PyDAW progress

[StudioDave]

Greetings,

Although he's managed to piss off about everyone else in the Linux audio world Jeff Hubbard has continued to develop his PyDAW, and I've been testing it all along. IMO it's getting to a stage of real usability, though of course Jeff's design considerations may throw off some users. Recent additions include a nice piano-roll editor, a very nice GUI for controller curves, excellent workflow at the top levels, and some improvements in the audio sequencer.

Caveat #1: If you want to test this software make sure you're running it on a powerful enough machine. My dual-core laptop with 3G memory is just sufficient for getting the most out of PyDAW, and Jeff's commentary re: commodity hardware has prompted me to consider a new mobo, something multicore with a lot of RAM.

Caveat #2: JACK is not a "best fit" for PyDAW but you'll get better performance with a few adjustments. I turn off realtime and increase the period size, which of course increases the latency. PyDAW isn't really focused on realtime performance, so don't expect it to behave like Ardour or QTractor.

Caveat #3: PyDAW is still a work in progress. Jeff makes a lot of claims for his software, but if you ignore the noise and focus on the software you might find something you like. And there is a lot to like in the latest versions.

Yeh, yeh, I know Jeff's opinions have really riled some folks here, including myself, but he is persistent and he is productive. Considering the number of abandoned projects I've seen over the years I'm happy to see such perseverance, whether from a jeffh or a falkTX. After all, he's not trying to tear anything down, and he's free to ignore development in other directions if that's not where his designs tend. Anyway, comments and opinions don't usually help get my work done. The software is the thing.

Best,

dp

[raboof]

Yeh, yeh, I know Jeff's opinions have really riled some folks here

Not so much his opinions, but calling me a jackass was what riled me up.

comments and opinions don't usually help get my work done. The software is the thing.

For me, the community around software is an essential part of the fun. Life's too short for dealing with unpleasant people.

[studio32]

Dave your post says it all. This message I wrote is already too much time spent on this project, sorry

I would rather suggest Ardour, Qtractor or NON. Projects which have already proven to be worth to spent time on. PyDAW instead will be a huge time and money waster, if I understand you right. And collaboration or even talking with the dev a real energy waster.

Dave, all though I really appreciate your articles and the positive vibe in it (which you do in hope to stimulate development I assume), a little more often a critical note in your articles wouldn't be bad imho for the benefit of the Linuxaudio users who wants to make music with FLOSS software.

edit: Argg I guess some personal frustration on time wasted on highly praised software projects like OOM, nothing personal

[StudioDave]

Dave, all though I really appreciate your articles and the positive vibe in it (which you do in hope to stimulate development I assume), a little more often a critical note in your articles wouldn't be bad imho for the benefit of the Linuxaudio users who wants to make music with FLOSS software.

More critical in what ways ? I ask seriously, I know you read my stuff and I'd like to know what and how my readers want to hear about wrt the good, bad, and ugly in the Linux audio world.

Developers don't need much encouragement or stimulation, they just do what they do. I write my articles to stimulate *use* of the software reviewed, which is what I hope for most of all. A piece created with PyDAW is more eloquent testimony to its effectiveness than any number of words devoted to the logic of its design characteristics.

http://linux-sound.org/audio/fizz-pluck-bang.mp3

Not very eloquent, but it is some sort of testimony to the software's utility.

I think I need to encourage more feedback and more participation in the development process too. I also think I indicate the most egregious faults in a program, but I am guilty of expecting my readers to find flaws on their own. In my defense, I do routinely encourage users to report bugs. I probably should encourage it more.

Best,

dp

[studio32]

More critical in what ways ? I ask seriously, I know you read my stuff and I'd like to know what and how my readers want to hear about wrt the good, bad, and ugly in the Linux audio world.

...

Developers don't need much encouragement or stimulation, they just do what they do.

Maybe that's just it. Most devs do what they do. What you could try is to make clear against which walls users bump frequently. Small annoying bugs kills workflow many times in LAU. We're keen on Linux stable software, but many times this is just absolutely *not* the case. We would laugh about Windows software crashing that much or having so many little bugs. I know it's not a totally fair comparison, but alas.

Crashing music composition/ recording program is a *disaster*. It is a also disaster when working with the One-Tool-One-Task approach and one tool of the chain is having small issues.

Maybe there are two things when it comes to music software:

1) idea / design / features / technical
2) how does it perform for the user who want to make music

Point 1 is very well covered most of the times. We use to call it 'potential great software', we've plenty!
But when it comes to point 2, most of the stuff available fails badly atm. Due to the software itself and/ or because it doesn't work (good) in the LAU software ecosystem.

Maybe in most of the articles you talk about point 1. But it's also important to give feedback in such a way that the devs of the software start to understand that their software is close to useless if small things are failing or missing (point 2).

But that doesn't apply to you only. It applies to all of us I think including myself! So please don't take it personal or don't see this as a well thought out and rational review of your reviews and articles .We want to tell how great linuxaudio is to people who don't use it and so our feedback and reviews on public forums have the tendency to be way too positive. Also when we review an app, we know that the dev is doing it for free in spare time, we don't want to be rude or ask too much.

- Nice app, nice features, but it crashes and drops out JACK. Screw the features and make sure that it is reliable first!
- Nice modular app but not available as plugin or no session management = a pain to work with in real life.

Anyway, you know what I try to say.
I know that there are projects who 'are just for fun', but that doesn't mean a review can't point to the limitations of the software and the way it is maintained for musicians who don't want to experiment with software and new ideas, but who want to create music.

[SR]

IMHO, Dave does enough by saying "Jeff's opinions have really riled some folks". I think getting more critical would just invite a flame war.

Why is it that the "you don't need JACK because ALSA is good enough" crowd always ignores those of us with firewire devices? It's a lot easier for me to use another application that supports my hardware than it is for me to run out and buy new hardware because you don't agree with something.

[GMaq]

Hmmm,

As always a tip of the hat to Dave who is ever a gentleman and a scholar

I personally haven't had much to do with Jeff and PyDAW although we did get into a bit of a tangle along the line... I'll quietly seat myself with the many others.

I will put it out there that in my opinion we already have too many DAWS on Linux in various stages of (in)completeness, I had the opportunity to do some session work in a local commercial studio lately and of course I was keenly interested in the Control Room setup which of course was Pro-Tools with a beautiful large control desk. Pro-Tools worked flawlessly and the studio engineer knew what he was doing, watching him work I had a bit of an epiphany... One rock solid Sequencer augmented by a selection of surefire plugins... and yes the studio had several thousand dollars invested...

Now I can already hear the voices of protest at my cheekiness to mention both Pro-Tools and commercial software in the same thread post... what I took away from the session has nothing to do with the financial aspect, it had to do with the workflow. Real studios don't run 4 sequencers and experiment with patching this into that and hosting this in a separate application to make it do blah blah blah, people who are paying for studio time would freak out at such diversions.

For people who want to experiment and develop software and are unfettered by time constraints in their home/bedroom studios none of what I said matters, but I think where Linux Audio is missing a big opportunity is present one AMAZING DAW that could actually without any excuses be employed in a Commercial Studio with no apologies or disclaimers required, I think Ardour 3 currently has the potential but it is still unknown to a large degree in professional circles. While it is true I only talked to one Studio Engineer this month he had never heard of Ardour or Mixbus which are even available on his platform for heaven's sakes!

I also think we distributors are guilty of not having a well defined product, we all have an overwhelming product stuffed full of every conceivable application regardless of maturity or functionality, most outside people's eyes would glaze over at the bursting menus of oddly named apps and utilities.

So I think Linux Audio needs to better define itself into 2 areas.. Software experimentation and development and Practical Professional Application, it isn't a question of right or wrong or better or worse... both methodologies are needed. IMHO on the 'Practical Application' side of the street we need less DAW's using less 'standards', come on pick a lane and stay in it people!! I will say if you are going to develop ANY Audio software on Linux and ignore JACK you probably should get your head examined, it's like developing a Pro Audio app for OSX and ignoring CoreAudio or Windows and ASIO. Yes Linux is 'free' no-one tells us what to do!! Unfortunately such freedom is abused many times...JACK, ALSA, PortAudio, PulseAudio it just completely hobbles all potential for Linux Audio to kick ass in the Real world of Professional Recording.

Just the view from here...FWIW

[studio32]

Linux has one big DAW, it's called Ardour. And it is used in professional settings. The project has a clear goal and a clear team who are pretty consistent. Ok they started a bit later then ProTools but the gap becomes smaller I think. It wouldn't help if everyone was helping with Ardour and it would be damn boring too. And about fDAW fragmentation, it's up to the user to make a decent decision, if you choose wrong it can become a disaster, but if you choose Ardour because you want to record and mix music, good choice, you will not regret it likely.
@Gmaq, what you describe about the studio, it can be done with Linux and Ardour / Mixbus, more or less if you've the money.

What is much harder on Linux imo, is composing. Midi sequencing, instruments, plugins etc. Even Ardour 3 is not focusing on composing.
I like the modular approach, but like I said, many apps are not reliable enough, lack session support or have other usability issues. Composing is the problem imo and Ardour 3 will never be the composing tool you'll find on other platforms.

The question remains why you want Linux to be able to offer this proaudio at the highest level. Do you need it? And if not, why don't you talk about software you need to get things done? Gmaq, what do you want in your studio and is it possible, that's the question.

[tux99]

What is much harder on Linux imo, is composing. Midi sequencing, instruments, plugins etc. Even Ardour 3 is not focusing on composing.

Why does everyone ignore Rosegarden? Is it the unusual name or what else?

Rosegarden is an extremely powerful composing tool that compares quite well with commercial sequencers, it does have a few weaknesses and could really need with a few new developers joining it's team to make it perfect but even now it's still the most powerful sequencer available for Linux.

[raboof]

Why does everyone ignore Rosegarden?

Rosegarden is an extremely powerful composing tool that compares quite well with commercial sequencers, it does have a few weaknesses and could really need with a few new developers joining it's team to make it perfect

This surprises me, too. I don't currently have a use for a sequencing/composing tool, but I've used it (and contributed to it) with great pleasure in the past.

[funkmuscle]

What is much harder on Linux imo, is composing. Midi sequencing, instruments, plugins etc. Even Ardour 3 is not focusing on composing.

Why does everyone ignore Rosegarden? Is it the unusual name or what else?

Rosegarden is an extremely powerful composing tool that compares quite well with commercial sequencers, it does have a few weaknesses and could really need with a few new developers joining it's team to make it perfect but even now it's still the most powerful sequencer available for Linux.

Rosegarden is awesome but I think folks would like some lv2 plugin support on it.

and GMaq's point of view covered composing when he said that for us bedroom studio users are fine with patching this, running that, etc, but he is so right about the commercial world. I too was just in famous MetalWorks studio in Toronto and they were all over Pro-Tools and never heard of Ardour/Mixbus.. I had a few engineers interested in it and Linux by the time I left though.

[GMaq]

Re: Rosegarden

Well the Audio side was never it's strong suit and there has been no appreciable changes to it's audio capabilities since it was ported to QT4 a few years ago, without a doubt it is still valuable for composition and scoring but without further development it will continue to fade away. Perhaps folks could live without LV2 or LinuxVST, but having neither is a major drawback unfortunately.

@funkmuscle
A fellow Canuck eh? Hey is MetalWorks the one owned by the drummer from Triumph?

[ldevose2]

There is a small, inexpensive piece of Windows software I have used for the better part of the past 10 years. It is called Noteworthy, and is the easiest and best composition software I have used or tested.

Note insertion, key designation, and so many other functions are so very easy. Select a value, point where you want the note, and click or press enter. Rest are inserted by selecting a value and pressing the space bar.

There are some cosmetic weaknesses compared to its much more expensive competitors, like chord naming. It works best if you manually write the chord changes.

When I am finished composing, I export the song to be saved as a midi file, and can then manipulate the samples in any music editor. For instance, I compose in Noteworthy, export to midi, and then tweak the sound in Cakewalk Sonar. I am guessing that I will be able to do the same thing between Noteworthy and Ardour in KXStudio.

While this is relatively easy in Windows, the next thing is to record, and this is where I realize the necessity of something other than WIndows. And so now I download KXStudio.

[tux99]

Well the Audio side was never it's strong suit and there has been no appreciable changes to it's audio capabilities since it was ported to QT4 a few years ago, without a doubt it is still valuable for composition and scoring but without further development it will continue to fade away. Perhaps folks could live without LV2 or LinuxVST, but having neither is a major drawback unfortunately.

I guess you are writing from a ITB (in the box) point of view which seems popular among hobbyists these days (and I can see that it has some advantages), but IMHO no plugin can fully replace real hardware synths yet, and with external hardware synths connected via MIDI Rosegarden is the perfect choice.

[studio32]

There is a small, inexpensive piece of Windows software I have used for the better part of the past 10 years. It is called Noteworthy, and is the easiest and best composition software I have used or tested.

Note insertion, key designation, and so many other functions are so very easy. Select a value, point where you want the note, and click or press enter. Rest are inserted by selecting a value and pressing the space bar.

There are some cosmetic weaknesses compared to its much more expensive competitors, like chord naming. It works best if you manually write the chord changes.

When I am finished composing, I export the song to be saved as a midi file, and can then manipulate the samples in any music editor. For instance, I compose in Noteworthy, export to midi, and then tweak the sound in Cakewalk Sonar. I am guessing that I will be able to do the same thing between Noteworthy and Ardour in KXStudio.

While this is relatively easy in Windows, the next thing is to record, and this is where I realize the necessity of something other than WIndows. And so now I download KXStudio.

Is Noteworthy comparable with http://laborejo.org/blog1-News-and-Announcements ?