Linux Audio Studio

New Track (Freitag-regen)

2012-01-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Samples only this time, mostly percussion. I wanted to get a 'glassy' feel. Created in Renoise a while back, but haven't got round to sharing until now.

http://soundcloud.com/ambientzoo/freitag-regen

Bitwig Studio

2012-01-17T14:54:00.000-08:00

Have you seen this yet?

http://bitwig.com/bitwig_studio.php

An exciting development in Linux Audio!

Still lovin' Arch

2011-12-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

I've been very impressed with Arch linux, it's my favourite distro so far. Stability is great, and the audio is still rock solid.

I'm working on some new tracks at the moment, it's great to be back making tunes again.

Renoise 2.8 hits beta

2011-12-10T17:05:00.001-08:00

Looks good! http://www.renoise.com/release-notes/280

Quiet summer...

2011-11-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Haven't done much during the summer, but now the nights are drawing in, it's time to get back to work!

I had a brief visit to windows 7, 64-bit. I was curious about performance, and was suitably non-plussed. I even tried it after expanding the RAM in my laptop (8gig...) It was OK, but I missed the linux environment, so I'm back on my favourite platform (arch 64-bit) and back to messing about with some audio stuff.

I did have some issues with xruns recently, but now stability is rock solid. I did two things: firstly I unplugged my usb audio interface before installing linux, and secondly I added nohz=off to my kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst (as noted in the Ardour forums).

So far I haven't had a single xrun! I'm running 10.7ms latency (256, 2 periods, 48K sample rate). I think I shall try for a lower latency and see how it goes.

Sequencing windows VSTs with linux Renoise

2011-09-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

Gasp! Sacrilege! But the challenge is there (and it's a bit of a no-brainer really).

People do like to use windows VSTs in wine, and many plugins work very well. I like to use Renoise a fair bit, and it would be nice to run a handful of my old windows plugins occasionally. DSSI-VST is one option, but currently has some limitations and instability issues.

Luckily, we can do a 'linux rewire' job by hosting the plugins in Reaper (which is wonderfully stable running in wine).

So why not glue the two together? Here's how.

1) Ensure JACK is running
2) Open renoise and reaper
3) In reaper preferences ensure MIDI-THROUGH-PORT-x is enabled
4) In your renoise track select MIDI THROUGH PORT-x as the instrument
5) In reaper, create a track, add instrument and select Midi Input MIDI THROUGH PORT as the midi input (the same as your renoise instrument). Arm the track.
6) Program your sequence into your renoise track. Hit Play in renoise!

Make sure you set track monitoring on in Reaper, otherwise you won't hear anything!

To use D16 plugins such as Phoscyon or Drumazon, ensure Host Mode is selected if you wish to use the internal sequencer (you can trigger notes without using the instrument's sequencer too).

You can control up to 16 tracks in this way. To control additional VSTs in reaper, just add another MIDI THROUGH PORT, but select a different midi channel. Of course make sure the input channel in reaper matches what you select in renoise!

But why bother? Why not just use reaper, or try working the windows version of renoise under wine?

Well, this technique is handy for incorporating a wider range of instruments into your projects; or you might want to record a renoise track into a reaper track. Another option is to use this setup to sample instruments in reaper to create renoise instruments (or audio samples) as you might do with regular stand-alone linux synths.

Just another technique to use, really.

Installing linux on new laptop

2011-08-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

I managed to get some cash together for a new laptop. I bought a Lenovo B570, which came pre-loaded with windows 7 64-bit. After running it in for a week or two it was time to look for some linux to install on it.

Had a little bit of trouble getting wifi to work on some distros (mint 11, crunchbang, AVLinux), but in the end I had to black list a module (acer_wmi), and run rtkill.

In the end I settled on installing Arch linux (www.archlinux.org) . I tried it out briefly a while back, so I knew what to expect. Installation was straightforward (wireless worked straight away). Only problem was the memory card reader, but I found a driver for that and now it works fine.

So... I'm running XFCE over an Arch install, 2.6.39 with rtirq daemon running. All the usual applications are there; and I even installed Reaper in wine, which is running well.

Time to get back into the (virtual) studio.

Creating music using only Open Source software

2011-06-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

I normally use Renoise, sometimes Reaper, but haven't completed a track in Reaper in years. It's good for noodling around with VST plugins.

More recently I've been playing with various open source applications, most notably the Yoshimi synth. I really should have a go at doing something using only open source applications - not that Renoise is the music tracker of the Devil for being closed/commercial of course! But it would make a nice change to try.

There seems to be more interest in the open source music world these days, and that can only be a good thing. With qtractor developing nicely, and ardour 3.0 progressing well - just to name two examples - linux musicians have never had it so good.

To be honest I don't think I'd ever get into this if it wasn't for linux. That fateful day I finally got JACK working, and fired up amsynth..... the next thing I did was go into ebay, searched for 'synthesiser' - I guess you know the rest.

AVLinux 5 Released

2011-06-20T16:40:00.001-07:00

AVLinux version 5 has hit the wires... more information here:

http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

Akaizer Project

2011-06-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

From the website:

Akaizer is a freeware application for Windows / Mac OS X / Linux which can time stretch and/or pitch shift any WAVE or AIFF sound file in the style of the 'cyclic' time stretch, which featured on old Akai sound samplers, like the S950 / S1000 / S2000 / S3000 series. This is ideal for DAW-based music producers who want that classic metallic-sounding effect, as used in many old school Hardcore / Jungle / Speed Garage tunes from the 1990s, without the need for an actual Akai sampler.

Click Here: http://akaizer.blogspot.com/

AV Linux 5.0 Released

2011-06-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

AV Linux 5.0 has been released.

Here's the link for more info.

http://www.remastersys.com/forums/index.php?topic=1469.msg8124#msg8124

"Ambient Synth?"

2011-04-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

I typed ambient synth into google expecting to find some music sites to listen to. Well, yes I know it was a bit of a vague search term, I should know better.

What I got back was a load of websites discussing VST plugins, and sites where "ambient synth" VSTs can be downloaded.

Very little on the hardware front... (actually none on the first page).

That might well be due to software plugins ruling the roost these days. Or there might be another reason. People get fixed on what presets a plugin has. Or "which is the best synth for this type of music" (perhaps what they really mean is "what synth has 1000 presets for xyz-core?")

Thinking about hardware, a synth is just a synth. It's an instrument and it doesn't care what genre you use it for (naturally, the same applies for software too!)

Some synths do tend to favour certain genres over others, but I suspect up until 10 or 15 years ago that wasn't by design.

Back then it was "can my synth do good bass/leads/pads/fx/strings/brass/piano?" Nowadays questions are more like "which plugin can make me sound like ?"

Funny how perceptions change with technology. Or maybe it's more to do with marketing?

Cool Linux Music Blog

2011-04-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

One for the bookmarks... this is a very nice linux music blog, some good tutorials and music tracks here.

http://wootangent.net/

New Tune

2011-04-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

'Sun Dogs', created in Renoise using a few 606 and 707 drum samples, and 3 instances of TAL noisemaker...

http://soundcloud.com/ambientzoo/sun-dogs

HarmonySEQ Midi Sequencer

2011-04-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Now this looks like a cool piece of software! "HarmonySEQ is a loop-based midi software sequencer intended to help music composers and performers"

http://harmonyseq.wordpress.com/

Demo videos available on Youtube:

DIN Is Noise

2011-04-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

Now *this* is cool! DIN (Din Is Noise) is a great software instrument for drones, and all manner of crazy sounds.

http://dinisnoise.org/

Linux Music Articles

2011-04-03T03:53:00.000-07:00

I came across these, which you might find interesting.

http://louigiverona.ru/?page=projects&s=writings&t=linux

The article on live setup got my attention - especially the discussion of "learn two synths really well" - whilst choice is good, it is better to find fewer synths and learn them really well!

Here's a direct link to the article:

http://louigiverona.ru/?page=projects&s=writings&t=linux&a=linux_electronic

Whilst limitation can be an advantage, it would be nice to have that limitation by choice, rather than have it imposed - luckily these days linux users do have a better range of audio software to choose from, and at least we don't waste our time trawling through hundreds of useless freebie VSTs...

But also, in terms of hardware - skilled application of a couple of good instruments is better than a room full of cheap synths!

Phasex Synth

2011-04-03T03:36:00.001-07:00

Remember the Phasex synth? Well, it hasn't quite gone away! The project is being hosted at a new website, here: http://disabled.github.com/phasex-dev/index.html

New Music Tracks

2011-03-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

I have posted some new music to my Bandcamp account.

http://ambientzoo.bandcamp.com/album/peripheral-vision

All made with Renoise, Paulstretch, JACK and linux!

Setting up Softsynths for Renoise

2011-03-16T14:26:00.001-07:00

Renoise supports LADSPA, DSSI and native VST (no LV2 as yet)

DSSI and LADSPA plugins are generally available from software repositories so they can be downloaded and installed quite easily (for example on Debian-based systems you can search for them in synaptic.

VST instruments aren't often found in repos so you need to install them manually. Here's a quick and easy way to install native linux VSTs.

First make a suitable directory to store the files. For example you can make a vst folder in your home directory using a file manager or from the command line:

mkdir ~/vst

Some users keep their vst folder hidden, so in this case you'd enter mkdir ~/.vst

Other useful locations for your folder might be /usr/lib/vst or /usr/local/lib/vst If you don't have a VST_PATH environment variable set up then renoise will check these folders (along with ~/.vst - note this is dot vst) by default. This means you don't have to worry about setting up VST_PATH.

Once your folder is set up, copy the plugins (library files, ending in .so) into your plugin folder.

Next, start Renoise and go to edit... preference to bring up the preferences dialog. Click on the plugin icon on the left and ensure the VST checkbox is ticked. Click on the 'rescan' button and Renoise should find your softsynths.

They will appear in the instrument settings tab at the bottom of the screen (that's where you'll find your DSSI plugins too).

On my system I have the TAL plugins Vex VST, and the demo version of Loomer Aspect and DiscoDSP's Discovery (I intend to purchase licences when funds permit!); plus a number of DSSI synths (X-Synth, WhySynth, Calf Monosynth, Calf Organ and Hexter).

Renoise 2.7 Beta

2011-03-13T04:17:00.001-07:00

Renoise 2.7 beta has been announced. The update includes enhancements to the sampler (including velocity layers and improved instrument handling).

More info here: http://www.renoise.com/release-notes/270

TAL Plugins Updated

2011-03-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

The linux compiles of the TAL plugins have been updated. They are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. I've used them a fair bit on my latest project, and they are behaving themselves very well.

Great to see these plugins available on Linux!

Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/kxstudio/files/VST/tal-plugins_0.4.tar.gz/download

More information about these plugins at http://kunz.corrupt.ch

New Soundcloud Link

2011-03-06T03:36:00.000-08:00

My stuff has a new home at soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/ambientzoo

Crunchbang and audio

2011-01-09T05:54:00.001-08:00

If you're interesting in crunchbang for audio use, here's a couple of useful threads from the forum:

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/5396/and-the-rt-kernel/

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/7721/turning-the-desktop-into-a-pro-audio-studio-computer/

Crunchbang!

2011-01-09T05:29:00.001-08:00

Been having some trouble running plugins on renoise using Mint 10. Xruns all over the place :(

I decided to look around at lightweight distros to see if that would help. AVLinux was very nice, but I'm not sure about the remastersys thing. Anyway, to cut a long story short I gave Crunchbang a go, liked what I saw and promptly installed it.

The latest crunchbang is based on Debian squeeze, includes a lightweight windows environment (openbox, but there's also an XFCE iso available), and no pulseaudio ;-)

After installing the distro I was able to get Jack, Wine, a bunch of plugins (DSSI, LADSPA and LV2) as well as my usual favourite audio apps (Hydrogen, etc).

I had previously run the Renoise demo using the live CD and it worked a treat. I've got Renoise 2.6.1 up and running, completed with the aforementioned plugins plus a couple of native VSTs. No problems encountered so far, I'm happy to report.

The only thing I haven't done yet is install a realtime kernel. I don't think there's currently one available for squeeze, but one of the earlier releases might do it. I tried the pengutronix kernel (as suggested on the crunchbang forum), but my machine wouldn't boot up!

Edit: OK, so I fouled up... next time install the headers too! I re-installed 2.6.33.7.2-rt30.i686 from synaptic, and it seems to be working well.

Crunchbang can be found at http://crunchbanglinux.org/

Final "Theta Meditation" ambient track

2010-12-07T15:35:00.001-08:00

Made in Renoise using Whysynth, Calf Monosynth, TAL Noisemaker plus a couple of samples from Freesound. Effects are a mix of renoise DSPs, Calf and Linux DSP plugins.

http://soundcloud.com/ambientzoo/crystalline-shores

Prevent Pulseaudio from Crashing under Realtime Kernels

2010-12-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

Just found this great tip at the KXStudio website. If you are running pulseaudio, including the JACK plugin and you have an RT kernel here's a fix for any intermittent crashes you might get with pulseaudio:

create a file ~/.pulse/daemon.conf

Add the following line to the file:

rlimit-rttime=-1

(note two t's in rttime!)

Togu Audio Line (TAL) Plugins now available in Native Linux Formats

2010-11-30T16:10:00.000-08:00

You may have heard of TAL plugins (www.kunz.corrupt.ch); they have a set of great freeware VST plugins.

Included in the pack are the Noisemaker synth, dub delay, filter and reverb.

Download link:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kxstudio/files/VST/tal-plugins_0.2.tar.gz/download

Running audio through JACK without pulseaudio

2010-11-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

OK so it's fine to connect pulseaudio to JACK, but what if you run into problems with PA dropping out? Or you don't want to use pulseaudio? There's still a workaround; here's some techniques you could use.

First, switch off pulseaudio in your sound system (Settings... Session and Startup.... Autostart Applications on XFCE in Mint 10).

Next ensure you install ALSA-JACK plugin (available in synaptic). Next you need to create a file ~/.asoundrc and add the following code:

pcm.!default {

type plug

slave { pcm "jack" }

}

pcm.jack {

type jack

playback_ports {

0 alsa_pcm:playback_1

1 alsa_pcm:playback_2

}

capture_ports {

0 alsa_pcm:capture_1

1 alsa_pcm:capture_2

}

ctl.mixer0 {

type hw

card 0

}

Save the file, reboot and away you go. Any applications that use ALSA will now be routed into JACK using the alsa-jack plugin. I tested this using gnome mplayer and it worked fine. It works great with your web browser too, so youtube etc should work nicely.

I tried setting up rhythmbox to use JACK/alsa too, but with no luck. So I installed aqualung instead, which has direct support for JACK.

Online music production software - Soundation

2010-11-21T13:26:00.001-08:00

Just read an article in Music Tech magazine about collaborative working. I've discovered a great application that runs inside your web browser. You can try it without signing up (seems to be limited to four tracks)... sign up is free, but you can purchase additional sound files and so on.

Tried it in Chromium and Firefox. Works a treat, and is great fun.

http://www.soundation.com/

Another take on Pulseaudio via Jack

2010-11-13T01:26:00.001-08:00

http://danielnouri.org/notes/2009/6/9/pulseaudio-through-jack-on-jaunty

JACK, VLC and GStreamer

2010-11-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

Some good info here: http://www.goplexian.com/2010/02/setting-up-jack-audio-for-gstreamer.html

Low Latency Kernel for Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat 10.10

2010-11-12T13:23:00.001-08:00

Here's a link on how to get low latency / realtime kernel on Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat. I'm going to try this on Mint 10 too. I'll report back with results.

http://jackschnippes.freeunix.net/index.php/2010/11/04/lowlatency-kernel-and-realtime-kernel-for-ubuntu-10-10-maverick

2010-10-31T04:22:00.000-07:00

The axonlib library is a C++ developer framework for building linux and windows VST and LADSPA plugins. It's good to see pluging development support for linux and will hopefully see more interest in developing for this platform.

http://code.google.com/p/axonlib/

Martin Eastman reverb is a good example of a plugin developed with this library. http://martineastwood.com/wordpress/?p=169

Linux seems to have a reasonably good range of effects plugins, but is lacking in instruments. It would be nice if some of the classic freeware synth plugins (synth1, etc) were ported over, or if more freeware developers embraced open source.

MIDI VST plugins

2010-10-31T04:21:00.001-07:00

These might prove useful...

http://www.s-production.de/index_vst.html

http://www.thepiz.org/pizmidi/

Renoise 2.6 pre-release

2010-10-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Release candidates of renoise 2.6 are now available from www.renoise.com

Yes I'm a renoise fan!

It's been quiet of late.... not had much time for posts, but now the dark nights are drawing in, I should be back in front of the keyboard (computer *and* music!)

Looking forward to seeing linux mint 10 soon.

New Track... Landfall

2010-09-04T09:08:00.001-07:00

Landfall by stephenirwin

Martin Eastwood MVerb for Linux

2010-08-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

The MVerb reverb plugin is now available in LADSPA and VST native linux....

http://martineastwood.com/wordpress/

Here's a demo:

Dr Who

2010-08-22T17:25:00.000-07:00

Messing about in Renoise....

http://soundcloud.com/stephenirwin/drwho

Solar Tides

2010-08-22T17:23:00.001-07:00

http://soundcloud.com/stephenirwin/solar-tides

Waterside

2010-08-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Improvisation on Yamaha AN1x then edited with some sound fx....

http://soundcloud.com/stephenirwin/waterside

Edit: Tried embedding the player, but it said track unavailable....

Me on Soundcloud

2010-08-22T16:20:00.001-07:00

I decided to set up a Soundcloud account. It's nothing special, I'm no pro! But I set the account up to help motivate myself and as a personal challenge to keep going and hopefully learn something along the way.

There's a couple of tracks already... I really need to sort out my rendering levels, maybe they are a little quiet. But my excuse is "hey, it's ambient!" But really, I should keep learning!!

http://soundcloud.com/stephenirwin

D16 Plugins and DSSI-VST

2010-08-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I successfully ran Phoscyon, Nepheton, Drumazon and Devastor using dssi-vst. These are commercial plugins from D16 (www.d16.pl) I haven't tried any other of their plugins yet.

I used Linux Mint 8 running dssi-vst as installed in the last posting, also running JACK 1.96 (I suppose JACK 0.118 should be fine too) and WINE 1.2.

DSSI-VST on Linux Mint

2010-08-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted to install dssi-vst (the dssi plugin that lets you run some windows vst's in linux), but I had some dependency issues. The package wanted certain versions of JACK and WINE installed, but I already have more recent versions; I didn't want to roll them back for the sake of one program.

Annoying isn't it?

The trick is to download the .deb file and install it using dpkg with the --ignore-depends flag. So I used this command:

sudo dpkg -i --ignore-dependencies=libjack0, wine1.0 dssi-vst_0.8-2ubuntu2_i386.deb

You might have to add more package names to the ignore-depends argument depending (ouch!) on what other packages you have installed. The above is what I needed to do.

Once installed I can run vsthost

I will list some compatible windows plugins as I go along. I wanted to install this package in anticipation of using it in the forthcoming Renoise 2.6 which of course has dssi support.

You can get the .deb package here:
http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/packages/show/246950

KR Reverb

2010-08-13T01:06:00.001-07:00

Another free linux reverb vst....

http://www.kresearch.com/Free-Series.htm#microverb

Novation Launchpad + linux

2010-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Novation Launchpad with Linux? Here's how....

http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?showtopic=26229

Renoise 2.6 DSSI, 64 Bit Linux and Scripting

2010-07-21T14:24:00.001-07:00

Renoise 2.6 has hit public beta....

http://www.renoise.com/about/what-s-new-2-6/

Linux users can look forward to DSSI plugin support, improved performance and 64-bit version. Other attractions include autoseek, OSC support, Lua scripting

Script contributions have begun already. There's an arpeggiator amongst them :)

http://tools.renoise.com/browse

Mu.Lab in Linux - issues

2010-07-04T04:31:00.000-07:00

I've had a play with Mu.Lab running under wine. There were problems with the patch menu with VSTs displayed, but if wine is run in a window its OK.

Unfortunately there were some more serious issues. I tried TAL Bassline and elec7ro synths, trying to swap out the synths on the instrument rack caused Mu.Lab to crash out. It seems Reaper is still the best option for running windows vst in linux, or maybe the windows edition of energyXT might work nicely too?

Mu.Lab in Linux

2010-07-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

I've just been playing with the free edition of MuLab. If you need to run windows VST and don't need the power of Reaper, or you want something other than Energy XT then Mu Lab looks like a good contender.

The free version is available for download from http://www.mutools.com/downloads.html It is limited to four tracks, but is worth checking out.

I've just had a quick play with it using D16's Phoscyon (TB303l), Nepheton (TR808) and Drumazon (TR909). Two 303's and two drum machines, instant acid studio! OK so you have to pay for the D16 plugins, but they are a LOT cheaper than the original hardware!

Needless to say, you'll need wine, and wineasio to get the most out of this.

Linux Musicians Forum

2010-06-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

Here we are, the Linux Musician's forum :)

http://www.linuxmusicians.com/

Linux Audio Essentials Part 1

2010-06-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

This posting was written as a reference for someone who asked a question (you know who you are Mr W!)

Linux Recording / Daw Software
http://www.ardour.org/ - the mission is to be the Pro Tools of linux. Here's your multitrack recorder

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ - audio and midi, specialises in music notation through lilypond

http://qtractor.sourceforge.net/qtractor-index.html Looks promising. Audio and midi

http://muse-sequencer.org/index.php/Main_Page - another one to keep an eye on

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ supports multi track. More an audio editor than DAW

Commercial
www.renoise.com - my favourite, nice price and free demo. Native linux, plus the windows edition works with wine (for windows VSTs if you have to!)

www.energy-xt.com Native linux or windows versions

www.reaper.fm windows only, but works very well with wine and an RT-Kernel.

For the windows stuff you'll need wineasio low latency driver which in turn needs JACK. But if you're doing audio you'll have JACK!

http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ - Extreme Time Stretch. Fabulous bit of software especially for ambient soundscape stuff.

I'll do a list of synths and other utils later.

Pad Controller for Renoise

2010-05-06T15:28:00.000-07:00

I've got a few pennies to spend, so I'm considering purchasing a suitable midi pad controller for renoise. The idea is that I can turn renoise into a kinda virtual electribe :) (since my EM-1 died of knob jitter.... or maybe it happened when I er... dropped it...)

I'll report back soon :)

Firefox 3.6 install

2010-04-17T00:59:00.001-07:00

You might come across firefox 3.6 latest beta in the repos. Do not upgrade to the latest beta here! It crashes when flash videos are played.

Instead download the stable firefox 3.6 archive from the mozilla website.

Unpack the file and put the firefox directory somewhere useful (I put mine in /opt). Then in a terminal cd /usr/bin and change the symbolic link to your new version:

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox firefox

Then you should be able to run 3.6 :)

New Linux VST plugin

2010-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

http://soledadpenades.com/projects/sorollet/

Simple additive monophonic synthesiser, based on two oscillators, a noise generator, volume and pitch ADSR envelopes and some basic filtering.

An exporter can convert Renoise songs to .h (C include files) that can be used in the stand-alone player, for intros, demos, games or anything that comes to mind.

Yoshimi (Zynaddsubfx) Synth

2010-04-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

Yoshimi is a synth based on Zynaddsubfx 2.4, but with better performance under JACK and improved alsa/midi handling.

I downloaded the source, and after installing a number of dependencies (all from packages) I got the synth up and running.

Definitely worth giving it a shot. For more information visit http://yoshimi.sourceforge.net/

Now, one thing I do like about this synth (and the original Zynaddsubfx of course), is the render to WAV function. This is great if you're a fan of renoise - sample the synth and import it into renoise either as a sample, or to create a new instrument.

Obligatory Studio Pic

2010-04-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here we go!

I'm still waiting on getting a new mixer, the old one packed in a long time ago. Hardware-wise, there's a Roland SH-09, Yamaha AN1x and a Novation Nova desktop. Not in pic are kaoss pad 3 and electribe EM.

Pause For Thought

2010-04-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

I've posted a fair amount on getting Linux Mint 8 set up for audio work. The actuall effort of completing all these steps should only take an hour or two (depending on download times, and your experience).

Please review all the posts made in March 2010 to get up and running. There's a couple of additional posts on 1st and 2nd of April 2010 showing how to get "extras" like pulseaudio with Jack, and wine/Windows VST and wineasio running.

We're getting into the fun stuff now, so in future posts I'll blog about various random linux/audio topics, and I might even be tempted to post a tune or two. We'll see.

Have fun!

Native Linux VST Plugins - New From Loomer

2010-04-02T15:31:00.001-07:00

Loomer have announced a new effects VST plugin called Sequent. It's sounds very similar to the classic Windows plugin, Glitch...

More info at http://www.loomer.co.uk/

Wineasio 0.7.5 Binary Download

2010-04-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

This is a repost from earlier. I've put the link in a separate post so it's clear to anyone searching for it.

wineasio.dll.so pre-compiled binary. Click on the following link (and please excuse the popups/ads!)

http://www.mediafire.com/?ynhmbwnujid

Installation: copy to /usr/lib/wine and then enter regsvr32 wineasio.dll

Linux Mint 8 Wineasio 0.7.5 Binary

2010-04-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

If you want to run some Windows audio programs using wine (EnergyXt and Reaper are the ones I've tried) then you should install the wineasio low latency audio driver for wine.

You can download wineasio source from http://sourceforge.net/projects/wineasio/

The mint repo's only have an older version of wineasio which doesn't work with the later betas of wine. So you must use 0.7.5 if you're using bleeding edge wine.

Some people have trouble compiling wineasio, so I've made a binary download available for you. Download the file from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ynhmbwnujid (sorry about the mediafire popups....)

Once saved to your computer copy the file to /usr/lib/wine (use sudo cp /usr/lib/wine)

Next, enter the following commands:

regsvr32 wineasio.dll

(If that doens't work try regsvr32 wineasio.dll.so)

Why not install the demo version of Reaper? Get it from www.reaper.fm Once installed using wine, go to Reaper's preferences (Options... Preferences) and select wineasio as your audio device. You should have JACK up and running before you load reaper, that way the wineasio driver will be recognised.

For more information about reaper, consult the website, especially the reaper forum where a number of linux users hang out.

Reaper is a good VST host, you can use it to record samples or loops to use in your native linux software (I prefer Renoise, native linux version, it's a great application).

Linux Mint 8, Wine and FST running Windows VST Plugins

2010-04-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

If you want a purely linux-based audio setup, all the previous posts will get you up and running. However, some people might want to try windows VST plugins. We need to install wine for that.

The default mint repo uses the stable wine 1.0, which should be fine. I'm using the latest developer version which can be found at the ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa repo.

Do a search in synaptic for wine1.2 and install the latest wine and wine-dev packages.I installed wine at version 1.1.41 (actually it's 1.1.42 today, but I haven't installed it yet!)

After installation, open a terminal and type wine --version to test the install. If all is well type winecfg to open the configuration dialog. I use Windows XP as the standard version in application settings.

In the audio tab (it takes a while to load) make sure Alsa is checked, and all other options are left blank.

Go back to synaptic. If you've installed the repos from earlier you should be able to install Festige (which will get you lashd too). Festige is a front end to fst, which uses wine to run windows plugins. It's not 100% compatible - some plugins won't work at all (Lennar Digital Sylenth1 crashes, and the D16 plugins don't show their GUIs).

For more information about Festige visit http://festige.sourceforge.net/

Windows versions of Energy XT, Renoise and Reaper do work OK for hosting VST plugins and many plugins work better hosted by these programs than by fst. For instance, I've managed to get Phoscyon, Drumazon and Nepheton running under Reaper. (Note that Sylenth1 doesn't work if hosted from Reaper, using wine 1.1.41).

So far I've tried Festige with the TAL plugins, and I believe Synth1 works too.

Recording Youtube from your web browser to audacity

2010-04-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a little test of our new configuration. We're going to record some audio from a youtube video into Audacity.

I'm using Konqueror for this, but the same principles apply to other browsers. I've just updated Firefox to 3.6.3 and it seems to have a little problem with flash player. It slows down the whole browser. Earlier versions of 3.6 are not affected, so I hope its something that gets fixed soon.

First we start qjackctl. For information on how to set it up with Pulseaudio see here. Check that you have the pulseaudio connections listed in the connections dialog.

Start audacity and go to Edit... Preferences on the main menu. On the Devices section you need to configure Host to JACK Audio Connection Kit. Set the playback device to system, and set recording device to Pulseaudio JACK Sink.

Save your settings.

Let's try it. Open your web browser, select a suitable youtube video and begin to play it. Move over to audacity and hit record. That's it!

Mint8, Pulseaudio and Jack

2010-04-02T03:26:00.001-07:00

If you've been following the story so far you should have a real time kernel installed, a bunch of extra repo's, and a successfully working JACK setup.

We can get Pulseaudio to talk to jack, which means all your audio can be fed into jack for rerouting into recording apps, effects, and so on. Plus, you can run Jack without other applications hogging the sound system, enabling you to use multiple audio apps.

First, ensure you have Pulseaudio 0.9.21 or later. Second make sure you have Jack 0.118 (latest version at time of writing).

In Synaptic, search for pulseaudio-module-jack. Select the package for installation. This is your pulseaudio to jack module (obviously!)

Next you have to configure jack to load the module. Doing so will enable the pulseaudio device in qjackctl for connections.

Make a script somewhere (call it something sensible like startpa or something) suitable and add the following code:

#load pulseaudio jack modules
#!/bin/bash
# Jack modules
pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2
pactl load-module module-jack-source channels=2

Save the file, and open qjackctl and click on the setup button. On the Options tab, ensure the execute script after startup checkbox is checked, and enter the full path to your script into the text box. You might have to edit the Timeout value or Start Delay value in the settings tab to allow the pulseaudio modules to load. I have Timeout set to 5000 and Start Delay to 2 seconds. Save the configuration.

Restart jack and you should find the pulseaudio entries in the connections tab:

Let's get Firefox to talk to Jack. Open your browser and select a suitable video in Youtube. Then open the Pulseaudio volume control and click on the playback tab. There should be an entry there for Firefox alsa plugin. Select Jack Sink (Pulseaudio Jack Sink) from the drop-down menu next to the entry, and you youtube output should now route through jack!

If you don't see an entry for firefox you need to do some additional steps (see below):

Here's a screenshot:

What To Do If You Can't See Your Applications In the Pulseaudio Volume Playback Control

The following specifcally apply to Linux Mint 8.

In your home directory make a file called .asoundrc (notice the dot) Copy the following code into it:

pcm.!default {
type pulse
}

ctl.!default {
type pulse
}

pcm.pulse {
type pulse
}

ctl.pulse {
type pulse
}

Save the file.

Now to get firefox flash player to work, you should have a directory called .mozilla/firefox in your home directory. cd to that directory and create a file called rc

Add the following line:

FIREFOX_DSP="padsp"

Save the file, log out and log back in again. Start qjactctl and load firefox. Play your youtube video to test. Next time I'll show you how to record some youtube output into Audacity sound editor.

Linux Studio - Installing JACK and Testing with Amsynth

2010-03-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Jack is a low latency audio server. It's an essential part of any linux audio setup. You can installed Jack from synaptic, but the Mint repo is at version 0.116. You should really install the latest version 0.118 which is available from one of the other repos here.

(You should add ppa:motin/until-jack-is-included-in-main to the synaptic package list.

Also, you will need 0.118 to use the pulseaudio-jack module, which I'll cover next time.

With the repo set up, search for jack and select the jackd package. You should also have qjackctl selected. Here's a screenshot (don't worry about the pulseaudio-jack package just yet!)

Once jack is installed you can start it up using qjackctl or select JACK Control from the multimedia menu. The next thing to do is to configure your soundcard for use with Jack. I'm using a cheap Behringer USB interface, and the following screenshot shows my settings (don't worry too much about the latency figure, I've never had any problems at all with this. With a decent interface, you should be able to get near-zero latency with the right settings).

There's a ton of stuff on the internet about configuring Jack, so I won't go into the specifics right now. Maybe I'll come back to it later

Why not test your setup with a couple of applications? In synaptic select vkeybd (virtual keyboard) and amsynth (software synth). If you have installed the repo's from an earlier post you should be able to install amsynth version 1.2.2. Do not install amsynth 1.2.0 (the default Mint selection) because it is broken. I think it's the Debian Sid repo that contains 1.2.2, I'll have to go back and check!

After installation, start up Jack (using qjackctl), then in a terminal enter:

vkeybd & amsynth &

Open qjackctl's connection dialog and connect vkeybd midi to amsynth, and amsynth audio to system out. You should now be able to play the synth using the virtual keys. Here's a screenshot from my system testing out the setup:

How to Fix Sound Mute on Reboot

2010-03-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

I had a little problem with my sound. Every time I reboot the sound level would reset to zero. I've seen a number of solutions, including removing pulseaudio... but the solution that worked for me is this:

Edit the file /etc/init.d/alsa-utils and comment out the line that says mute_and_zero_level()

There's a discussion about it here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=142&p=254094

I only had the problem after installing alsa-utils, so this seems to make sense to me.

If that doesn't work, try using the command alsactl store. There's an article about that here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-764576.html

Setting up a Realtime Kernel in Linux Mint 8

2010-03-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Right then, so far we have set up a working Mint 8 distro with a suitable desktop environment, and added a number of additional packages to synaptic. The next step to audio heaven is to install a realtime kernel. This will allow us to use JACK audio server in real time mode, thus giving us a nice efficient and stable audio setup with low latencies.

Fire up synaptic and do a search against linux-rt. You should get a selection of packages for the kernel image, headers, sources etc. Select the package linux-rt for installation and all the relevant packages will automatically be selected for you. Don't accept the changes yet.

At the time of writing the kernel version number is 2.6.31-9 RT.

Next we're going to install a boot manager to enable us to select the RT kernel once it is installed. So do a search for startup manager. It is described as a splash screen and GRUB configuration utility.

OK, now go ahead and install the kernel and boot manager packages.

Once that's done, you'll find in the gnome control center a new entry called Startup Manager. In XFCE select Settings.... Startup Manager from the main menu. There's a select box listing all the kernel images you have installed. Select the Linux-RT option and quit the utility.

If you prefer to edit your boot settings by hand, there's some information here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4161

You should now have a successfully installed RT kernel set to boot up on default. Test your system by rebooting. Once you are logged back in, open a terminal and type in uname -r to check the kernel you are running. It should return the version number (In my case 2.6.31-9-RT).

We're almost there. The final task is to allow your system to use the realtime kernel features. Here's how to do it:

Ensure your user ID has permissions to access the audio group. You can do this in the control centre or type the following in a terminal:

sudo adduser youruserid audio
(replace youruserid with your linux user ID)

Next we're going to edit a system file, namely /etc/security/limits.conf

You need to add three lines to the end of the file. The easiest way is to run the following three commands in a terminal:

sudo su -c 'echo @audio - rtprio 99 >> /etc/security/limits.conf'
sudo su -c 'echo @audio - memlock 250000 >> /etc/security/limits.conf'
sudo su -c 'echo @audio - nice -10 >> /etc/security/limits.conf'

This will append the @audio - ...... lines to the file. I've seen some versions of this where memlock is set to unlimited (replace the 250000 with unlimited in the code above).

To summarise:

Check you have a working Mint 8 configured to your liking
Add some extra packages to synaptic
Install a Real Time (RT) kernel
Ensure you are booting to the RT Kernel
Add your user (and any others you need) to the audio group
Edit /etc/security/limits.conf

The next stage is to install the JACK audio server, and as a special treat we'll set the system up to allow pulseaudio to connect to JACK, which means you can route your non-jack enabled applications into any jack-compatible program.

Linux Studio - Additional Software Repositories

2010-03-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

EDITED POST
The original post is listed below for reference only.

I decided to do a clean re-install of the system to test all the techniques I have documented. I left /home alone (excuse the pun) so I didn't have to reconfigure any scripts in /home.

I decided not to add fst, and a number of other packages. So far the only repo's I've had to add are the Debian Sid and Ubuntu Audio repo.

Please do not install pulseaudio from Debian Sid - use the Ubuntu audio repo for that. The Debian sid package is needed for various instruments and software plugins, and other audio applications (e.g. amsynth 1.2.2).

I also had problems installing the ubuntu-studio-plugins package.

I will be adding the Wine package to grab the latest version of wine.

Once you have installed your instruments you can disable the Debian Sid package in synaptic. This will prevent any clashes or problems in updating other packages. Next time you want to update an instrument, re-enable the package, download and switch off again :)

Original Post:

Click on the Image to get clearer text

This graphic is a screenshot of the repositories on my system. Although many packages are available in the default mint packages, not all versions are up to date. In some cases we need software versions more current than mint provides.

The packages I installed cover a number of audio applications, JACK audio server, WINE, and so on. Pay particular attention to installing Debian Sid, festige, ubuntu audio dev, JACK and Wine (if you intend to run windows programs...)

The google package was used to grab the beta version of Chrome browser, and the firefox daily was added for firefox 3.6, but it gave me a bit of trouble. (You can install firefox 3.6 manually - I'll write about that one later)

Linux Studio - Choosing a Desktop Environment

2010-03-21T03:46:00.000-07:00

First thing we'll do with our new linux studio is to find a good desktop environment. Most modern PCs should be able to handle Gnome and KDE, along with the nice 3D desktop effects.

Personally I favour a lightweight environment. My computer (Dell Inspiron 1525) isn't too bad, but I'd rather spend my CPU cycles running applications rather than maintaining a fancy desktop. I'd still do this on a high-end PC too.

I decided to give XFCE a try, and its pretty good stuff. In fact next time I upgrade my O/S I might even go for an XFCE-based distro (I'm thinking Linux Mint XFCE community distro here).

Anyway, XFCE is easy to install from synaptic.

The basics are all but done now. The next jobs are to set up package repositories (so we can grab some goodies), install a real-time enabled kernel and make it available for audio use.

Welcome To The Linux Audio Studio

2010-03-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

I used to run a linux audio blog, but I scrapped it because I didn't have time to run it. It was mostly "what windows vst's run in linux" anyway. Not too helpful.

So I decided to have another go. Yes, there'll be some info about windows plugins, but I also want to write about my experiences (as a complete amateur!) with using linux as an audio platform.

There's been some interesting development in linux audio over the past year or so, and I believe linux is certainly a suitable o/s for music making, certainly for the hobbyist. I'm sure there's some pro audio people out there using linux too!

After a brief encounter with Windows 7 (I got it from my MSDN developer account at work) I decided to return home to my linux land. I'm currently using Linux Mint (8) and I intend to stick around with that for a while.

Coming up then, I will write a few postings about how I set up my system to run audio applications, including getting pulseaudio and JACK to talk together :)

More coming soon