Does anyone compose music using any of theportsfromthe/ports/audio collection in FreeBSD?

[Dmitriy Startsev]

Hello, 4Front!
You wrote to "Dmitriy Startsev" <metal_man at mail.ru> on Wed, 14 Jul 2004
15:25:51 -0700:

 FT> Hi,

 FT> I know MAudio really well (they are in here LA) and they have the
 FT> biggest following of the pro musician community. They say that there's
 FT> a bigger emphasis on audio samplers and loops (acid loops or sonar or
 FT> protools) because there is so much one can do with digital audio rather
 FT> than MIDI. VSTs are huge for professional music (we've created our own
 FT> VSTs check out http://www.opensound.com/proaudio.html) and that's where
the action is.

 FT> But as you said, MIDI is important for music creation and that's the
 FT> space where currently OSS is deficient in but we're addressing this
 FT> issue. We have tried to implement MIDI software synths but licesing
 FT> sound banks is expensive and the synths available for free (fluidsynth
 FT> and others) aren't pro quality. We've looked at implementing DLS synth
 FT> but it's hard work for just one programmer. We have a softsynth that
 FT> comes with OSS (http://www.opensound.com/softoss.html) but it's not
 FT> good and relies on old Gravis (MIDIA) patch banks. SoftOSS can be used
 FT> together with Jazz or Noteedit - you just need to do the appropriate
 FT> programming.

Many musicians have their own sound banks they would like to use, so IMHO it
is enough to make a synth which can read a particular sound bank file
format, but does not contain any ready to use sound banks.
I understand that such work can't easily be done by one programmer, but do
you have only one programmer?

 FT> Without a good software synth, there's no point in putting effort into
 FT> MIDI so we currently focus on digital audio and trying to make it
 FT> better than anything available for Mac/Windows/ALSA. For the time
 FT> being, timidity is pretty good and there is a way to use Timdidity as a
 FT> softsynth for the OSS /dev/sequencer (you can then use apps like
 FT> playmidi or ossmplay).

To make audio support better than on Windows, you need to implement
something similar to the "kx project" for Emu10kx based cards;)

 FT> best regards

With best regards, Dmitriy Startsev.