falkTX radio interview

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danboid
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falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

falkTX will be the first ever guest to be interviewed on Mumble Rumble, my show on Dark City Radio, this Thursday 15th August @ 10pm!

Dark City Radio is entirely powered by his OS - KXStudio - and we also make regular use of Cadence and Claudia in running Dark City Radio so having F as my debut guest makes perfect sense as DC may never have been possible without him! I shall be quizzing the big F on KXStudio, DISTRHO, Cadence, Carla, other girls beginning with C and pretty much anything to do with Linux (Audio) and himself.

Anyone interested in Linux audio is invited to log onto the Dark City Mumble server during the show to take part in MUMBLE RUMBLE!

If you've never used Mumble before, see my guide to getting it set up here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_slsSlcUDcY

www.darkcityradio.com
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

The unedited version of this interview is now available for download from the Dark City Archives page. I will have to edit it soon to remove the copyrighted tracks I played during the show.

The intro jingle didn't play properly as I uploaded it at the last minute in a hurry before the show and it was encoded at 48Khz instead of 44.1 - IDJC has probs streaming tracks that aren't at the same freq. that you are running JACK at. I knew this!

That wasn't the main problem though. I was still running the 3.8 kernel complete with its USB audio probs last night and so my sound card was experiencing major stability problems so my audio isn't so good throughout the show. Not unbearable but hardly ideal. As I've mentioned in another thread, I've now downgraded to 3.5 and my Scarlett 2i4 seems to be fine now so I shouldn't have that problem next time - if there is a next time? Its hard enough to get people to do radio interviews - nevermind install Mumble too!
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

MUMBLE RUMBLE 2 - 15/8/13 - INTERVIEW W/ FALKTX

<Pre-recorded intro>

Hello and welcome to the second reverberation of Mumble Rumble! Mumble Rumble
is now adapting to the cruel world outside of the uterus, has a badass Tux the
Penguin bodysuit, enjoys goo-goo'ing at its profoundly symbolic and mystical
mobile hanging above its cot but isn't quite yet ready for rusks or even
braving the baby bouncer of its imaginary infancy!

The previous and first rumble was a solo outing where I explained at some
length what Mumble is and why many more people can and should use it instead of
the non-free, privacy depriving and digital freedom violating Skype. Of course,
the same ethics are still well intact and so this show is brought to you
exclusively using this great free VOIP software. This week, Mumble Rumble is
honoured to have its very first guest, the one and only legendary Linux hacker
falkTX who has joined us in the Dark City tonight thanks to the power of Mumble!

Any listeners who are involved with the dark art of Linux audio should already
know who falkTX is but for the rest of you a short introduction will be
required. falkTX could be described as a one-man Microsoft - sorry! - I mean a
one-man Red Hat or Canonical. He does a similar amount of work to these mega
software corps but on himself, to a higher standard in many ways and on a
budget of nowt. falkTX is the creator of a free Linux distribution called
KXStudio which aims to make it as easy as possible to install and use Linux and
open source software for audio and video production purposes. KXStudio includes
custom software such as Cadence, Carla and Claudia that falkTX created to
enhance the experience of Linux-based multimedia producers. On top of this he
somehow finds time to maintain and patch a huge repository of software that
isn't normally available so easily to Debian and Ubuntu users and he also
releases and maintains a large collection of audio plugins that goes by the
name of DISTRHO - spelled with a 'H' after the 'R'.

falkTX single-handedly deals with a unbelievable amount of the work involved in
sustaining and developing the Linux audio community and Dark City's free and
open, non-corporate digital foundations may not have been possible to create
without him. It certainly would've been a lot more work without his tireless
efforts in supporting myself and every other user of KXStudio so I'd like to
take this opportunity to deeply thank and welcome to the Dark City - falkTX!

<clap>

QUESTIONS

You live in Portugal now but were you born elsewhere? Like Switzerland?

What was your first computer?

How did you become interested in Linux?

What was the first version of Linux you used?

Did you teach yourself to code?

What resources apart from IRC ie books or websites, would you recommend to
someone who wants to learn to program Linux software, if any?

How popular is Linux in Portugal?

Do many of your friends run Linux?

Are your parents techie at all?

*~15m SONG - live recording from Sam And The Plants 2nd gig -2005, Preston?

When can we expect a new release of KXStudio?

What will be the main improvements of the new KXStudio release over the
existing one apart from newer packages?

Do you know how many times KXStudio has been downloaded? Do you have any idea
how many users it has?

KXStudio plans to switch to using Debian as its base instead of Ubuntu. Have
you any idea when we can expect to see a Debian-based KXStudio install DVD?

Can you play any musical instruments?

I read you're about to make a new release of DISTRHO. What are the highlights
of this next release?

LV2 has become quite popular amongst Linux audio users. What are the best and
worst things about LV2, in your opinion?

Carla, your plugin host, has grown up a lot recently and is quite powerful
these days. Are you done adding new features to it or should we expect more?

*~30m SONG: Secret Chiefs 3 -Vajra

What do you enjoy doing when you're not coding or fixing everyone's Linux probs?

Claudia, your JACK patch bay and session manager, currently uses LADISH for
session management but a lot of people in Linux audio land seems to prefer the
Non session manager these days. Is Claudia going to carry on using LADISH, will
it adopt NSM instead or will it support both?

Why did you pick girls names beginning with C for most of your apps?

You recently made some customisations to JACK in KXStudio. What did you change
or add and will your changes make it upsteam?

Do you have a smartphone?

Would you be interested in developing for Android if/when JACK gets an Android
port?

What sort of music are you into?

What are the most interesting or exciting, non-falkTX powered, open source
projects?

*~45m SONG: Cardiacs Radio Session track

What program would you most like to see get ported to Linux?

Have you ever met any other members of the Linux audio community in person?

Do you believe in re-incarnation?

What do you think are the best and worst aspects of Linux?

Debian is 20 years old tomorrow - are you going to celebrate?

Which do you prefer and why - qtractor, Muse or Ardour?

Whats your favourite Linux music tool?

Whats your favourite Linux command?

<Job interview style> Do you have any questions for me?

*HOUR SONG: Nick Harper politician song, live 2013
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Re: falkTX radio interview

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male
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by male »

danboid wrote:The unedited version of this interview is now available for download from the Dark City Archives page. I will have to edit it soon to remove the copyrighted tracks I played during the show.

The intro jingle didn't play properly as I uploaded it at the last minute in a hurry before the show and it was encoded at 48Khz instead of 44.1 - IDJC has probs streaming tracks that aren't at the same freq. that you are running JACK at. I knew this!

That wasn't the main problem though. I was still running the 3.8 kernel complete with its USB audio probs last night and so my sound card was experiencing major stability problems so my audio isn't so good throughout the show. Not unbearable but hardly ideal. As I've mentioned in another thread, I've now downgraded to 3.5 and my Scarlett 2i4 seems to be fine now so I shouldn't have that problem next time - if there is a next time? Its hard enough to get people to do radio interviews - nevermind install Mumble too!
The MP3 is riddled with errors. Can you reencode it or encoded it as an ogg/vorbis or something? It's unlistenable.
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

I'm sorry you found the MP3 unlistenable male. I'm well aware of the many flaws but the interview isn't going to get much better than that without us re-recording it unfortunately as that MP3 is the raw, unedited source and master file.

The production quality should improve as I get more practice at it and squash more bugs in my setup and production process.
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by male »

danboid wrote:I'm sorry you found the MP3 unlistenable male. I'm well aware of the many flaws but the interview isn't going to get much better than that without us re-recording it unfortunately as that MP3 is the raw, unedited source and master file.

The production quality should improve as I get more practice at it and squash more bugs in my setup and production process.
:(

I didn't mean unlistenable as an opinion either, I literally could not comprehend it due to all the skips. Oh well. Is there a technical reason why you recorded the in MP3 instead of WAV? Is that a limitation of Mumble?
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

Great effort Dan, I know from previous experience that these types of things are not easy to produce whether with mumble or Skype and it depends on a lot of things falling into place with reliable speedy network connections in addition to the audio hardware working reliably. In any case it was great to hear the gentle voice behind the very powerful KXStudio and I hope you guys either try again or do another topic in the future..

Great English falkTX! I'm always blown away by how many Linux users that aren't native English speakers have such excellent command of a 'foreign' language. Honestly I think I had more difficulty with Dan's Scottish burr... :lol: :wink:
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by tatch »

male wrote:
danboid wrote:I'm sorry you found the MP3 unlistenable male. I'm well aware of the many flaws but the interview isn't going to get much better than that without us re-recording it unfortunately as that MP3 is the raw, unedited source and master file.

The production quality should improve as I get more practice at it and squash more bugs in my setup and production process.
:(

I didn't mean unlistenable as an opinion either, I literally could not comprehend it due to all the skips. Oh well. Is there a technical reason why you recorded the in MP3 instead of WAV? Is that a limitation of Mumble?
I think it skips the most within the first 5m or so, after that it's more listenable.
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

Thanks for listening all! Good to hear others found the audio bearable.

GMaq:

Despite my name, I'm not Scottish - I'm Lancastrian. Hence me making a point of using the word 'nowt', given half a chance.

I don't think I've got a regular Lancashire / Mancunian accent though as people often struggle to place my accent, which I like. I agree that falkTX is probably easier to understand for most, despite English not being his native tongue.
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by straighttothebar »

"Assumption of Mary"-day is on the 15th of August, falktx :P Good interview btw, and some interesting questions you asked there dan!
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

Thanks for the kind words mr 'bar!
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by wolftune »

danboid wrote:using the word 'nowt', given half a chance.
Learn something new every day. I thought you were just misspelling that, but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowt "The spellings "owt" and "nowt" are sometimes used to emphasise northern English pronunciation." So okee dokee.

Interesting interview. I liked the varied music from groups that integrated different musical bits into the same pieces a la Zappa or something, quite different from most of the bland stuff you hear usually.

I'm really blown away that, falktx, you are just a self-taught programmer with only a few years experience! I assumed you were one of those people who'd been programming for many years, since you were a kid or something. It really shows something about the accessibility of GNU/Linux, how someone who puts their mind to something can really participate and make a difference in a short time. Or maybe you're just that amazing. :mrgreen: Probably it's somewhere in the middle between those two ideas.

Dan, nice start, keep it up. With practice, you'll develop a smoother but still-your-own interview style. Looking forward to more of this…
Aaron Wolf
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http://wolftune.com
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by danboid »

Thanks for your feedback Wolfman! I'm glad you liked my admittedly odd taste in music. I was predictably concentrating on playing the cream of prog rock/psyche (like one of my old bands ;) ) in MR2 - expect more of the same in the future but I'll play all genres of music. I'm also chuffed to have enlightened at least on more soul to the supreme significance of the almighty nothingness of nowt 'n' owt. Indeed, you are now mastering our language! :D

I'm pondering Thursday and hoping I can get Mumble 1.2.4+ w/JACK going in time for the next one!
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Re: falkTX radio interview

Post by Thad E Ginathom »

Echoing wolftune. My mouth fell open when FalkTX said he started with Ubuntu 10.04 which means he's been working at this stuff for not much over three years, not just learning a bit of programming, but taking on an entire area of Linux and revolutionising it. It's an amazing accomplishment: there really should be awards for this kind of thing, it beats the Oscars any day : )

Dan and FalkTX, in the absence of being able to put a face to the forums posts, putting a voice to them is the next best thing. Great!
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