, and they both were OK also, plus all 3 of these are "ready to go" and free.

Have Fun!

Well, just remember, you don't have to use gnome, to use gnome applications. You just have to have the gnome libraries...but, they can be run under KDE or any other window manager you wish...

HTH,
cayenne

[cayenne]

Also, if you have any Line6 gear like the PodXT, some Linux related drivers and apps are starting to appear:

http://llg.cubic.org/tools/qtpod/

http://www.tanzband-scream.at/line6/ (USB driver for PodXT)

I'm working on rebuilding a MythTV HDTV media box, but, when finished with that, I'm gonna turn my sights on an 'artistic' box, one with a DAW (digital audio workstation), as well as some good tools for general audio/visual creation and editing capabilities. That should make for a fun project.

Hopefully by then, I'll have learned my 4th chord, and have something to record.

:-)

Cayenne

[dougp23]

Hey Cayenne. Started using Linux in 2000, really great stuff. And the fact that there are no silly license issues to fall into, makes it even better!

Linux Journal usually has some good stuff:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7205

Newsforge also has an excellent article on this:

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?.../10/20/1418231

As far as low latency in the kernel, I think Robert Love incorporated all that at some point in the high 2.4 series, but any 2.6 kernel should def have it.

I do find that I am tinkering less on the computer and more on the guitar!
By all means, let us all know how it turns out! My last distro I loaded was Suse 10.1, very nice, although all the MP3 stuff was stripped out due to patent issues. Ugh.

[krissovo]

Myth TV is great and I run mine using Red Hat as I am a certified Red Hat System engineer. I am looking at a Linux setup for my using with my guitar's but I dont think there is quite enough out there just yet. I honestly think most programers who like playing guitar spend their free time playing and programing. Mind you after seeing some of the line up on here I might just have a play

[krissovo]

Originally Posted by krissovo

I am looking at a Linux setup for my using with my guitar's but I dont think there is quite enough out there just yet.

Just dragging this up again as I am now officially fed up with windoze, two of my PC's at home are a pain in backside to do anything anymore so tonight is the night I switch to a Linux only setup.

Wish me luck

[fly135]

Good Luck! I do embedded Linux programming at work with cross compile tools running on a SUSE system. The number of obstacles I run into working with Linux never ends. Maybe I'll try installing some of these audio programs to see how easy it is.

[krissovo]

Thanks for the support, ubunto have released a studio version called ubuntostudio designed for digial artists. I ran a cd version that found all my hardware so I guess its time to switch.

[twilli227]

krissovo, where did you find the cd version, all I see is the dvd download. Unfortunately, I don't have a dvd rom yet.

And for those that want to check it out:
Ubuntu Studio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[krissovo]

It didn't work in the end so I am now the proud user of Ubuntu and i installed the music packages separately.

I had great fun with jokosher, its similar to garage band. The install was very easy, ran it from the cd first and it found 100% of my hardware. Even easier than XP!!!!!