Free Audio Software

DSLC

The good news: there's a lot of excellent free audio software available
The bad news (..well - as Briony implies in his post below - it's actually good news, even if it seems like a bit of a daunting task at first): you have to switch to a GNU/Linux system to use most of it (..but it's definitely worth it in my opinion; and switching over is relatively easy)

Sometimes linkage speaks more than words, so I'll let the links do most of the talking!

GNU/Linux distributions customized for Audio/Music:

• AGNULA/DeMuDi - quite possibly the most popular choice for GNU/Linux musicians; comes with lots of excellent audio software pre-installed
• Planet CCRMA - another popular alternative
• Musix GNU+Linux - a new distribution which refuses to use any non-free (..'free' according to the rather rigorous
• FSF definition of free software ) components in the system whatsoever

Examples of Specific tools (..these are just examples of some of the more popular ones):

• Rosegarden - an audio & midi sequencer
• MusE - another audio & midi sequencer
• Ardour - a digital audio workstation
• Audacity - free, open source software for recording and editing sounds
• Ecasound - "can be used for simple tasks like audio playback, recording and format conversions, as well as for multitrack effect processing, mixing, recording and signal recycling"
• Snd - a very powerful sound editor
• ZynAddSubFX - a software synthesizer
• Hydrogen - a very cool drum editor
• Sox - can be used for format conversion, adding effects, playing and recording (plus other things as well probably)
• Swami - a program for editing and creating soundfonts
• FluidSynth - a synthesizer which uses soundfonts
• Vorbis - Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology (..you can use this instead of the MP3 format)
• Jack Audio Connection Kit - a low-latency audio server which enables more than one application to connect to the audio device at a time

Miscellaneous:

• Music Made with Linux
• LinuxSound.org - A repository of informative links relating to audio production with free software

(..in a bit of a rush at the moment - I'll revise/edit this when I get a chance)

Briony Noh

Or to put it another way, The Good News is there's a lot of excellent free audio software available and the Best News is you get to use LINUX and leave the whole crap, bug-laden, virus-sensitive Windows environment far, far behind you in the universe where ex-girl/boyfriends and first cars go (I can't believe I was ever happy with *that* ol' dawg).

Ardour is a peach of a prog, offering more versatility than any one man deserves (as such, it can be quite hard to get used to at first). The Linux downside comes when you begin to look into MIDI support. Some of your Windows MIDI interfaces won't inter. Or face. You might have to buy something new that will. Sequencers, like Rosegarden, though are perfectly equal to the tasks once reserved for Cubase VST. There are differences, there's a little extra typing to be done to make up the Script files, and there's a reason its name doesn't end in VST, and a little more thought is needed when it comes to connecting inputs an outputs, but I'm sure it took us all a fair amount of time to get used to Cubase the first time we sat down to it. Anyway, if push comes to shove, you can always read the damned manual (RTFM).

But with upsides that include Cinelerra (for AV editing which is both FREE and a hundred times better than Adobe Premiere, bringing it somewhere close to the neighbourhood of Final Cut Pro) and much less drain on the processor (so that your P4 3.5 MHz processor can finally start acting like it's almost four thousand times faster than a P1 - instead of just marginally better under Windows XP), PLUS REGULAR UPGRADES AND GRATIS IMPROVEMENTS to every piece of software ever written for the platform, in addition to having the entire world's independent software development community on-line and accessible for comment and suggestion ... I've forgotten how this sentence started, but I know the ending was going to be a doozey. If you take it as read, I'll take it as written.

Anyone still using Windows for multi-media should seriously re-examine their commitment to their art. I speak as someone who just spent the last two weeks re-installing Windows after a chipset-related latency crash that cost me an entire directory of music (36 GBytes!) AND my complete Cubase installation - these things just don't happen on Linux machines , of which I currently have two that have given me neither grief nor concern since the days I bought them (tempting providence, but it's so hard to touch wood in cyber space).

P.S. Like Linux. Linux good.

(I'm typing this on a Win XP machine at work - I hope it doesn't take offence and cra

DSLC

What can I say - other than that I agree almost entirely?

One obstacle that faces anyone migrating from a Mac/Windows Audio Workstation to a GNU/Linux OS though is the compatibility of their old sequencer files. Exporting 50+ Cubase files to MIDI and then re-importing them into Rosegarden or MusE isn't that big a deal, but if you have hundreds of compositions it's non-trivial.
Then again, anyone switching from Cubase to Logic, or Logic to Sonar etc. has pretty much the same problem (..I guess - but maybe I'm wrong?).

Briony Noh

Which is the only problem, really: if people are against the move they'll find excuses, otherwise ...

The option of the dual install is always open, so keep your Cubases and whatnot by all means. Especially since there are so many multi-media live CDs out there, partic. Agnula' DeMuDi which I'm downloading as we speak. For those who, like me up until a couple of weeks ago, are uninitiated in the mysteries of the Live CD, it and others will only install the OS for the duration of the session. (Pop out the CD and reboot to be Windows again, for all your Cubase needs)

The point, for me, is that I'm usually contemplating the NEXT project more often than the last. Yes, I might want to tinker with the odd (downright peculiar) old file, bring it up to date with the latest voices or whatever, but I speak as someone who still has about a hundred and some Spectrum Music Machine MIDI files from the 1990s on cassette and at least as many new ideas stretching ahead of me into the ineffible future! I'll go back to them each eventually in their own time, but for now I have a new chamber quartet sonata to finish off, know wha' I mean?

Doodler

Can't let this great double-act away with ignoring some real facts about linux:

1: many many good soundcards and interfaces have no linux driver support, and if they do, it's quite often lacking the functionality provided in windows or mac counter-parts. Check this for all your audio bits and bobs before changing over.

2: A number of the opensource applications like the excellent Audacity are available on Windows and work really well on it

3: Most linux implementations, including the one running on my pc right now, get downright confused by two soundcards even if drivers for both are installed, so lots of tweaking involved just to get any sound at all.

4: do not move to linux unless you are technically-literate and are prepared to become proficient at a command-line interface. It is very problematic compared to windows xp (imho, no flames please) and you will need to be sorting issues out, especially if you add new devices etc. as most music-making users will.

This is based on personal experience. The story will probably be different 5 years from now.