Does anyone compose music using any of
theportsfromthe/ports/audio collection in FreeBSD?
Dmitriy Startsev
metal_man at mail.ru
Wed Jul 14 15:54:35 PDT 2004
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.
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