Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Link to good samples/soundfonts at http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/free_audio_data

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noedig
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Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by noedig »

Hi. I would like to present a personal tool that I've been brewing for some time now:

Konfyt - a "digital keyboard workstation" for Linux

It started out in 2014 when I realised that setting up a live keyboard workflow with Linux seemed more convoluted than necessary. Initially, I just wanted to quickly get a basic library app going with wich I could view soundfont programs with minimal effort. I eventually added functionality to play the soundfonts. SFZ support followed, standing on the shoulders of the Carla backend by falkTX. The project grew. I added the ability to layer different sounds, to switch patches on the fly, to split sounds in zones across the keyboard, to maintain persistent JACK connections, hacking on part by part as I found motivation or need.

Today, it is a pretty functional keyboard workstation, allowing you to search for SFZs and soundfonts, create patches with layers on the fly and much more.

This can all be done with the tools already available in Linux audio, but the big goal with Konfyt is a repeatable workflow with minimal effort that doesn't break the creative train of thought and that is fast and efficient in live scenarios. (Imagine being in a jam session and quickly wanting to add a new patch with two layers split across the keyboard, one of them needing to be transposed.)

This project was hacked together for personal use. Some may frown upon the code and design. It may be unstable. But it works for me and I am finally releasing it in the hopes that it would be useful to someone. I cannot guarantee any support or maintenance but I'm eager to see if someone could use it, take it further or incorporate the ideas into other software.

Welkom by Konfyt.
http://www.noedig.co.za/konfyt/
https://github.com/noedigcode/konfyt
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by progwolff »

Great, I'll try this out within the next few days.

I wrote a similar application: https://github.com/progwolff/performer
Maybe it's worth merging those projects.
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by nils »

Sorry that this is the first thing that comes to my mind, but what about the license issue that Linuxsampler is not GPL but you give us a program under GPL?
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by noedig »

I wrote a similar application: https://github.com/progwolff/performer
Maybe it's worth merging those projects.
I haven't tried it yet, but your application is definitely on my list to try. Including a notes/chords PDF viewer was actually on my mind at some point since it's one of my regular use cases.
Sorry that this is the first thing that comes to my mind, but what about the license issue that Linuxsampler is not GPL but you give us a program under GPL?
What do you propose? I'm not clued up on the license intricacies of GPL code making use of a non-GPL library.
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by progwolff »

Isn't Carla itself licensed under GPL2?
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by Lyberta »

Hmmm, you can't link GPL and proprietary code together, only if the license specifically grants you that exception.
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by noedig »

From here
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en ... atibleLibs
and here
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en ... WithNFLibs
it seems that it's allowable as long as I grant an exception and inform potential users in the readme?
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by progwolff »

[*] LinuxSampler is licensed under the GNU GPL with the exception that USAGE of the source code, libraries and applications FOR COMMERCIAL HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS IS NOT ALLOWED without prior written permission by the LinuxSampler authors. If you have questions on the subject, that are not yet covered by the FAQ, please contact us.
http://linuxsampler.org/downloads.html#exception

So, it seems like LinuxSampler is in fact licensed under GPL and there should be no problem to license your project under GPL as well if you add this note to any part of LinuxSampler you use in your project.

Edit: Seems like I was wrong, see viewtopic.php?f=50&t=15963
Last edited by progwolff on Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by Lyberta »

You can't do it because you won't have 4 essential freedoms. I suggest avoiding using anything that uses LinuxSampler and help adding SFZ support to FluidSynth or other free samplers.
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by ssj71 »

noedig wrote:What do you propose? I'm not clued up on the license intricacies of GPL code making use of a non-GPL library.
IIUC you can release but you must release under the modified GPL licence used by linuxsampler (basically you must go to the least-free common denominator). If you were contacted by someone who wanted to use Konfyt for commercial use, you would also need linuxsampler's permission to offer a different license to that user/group.

For now I'd do that, and if you want to provide freedom to use Konfyt for commercial purposes (as the standard GPL would) you'll have to find an alternative SFZ library (which there isn't an easy one yet).
_ssj71

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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by Lyberta »

falkTX wrote:If you want to debate linuxsampler and its license, open a new topic.
(then you can rant all you want in there, and I'll gladly join)
Or use an existing one :)
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Re: Announcing Konfyt digital keyboard workstation

Post by Arthurx »

Hi Gideon,
Thanks looks really useful!
For live switching.
Gonna test it later! :D :D :D
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