suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Programming applications for making music on Linux.

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StudioDave
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suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by StudioDave »

I've been testing the recent SVN code and have some suggestions and a question or two. First, the suggestions:

The GUI is nice but rather blocky. In the long run it could benefit from some further polish. For instance, the tuner's UI could be greatly enhanced, or it may be preferable to integrate an already-existing tuner with a finished GUI.

The English on the Guitarix Web site really needs some love. I hereby offer to tidy up the language on the Guitarix Web site, if brummer wants it done. Ditto for the README.

Documentation ? Examples ? Recordings ? Tooltips ? These items would be nice to see/hear. We need more things like brummer's helpful introduction to using jconv with Guitarix. For instance, I have no idea how the Impulse Response module works or what it's really supposed to do.

A question: Beneath the Fuzz control there is a little button. If I middle-click on it the button changes place. There are apparently three positions for the button. So what does it do ?

Another question: Has anyone got the MIDI output working well with a standard electric guitar ? It's not very useful for me, but I'm willing to assume that I'm doing something wrong. Any suggestions for a "best fit" to avoid false triggers ?

I like Guitarix, and I hope its development continues.

Best,

dp
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funkmuscle
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by funkmuscle »

Hey Dave, I'm working on a few recorded samples to show what guitarix sounds like with the use of cab/amp sims using jconv.
hope to have them done in the next week... nothing fancy, just some samples so folks can hear the potential of this app. I'm just waiting for some free time..
brummer

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Hi Dave

I'am glade you like guitarix, first let me say, yes, guitarix is under heavy development and there is a lot room to improve it, and we will try to do it. I will create a tuner widget soon.
The guitarix project is a open project and every one how would contribute is welcome. :)
So when you could polish the language from the website / readme you are more then welcome.
My english isn't well formed, I try my best to make it understandable, but . . .

If you are a SourceForge user, I could give you (maintain) access to the website so that you could download it, edit it and upload it back. I will give you a full discription how to down/upload the site including all folders.
If you dont like that idea you could also send it to me and I will upload it, but I prefor the first version. :)

I guess you didn't wont active develop guitarix, so access to the SVN repostory isn't needed, then you could send the polish README to me, please,

The leak on Documentation is justified in my leak on english to. There for I have set up the guitarix forum with the hope that there we could collect a knowlage base /Documentation for Linux Guitarieros.

To the fuzz : The little "slider" under the knob is a switcher, it switch beetween off, cut, and foldback distortion. The knob set the treshold level. Left site it's off, in the middle it's a soft clipper followed by a hard cut.

The midi output : yea, it's a bit tricky to get it work nice with a E-guitar, I'am myself play a selfmade cocolele witch I capture with a electret condenser mic (imp high) witch I pos beetween my fingers. I use mostly fluidsynth with it, to simulate a jazz/blues background band. That mean one channel for drums (channel 9, program 0 for most sf2), one channel for sitar (channel 1, program 104) and one channel for the bass(channel 3, program ~38 ). The midi output isn't suposed to convert guitar to piano for example, it's more to simulate a band. There for the beat is the trigger for the output, it work as followed: in the midi out widget you found the tap beat_detector, there is the knob "atack_gain", this set the minimal gain value (in midi level value) for the point when we send the input to the beat detector. The "beat_gain" set the value for how mutch the gain must grow (from the entry point value) to detect a beat. The note_off knob set how often no beat detecte to send a all notes off message. Note, gutarix send only "ALL NOTES OFF" messages, no specific "NOTE OFF" is involved. Not all synth's could handle that. The stepper skip simply some cycles, when you set it to a other value then 1, you must set the beat gain to 0. This come closer to the beat, but lose some precission(good for drums/percusione).
In the channel tap's you could set the sensity, witch mean "how many beats must detect, befor we play a note". So you could set different levels for different instruments.

But indeet, I have look at the code and found a small bug witch make it nearly inposible to get a nice output with a E-guitar (Imp-high wasn't infected), and I have add a general midi gain weel to the beat detector.

The jconv part, for guitarieros, jconv is intressting because we could use it to involve IR-files, we didn't wont to use Reverb, here we would use Impulse Response. In the web you could find a lot IR-files witch simulate different amplifiers, that's what we use for guitar. It's a bit pity that we didn't have realtime controlls for the gain and the offset/lengh, we will work on that,. .
Anyway, mostly we drive the IR files full wet, and select the part from the file were the Sound is going and remove the flat (reverb) part (mostly the last part, somtimes it's the first part). You will find many files like MARSHALL bla bla bla . . .
It's also nice to simulate different speakers, and offcourse somtimes for room emulation.

So, Dave, you are welcome,

EDIT:// I guess I get your question for Impulse Response wrong ? You mean the inbuild IR unit ?
Okay, that is like a convolution engine witch use Frequences as 2. input, you can set the freq and the Bandwidth, that mean the center freq and the effect width . It's usefull for give the sound a other color. It's mixed with the input and then mixed by with the peak knob. Peak mean add the mixed signal to the orginal signal. I often use it at 440 Hz with a bandwidth from 110 and a small peak 1.2 or so.
StudioDave
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by StudioDave »

brummer wrote:So when you could polish the language from the website / readme you are more then welcome. My english isn't well formed, I try my best to make it understandable, but . . .
It is perfectly understandable, far better than my German. :) It just suffers from the wrong spelling for a number of words.
If you are a SourceForge user, I could give you (maintain) access to the website so that you could download it, edit it and upload it back. I will give you a full discription how to down/upload the site including all folders.
If you dont like that idea you could also send it to me and I will upload it, but I prefor the first version.
Let's go with the first idea. I don't have a SourceForge account, I'll create one today and get back to you.
I guess you didn't wont active develop guitarix, so access to the SVN repostory isn't needed, then you could send the polish README to me, please,
I can work on that over the next couple of days.
The leak on Documentation is justified in my leak on english to. There for I have set up the guitarix forum with the hope that there we could collect a knowlage base /Documentation for Linux Guitarieros.
A good idea. I'm looking forward to funkmuscle's examples too. And thanks for the tips re: jconv and cabinet simulations.
To the fuzz : The little "slider" under the knob is a switcher, it switch beetween off, cut, and foldback distortion. The knob set the treshold level. Left site it's off, in the middle it's a soft clipper followed by a hard cut.
Ah, okay. Cool. :)

Re: Guitarix MIDI output

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give it a further workout today. I've been building from SVN sources so I'll test your latest additions.
I guess I get your question for Impulse Response wrong ? You mean the inbuild IR unit ?
Yes, that was what I wondered about. Thanks for the suggestions (again). :)

Best,

dp
brummer

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Hi
Let's go with the first idea. I don't have a SourceForge account, I'll create one today and get back to you.
Very nice Dave, therewith you help our project out of a misery. . .
The leak on Documentation is justified in my leak on english to. There for I have set up the guitarix forum with the hope that there we could collect a knowlage base /Documentation for Linux Guitarieros.

A good idea. I'm looking forward to funkmuscle's examples too. And thanks for the tips re: jconv and cabinet simulations.
I have start to create some descriptions how to use guitarix, and documentations here
http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/guita ... um.php?f=3

probably it's again in my broken English
I will add some more over the time, . . .

Also I get a offer from Teza, he will also capture some samples for the project page and create some presets to include them to guitarix, the basic settings for Jazz, Rock, Blues, Soul and Metal as starting point to create own presets.



brummer
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Hi Dave

I have check in your revised README today, THANKS , sorry for the delay, I'am to busy at time.
But you can see in the other tread here, that the development is straight go on, thorgal have include a neat
jack/server/port control and some new level meter's. There's a gain controller for jconv now, and some other dsp stuff. I guess it's worse to have a look.

so long hermann
StudioDave
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by StudioDave »

brummer wrote:Hi Dave...
Hi Hermann,

Thanks for the note. I've been following the messages here, but I haven't built the latest guitarix. I'll do so as soon as possible. Alas, my weekends have been very busy, and this one's no exception. I'll try to update early next week, I'll send a report when I've had some time to play with the program.

It sounds like guitarix is getting better and better. :)

Best,

dp
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GMaq
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by GMaq »

Hello Brummer,

Great work on guitarix, it just keeps getting better and better. I thought I should let you know there is an error in the Debian rules on the latest release. Where it says "waf" it should say "./waf" . I built a package for AV Linux this evening with buildpackage and it wouldn't build until I modified the Debian rules file.

Thanks for making your program "Debian Friendly" it sure makes it much easier to distribute!

Great Work!

Regards GMaq
brummer

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Hi GMaq

Thanks and welcome,
oh shit, yea, sorry man. I have correct it in SVN now, so it wouldn't happen any more. Thanks for let me know.

Do you have a repository out there for your AV Linux packets, or did you just pull them out with the live CD ?
I would like to add a link to our project page, to let people know, were they can get binary's from guitarix,

so welcome GMaq

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GMaq
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by GMaq »

Brummer,

I don't have a repository. I try to work with Debian GIT/Testing as much as possible. AV Linux is kind of like Dynebolic with Debian support so most updating is done through the ISO images. I do keep a few packages and my custom Kernels on an ftp page. If you want me to put up a package there I would be glad to. AV Linux 3.0 is coming out very soon, guitarix is in the package list, is that OK with you?

Let me know if you want a package put up and I'll post a link, also if guitarix can be included in AV Linux 3.0.

Thanks for your efforts and a nice welcome!

Regards -GMaq
brummer

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Morning Gmaq
GMaq wrote:Let me know if you want a package put up and I'll post a link, also if guitarix can be included in AV Linux 3.0.
sure, that's welcome, both :D

Send the links you use for it, and I will include it to our project page with a short introduction to AV Linux.
It will be nice for potential guitarix ( Linux ) users to check it out on a live CD, or receive a ready to use binary packet.
I'm myself a debian/sid user, with a heavy customised packet list installed, so I didn't wone push out binarys but I know that most ppl prefer those. So distributors are welcome to our small project. :)

hermann
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GMaq
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by GMaq »

Brummer,

Here is the link, guitarix was built with your script on AV Linux (based on Debian Testing) so I don't know whether this deb will work with Debian Lenny or not, there is also a Checkinstall deb of the latest JACK Capture, I don't think it is in Debian anywhere yet(?). There are also other various packages from GIT so "buyer beware" feel free to try them at your own risk. Here's the link:
http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux2/

AV Linux 3.0 will be released by the end of November and will feature guitarix, linuxDSP LV2 plugins and the latest versions of most common Linux A/V Apps and much more. See the development page here:
http://geekconnection.org/remastersys/f ... opic=273.0

I will now get out of the way and give this thread back to Dave Phillips...a man I certainly don't want to offend! :P
StudioDave
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Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by StudioDave »

GMaq wrote:I will now get out of the way and give this thread back to Dave Phillips...a man I certainly don't want to offend! :P
Good timing, G, I was just about to get out my flamethrower. :)

No fear, this thread ("suggestions & questions") is pretty general anyway.

Best,

dp
studio32

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by studio32 »

mmh I can't install it on ubuntu hardy. The backports give me gtk2+ version *.12 and it seems I need *.14 now...
Do I really need *.14?
brummer

Re: suggestions for and questions about Guitarix

Post by brummer »

Yes, 2.14 is needed.
Latest version from Gtk+ is 2.19 , so we are not to high in the blending age.

A Backport for hardy with 2.14 you could find here for example.

deb http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
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