[TriLUG] Linux Digital Audo Workstation and Control surfaces

Mark Shuford mark at tmhco.com
Sun Sep 11 00:15:38 EDT 2005


Hi Roy:

I've not worked with Audacity all that much where I would want to use
automation so I have no idea about it. Ardour will work with any MIDI
MCM capable control mechanism (Midi Control Message). I've not used it
heavily but have verified that the control works with my M-Audio Oxygen
8 keyboard. Just a matter of assigning control channels and doing stuff
on the Ardour end. And Ardour and JACK have both become quite usable
over the last year... used to get lots of crashes.

So the short answer is yes, if these use MCM output, which I believe I
recall that they do. Now, the Mackie stuff is _nice_ if you've got the
dough, that's not me. The TASCAM stuff is good but I sometimes think a
little overpriced once others have gotten into the market to give some
competition. But if you can afford it I would not hesitate to buy TASCAM
-- I have before, with much satisfaction.

Behringer had an inexpensive control surface out, a couple of models in
fact. I've been advised their stuff is not up to heavy professional road
use but it looked very usable. M-Audio/MIDIMAN also had a couple of
control surfaces... don't know about these since they got bought-out.

And I've seen some other companies out there making some pretty
specialized stuff for this use.

Now all of this was before JACK's MIDI stuff was complete and even
before the MIDI control stuff in Ardour was deemed more than
experimental. I haven't had the spare time to keep up with where all
this stuff has gone, of late, but do have it going on Fedora Core 3 w/
CCRMA's stuff.

I don't know what your complete setup is...

Have you looked at CCRMA, Stanford's Center for Computer Research in
Music and Acoustics? That is CCRMA at Home
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/ .  I've been using stuff
they've collected together, which includes Ardour and Audacity and lots
of other tools and JACK, for over a year.

There's also, I read, a package put together by the Eastman School of
Music. I've not given this a look as yet. Between the two, since they
both have a long history of work in electronic music, I'd think they
both have good packages.

I first tried the Agnula Project's work but found it not well
integrated. That was over a year ago.


CCRMA has a mailing-list. And so does the Linux Audio Developer's group
(LADSPA). And linux-audio-announce at music.columbia.edu at Columbia
University http://music.columbia.edu/ ... and a lot of the individual
packages have their own mailing-lists and such, of course.


Do not follow the Dark (XP) side of the Force. You can have thousands of
dollars worth of music recording and production software for the work
you put into it. That and the computer and the sound-card you choose.


Well, I guess I've typed much too much too much too much...


cheers,
Mark



On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 21:34:53 -0400
Roy Vestal <rvestal at trilug.org> wrote:

> I am setting up a Linux DAW and want to run a Control surface for
> Ardour and Audacity. I'm looking at the Tascam US-2400 or FW-1884 with
> an FE-8 expansion. I've googled till my eyes literally hurt. I'm
> trying to find if JackIt/ALSA or something will allow either of these,
> or the Mackie equivalents, to control the software. I don't wanna have
> to go to XP purely because my controller isn't supported.
> 
> TIA
> Roy
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-- 
Mark Shuford



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