(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

As I dont have hundreds of pounds lying around for toys, I wanna make a Gtkdialog version of the Native Instruments Maschine, using sox, ecasound, listener, soundstretch, JACK, and any other recommended CLI multi-track audio progs...

(I cant get meterec to work ) ...

This is a Maschine: http://cachepe.zzounds.com/media/qualit ... d48c7b.jpg

Screenshot of my GUI attached below....

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYVQR-YdVJI

Firstly, I have no idea how to do the backend, and even worse, I have NO musical talent whatsoever...

Here are the things I will have to solve at some point:

- each song is a project.. and will have a name, BPM,
- backend must have timer daemon thing that is fixed to the chosen BPM
- timer count bars, & time from start .. to bring in the sounds as needed
- assign numpad key presses to the big buttons (the pads)
- assign shortcuts for play, stop, rec, mute
- record all output into a single file (stuff played on pads PLUS all other playing sounds)
- record only the pads, not including any other audio that is being played
- track the time from clicking 'play', so that anything played on pads can be added to song at correct point
- auto sample slicing to pads - use ecasound to cut the sample into its beats, sounds stretch to fit with projects bpm
- add chain of effects in realtime to sounds, and have those altered sounds recorded after effects are added!
- beat sequencer (pads flash in order, timed, you highlight them to trigger the sounds at the chosen time)

I see this being impossible to do on my own, but if anyone is interested in helping, I will push it as far as I can... I am open to advice on how to handle the 'backend' ... Basically, anyone who knows a bit about playing/recording/combining multiple audio streams will be of help!

Experts in ecasound, sox and the like might wanna chip in if they can!

If I get anything at all usable or half-baked, I will upload a pet...

Hi scOttman.

I'm surely not able to be any help on the programming issues related to this project. But I'm looking forward to a first PET released!

Also: I do own a complete home recording studio with all the external equipment like keyboards and synthesizers, guitar, bass, drums, mixers etc.pp. Yes, I'm a musician and also a composer and I really would like to do some tests and report the results to you.

So, would you please send me a pm, to make sure, I'm not missing your first PET released?

Thanks,

RSH

Any ideas on a good backend for this?

I still wanna make something along these lines...

Have been looking into backends, and also improved the GUI a little (added dropdown menus, placeholder stuff, fixed theming)... still just a demo GUI that does nothing tho...

The following backends would seem like a good idea:

ecasound (or any other multi-track HD recording cli apps)
*midi (or any cli apps that can patch MIDI devices to ALSA)
sox (or any cli apps that can add audio effects)

.. unfortunately I still know nowt about it, especially once JACK is involved (hopefully JACK is not needed?)...

I envisage something like this:

The gui is a frontend for sampling, adding effects, setting up, queuing up multiple tracks, and live control of the audio, channels, tracks etc that you setup.. It should be able to record all channels/tracks you setup to a single output file.

The normal PC keyboard *could* be used to control the drum pads (etc), but a MIDI device would be preferred.

* the Projects tab would be where you save and load your songs/projects.

* the Instruments tab would contains soundfonts to assign to the pads.

* the Samples tab would list the audio samples you've created (chopped up audio tracks), to assign to the pads.

* the Editor tab would be where you add effects to your samples, etc.

* the blue buttons are "banks" for the pads .. so you can switch between different pad setups easily (changing the assigned sounds all at once)

But I've not many concrete ideas on the best way to do it...

So, some ideas are welcome as to

1. what would be a good multi-track recording backend for this GUI..

2. what effects and post-processing can be done to already recorded sounds, or even to piped stuff/streams

3. the most barebones and lightweight way to hook up a MIDI device (like an AKAI MPD) to ALSA (or JACK if needed..?)

Cheers

@Scottman,

I don't know enough about music to know if AMUC is relevant but, anyway, see:

AMUC

muggins wrote:@Scottman,

I don't know enough about music to know if AMUC is relevant but, anyway, see:

AMUC

The link to the PET file in above linked AMUC topic is dead. Though, I'd stored a LP2_amuc-1.7-i486.sfs some time ago at http://smokey01.com/RSH/. It still seems to work in tahr 6.0.2.

Hello LazY Puppy,

the link isn't dead as I downloaded the pet from there before I posted...although I admit I did have to refresh mediafire once to refresh the download.

cheers

Thanks guys I will look into it..

Hopefully it has a powerful set of command line options to match the quite advanced GUI!

Original AMUC website is gone, but was preserved on the Wayback Machine
Here
Link to source code works as well.
[EDIT] err, no it doesn't. Downloaded an empty archive.
[EDIT 2] oh yes it does. Only 2MB file, but very slow to download and my connection is a little ropey.

IIRC sox has many of capabilities you want, but if you ever decide to do basic video, there's blind