[XCSSA] Christmas Lights Display

Tue Dec 29 19:02:46 CST 2009

The freeware argument is irrelevant to whether or not I use Linux audio tools. It's right too for the right job. It's that tool is free, awesome! But if Cubase were available on Linux, I would consider that as a viable option.  I am familiar with linux-sound.org, though I hadn't been there in some time until today. Not many things I didn't already know except that it's good to know that there is better M-Audio support than I originally thought.

I haven't tried Studio64 though I'm thinking of giving Ubuntu Studio a go. I have a spare hard-drive I can slap in my PC and see how things go. Not really holding my breath or anything but might as well try these sorts of things out :)

I've changed my mind like 10 times but, at the moment, I'm inclined to go with an upgraded version of Cubase since I'm already familiar with its quirks and, apart from one minor issue, it does everything I need it to.

*shrug*

If I get around to trying Ubuntu Studio or the others, I"ll be sure to share my findings!

Tim

On Dec 29, 2009, at 6:07 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:

> Ummm...
> On the "freeware"/don't have to pay for it side of things, yeah, linux
> will always be behind windows.
> 
> 
> http://www.64studio.com/faq_user seems to have a related, but not a
> fix, "solution" to latency issues.
>> From the FAQ at http://www.64studio.com/faq_user:
>  "# The performance of my USB audio interface with Jack is poor. I
> can't get low latency without xruns, using the default Jack settings.
> What do I need to change?
> 
>  USB audio interfaces can act strangely when set to 2 periods/buffer,
> the usual default for PCI sound   cards or onboard chipsets. In Jack
> Control, please set Periods/Buffer to 3 and Frames/Period to a  fairly
> high figure, say 256 or 512. Then try lower Frames/Period settings
> until you reach the lower latency limits of your system. If you don't
> need full duplex, setting Jack to Playback Only or Capture Only will
> improve performance."
> 
> Have you looked at sites such as http://linux-sound.org/ ?  The only
> distros that I know of that would be able to even approach what you
> want to do are dyne:bolic and studio64.
> 
> A recent article that seems to be related to this discussion :
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/little-boxes-audio-production-hardware-studio-dave
> 
> Craig
> 
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 8:25 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org> wrote:
>> Hello person without a name :)
>> 
>> Unfortunately, I have no working setup on Linux to benchmark against. Low latency audio was one of many problems I had when trying to use Linux. The king of which was lack of any good software (free or otherwise) that could compete with Cubase and the like. I'd love to do audio in Linux but, when I put my musician hat on, it's not about OSes, not about threads, not about any of that stuff. It's about making music. The fewer distractions I have, the better.
>> 
>> Windows awards me with plenty of distractions (such as the damn pop-up box saying I need to update the Malicious Software Removal Tool again...GRR!) but they were actually fewer than in Linux where I couldn't really even get all my hardware to sing harmoniously together.
>> 
>> That and the lack of good software instruments of an easy way of running VSTs and lack of support for higher end audio cards (such as my M-Audio 24/96 cards) kinda killed it for me.
>> 
>> It's a bummer, yes, and I'm certainly open to giving it another go. I almost did with Ubuntu Studio (which already offers a tuned kernel, among other niceties) but it just needs some work. Honestly, it probably needs a corporate sponsor because, as much as I love open source, the tools that are freely available are just too far behind the commercial behemoths :/
>> 
>> Long story short, I can boot that up on my music box but it's still just one problem among many I have with audio in Linux. I chose that example, though, to illustrate the threading conversation not so much to derail the conversation into the Linux audio stack :) In trying to re-rail this train, I'll point out that, using the MIDI and DAW tools available in Linux for synchronizing Christmas lights would be well within the use case of those tools. It's the combination of handling audio input and MIDI with very low latency that is one of the bigger problems.
>> 
>> Tim
>> 
>> On Dec 29, 2009, at 1:50 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>> 
>>> Could you paste the results of running
>>> http://www.osadl.org/projects-live-cd.0.html on the linux system(s) in
>>> question?
>>> Sounds like you have a specific set of requirements that do not fit
>>> under a 'general application OS'.
>>> RT is more than just how an OS handles threads -- syncronization
>>> requires IPC communications.
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San
>>> Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Dec 29, 2009, at 12:22 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:22 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San
>>>>> Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org> wrote:
>>>>>> Windows scheduler? Gonna have to call you out on that one, Tweeks, and I'm a Linux guy :) Windows seems like it can do better realtime processing than in Linux out of the box. No better example than audio handling. That will own your Linux box all over the place with high latency, poor timing, and all sorts of fun things.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> That's a poor example, as the issue is likely sound card support, NOT threads.
>>>>> A comparison between video cards that BOTH OS's support would be
>>>>> better (but only if the 'proprietary' card allows open access to the
>>>>> video driver source code).
>>>> 
>>>> More like poor driver support. Under Linux sound card support is extremely inferior. Which is a shame - I'd love to move to using Linux to make music. That said, you still need OS support for it and, besides, I'm also talking about threads. You need low latency not only with the audio handling but also with capturing, filtering, and reoutputting the audio. Not to mention generating audio (via software instruments - ala VSTs).
>>>> 
>>>> So basically, I have a number of threads all of which need to offer low latency synchronized audio and MIDI. Linux can't do that. If you can make it do that, I"ll give you...$1 :) Good luck.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Windows, on the other hand, can. Now, I'll admit, this example is just a process of multiple threads, but you can add in things like Rewire, where you have multiple applications talking to each other which also need to be carefully timed.
>>>> 
>>>> In other words, you can't simplify this down to just sound card support. It's WAY more than that and it IS, in fact, a threading issue.
>>>> 
>>>> Tim
>>>> 
>>>> 
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