Distro Comparison, Benchmarking, Latency

[Alwaysanewb]

I really like unity I like navigating through the dash. People new to linux might be at a disadvantage thoguh not knowing all the resources that come on the machine already like having sytem and accessory trays on bottom. I also like being able to attach the programs I use most to the sidebar and unattaching ones I don't. For the most part it keeps my desktop looking more organized than having a mix of icons and files.


I'm not sure what kind of sample the people making sample based music on here need but the linux musicians that can should orginize and start making there own samples. Get a sub forum going. I've messed around and made some samples in ardour. It's not dificult and this is a linux forum so someone will host them.

On a side note I had to work on my Dads windows 7 machine yesterday. I'm pretty sure he's got some new malware. Something keeps installing wierd firefox extentions . I'll have to wait a few weeks for the anti virus software companys to catch on to it before I can fully fix it. There was also like 40 different programs that are on there that just need to be uninstalled, but nothing ever fully uninstalls itself in windows. It has 6 gigs of ram and an i5 and it's still so slow it just seems unusable.

[GMaq]

Yes, yes people will say well you can use some of the better LADSPA's in Audacity or Jamin (c'mon really?) and master things... well sure you can, and I can peel an apple with a chainsaw as well

I can agree with you that most of the LADSPA plugins are really not suited to mastering, they're not precise(especially in the EQ department) enough for the task. However, 7 years ago Jamin and Ardour were the 2 single pieces of software that hooked me on linux. Jamin is the best mastering tool I've ever used(on any platform.) I mean, all mastering really is, is a precise EQ, Multiband compression, Maximization, and Limiting(usually in that order.) The only other thing you could want from a mastering tool is stereo widening, and IMHO, if you want your mix to sound wider, go back to your original mix and get it the way you want.

Absolutely no doubt Jamin was certainly the only game in Linuxville for a few years but certainly there is a reason for no stable release for a few years now (yes i realize there is an SVN branch). Jamin is simply a GTK UI for the same batch of swh LADSPA plugins that you mentioned aren't 'good' enough... We owe a HUGE debt of gratitude for Steve Harris and that much loved large collection of LADSPA's that carried Linux Audio up to a pivotal point where some new standards like linuxVST and LV2 were able to carry the torch and move forward. But in the current state of Linux Audio holding onto deprecated things like Jamin is doing more harm than good. Ask linuxDSP sometime about the numerous shortcomings of Jamin from a professional developers point of view, and no it's not a sales pitch it's simply a fact that there are significant code deficits (most likely due to limits in LADSPA more than anything else) especially in Jamin's EQ.

[i2productions]

I had no idea jamin was just a collection of ladspa. They've been put together in an amazing way then. I wouldn't just add the appropriate plugins to the master track in ardour, and go. But, it works great and doesn't really need much to change in my opinion. I've never had any issues mastering greatstuff with it, so I don't really see the need for anything else. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (Obviously you live by the same motto as well using a 9 year old mastering suite.)

Another piece of this is, mixing is an ever evolving science. We are constantly coming up with cool new ways to mix stuff. Hence new innovative tools. We've pretty much learned all there is to learn about mastering. The principles haven't changed much in 30 years(except some labels desire to have the loudest crunchiest thing possible.)

[GMaq]

Yes I agree,

'Go with what works for you' is a great policy, and to be clear if you can work with Jamin's idiosyncracies then so be it... at the end of the day the ears are the judge, To clarify I mean promoting it as the 'current' best Linux Audio mastering workflow especially to new users is probably not a great way to encourage our talented LV2 developers to press on with replacing it once and for all.

[i2productions]

It is the 'current' best sollution, so it kinda has to be recommended to users. But, yes we could use a newer looking and feeling tool. I know it's been around since the dog days of linux. There are times when I wish I could insert one more plugin in between some of the steps of the workflow. As you said above it's not good from a developer point of view. I'm not a delevloper or programer. I just mix music, and haven't seen a better tool on the market(for the price.)

It's a vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream situation!

[karm]

I'm not sure what kind of sample the people making sample based music on here need but the linux musicians that can should orginize and start making there own samples. Get a sub forum going. I've messed around and made some samples in ardour. It's not dificult and this is a linux forum so someone will host them.

It is not that easy. Quality samples are rare and require experiance, great acoustics and experience (did I mention experience?). By quality samples I mean strings, brass, percussive instrumets etc... a very broad subject.

[autostatic]

There have been some heated discussion about Jamin on the Linux Audio Users mailinglist some years ago. What I've understood from the whole discussion is that the design of some of the internals of Jamin are flawed from which I concluded for myself that you might be better off with a DAW and a decent set of plugins.

http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/l ... 69389.html
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/l ... 72849.html

[GMaq]

It is the 'current' best sollution, so it kinda has to be recommended to users. But, yes we could use a newer looking and feeling tool. I know it's been around since the dog days of linux. There are times when I wish I could insert one more plugin in between some of the steps of the workflow. As you said above it's not good from a developer point of view. I'm not a delevloper or programer. I just mix music, and haven't seen a better tool on the market(for the price.)

It's a vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream situation!

I'll disagree there, the best 'current' solution is a nice stack of Plugins (preferably some linuxDSP IMHO) in Ardour or Qtractor unless you want to use something on a different platform... I 100% agree with Autostatic on that one!

[i2productions]

I'll be honest here, when I master something for a client I usually will deliver 3 different masters to choose from. I'll go at it with Jamin, then I'll run it through the mastering suite in Reason, and then whichever I like best I'll give another go at and master it a little different. It's mixed results. It really depends on the style of music, and ears of the musician giving final approval, but I've had compliments about both sounds. I really don't understand your animosity towards Jamin, but at the end of the day if you like your final sound, than it's all that counts!

Just read through the threads that Autostaic posted, and it's a mirror for the discussion here. And here's the tone I'm getting with my ice cream example:
"I like vanilla ice cream!"
"Your vanilla ice cream sucks cause it uses imitation vanilla!"
"But I still think it tastes good"
"It would be better with real vanilla."
"Real vanilla is too expensive, and this is half price."
"You should just go chocolate!"
"......."

[ssj71]

Not to take away from the mastering conversation (I'm curious about what plugins everyone else is using for mastering. It sounds like LinuxDSP's stuff is top of the line, but what gets second place for those of us with zero budget?), but I have a comment about benchmarking.

I was trying to figure out the best way to configure my system (frames/period and periods/buffer) but I needed some metric. I made a rakarrack preset that was as computationally expensive as I could (all convolvers, pitch shifters etc) and turned it on for 5 seconds. The number of xruns in that time became the metric to measure the settings by. It wasn't incredibly precise, but we could easily create some sort of program that instantiates some large number of floating point operations or other stuff that might accurately reflect a heavily loaded system and runs for some amount of time then turns off the dsp load. Folks could use this test for benchmarking.

Um.. I blogged about it here:
http://mountainbikesandtrombones.blogsp ... -xrun.html

[Capoeira]

I was thinking about that yesterday. A Jack-Linux-Audio benchmark program

[Capoeira]

on the other hand.....it depends on what you are doing.
The best benchmark is using an own project to test

[GMaq]

Not to take away from the mastering conversation (I'm curious about what plugins everyone else is using for mastering. It sounds like LinuxDSP's stuff is top of the line, but what gets second place for those of us with zero budget?),

I think the Calf EQ's/Dynamics/Limiters have matured to the point of doing a good job for mastering, I find 'Barry's Satan Maximizer' (from the SWH LADSPA collection) to also be a very intuitive and useful part of the Mastering process, Try it at 24 Samples and knee point of -6.0db and it will bring punch to a master mix in a very musical and balanced way, go beyond a knee point of -6db and things get ugly very fast. To be honest since I've started using the PEQ-2 Pultec emulation from linuxDSP I find a combination of it with the Satan Maximizer I don't end up using WaveLab all that often any more.

By all means let your ears be the judge. I can link my Soundcloud if you want to hear some stuff mastered this way for comparisons sake.

[StudioDave]

Not to take away from the mastering conversation (I'm curious about what plugins everyone else is using for mastering. It sounds like LinuxDSP's stuff is top of the line, but what gets second place for those of us with zero budget?),

I think the Calf EQ's/Dynamics/Limiters have matured to the point of doing a good job for mastering...

Excellent choice. I like the Calf compressor, probably too much. And I never really know what I'm doing with it.

No doubt about it though, the linuxDSP plugins are top of the line.

... I find 'Barry's Satan Maximizer' (from the SWH LADSPA collection) to also be a very intuitive and useful part of the Mastering process, Try it at 24 Samples and knee point of -6.0db and it will bring punch to a master mix in a very musical and balanced way, go beyond a knee point of -6db and things get ugly very fast. To be honest since I've started using the PEQ-2 Pultec emulation from linuxDSP I find a combination of it with the Satan Maximizer I don't end up using WaveLab all that often any more.

By all means let your ears be the judge. I can link my Soundcloud if you want to hear some stuff mastered this way for comparisons sake.

Okay, I'm sold. I'm impressed with the sound of your recordings, so it looks like I'll have to give the BSM a try on the next tune. Which I hope to get to over the holidays, along with a certain song by Blind Lemon Jefferson. I'll have some free time after Christmas, hopefully the wife won't fill it with bedevilment.

Best,

dp

[GMaq]

StudioDave,

Thanks for the comments, I will be looking very much forward to what you can come up with over the holidays, and yes I'm a bit biased toward the Blind Lemon song...

Maybe I'll send my wife to take your wife out shopping for an afternoon to free up some time for you after Christmas sometime No, that wouldn't be weird at a all...

Best of the holidays to you and yours!