Re: wiki - list of free software for audio

[michael noble <looplog@gmail.com>]

Hi Louigi,

I don't use midi at all really, and instead do only sound processing. Without knowing the specific plugin you used in LMMS, I can't really comment on that issue. I can say that I've used the CMT delays and never had a problem with them. These are a series of delay plugins with or without feedback up to 60 seconds in length. They are Ladspa plugins, which means the host must draw the gui, so if the host is ugly generally the plugins will be too! I don't believe they sync to host tempo. In a fix you could try running sooperlooper in delay mode, and sync that to JACK clock or midi clock.

As for sound processing plugins and the range on linux i suppose it is dependent on what you are trying to do. There are around 300 ladspa effects of various quality, and some very high quality LV2 plugins, which is the next generation plugin API, with very professional looking GUIs. You can also use FST to run VSTs under wine, which I do for spatialization via the acousmodules series of VST plugins. So there is quite a lot of choice, at least from my perspective. That being said I also farm some of my audio processing off to a windows box running a Korg OASYS, so I'm kind of spoiled.

-michael

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael, interesting info. Actually, today in the morning I looked at the QTractor screenshots and decided that it looks very promising indeed and that I want to try it out.

The parallel thing is interesting and I wouldn't mind having several apps open at the same time. But what I need for the kind of music I do (sound music, ambient music) is to be able to have various effects - vocoders, delays, flangers, slicers, etc. I do not need a note editor that much as I need sound processing effects. VST effects offer good functionality and they are visual and easy to use. With the free software plugins as fas as my experience - they are very few and pretty buggy. For instance, I tried to create a simple delay in LMMS. I am telling you - I couldn't do it. The delay eventually produced by one of the plugins was not reading the host app tempo and the delay time was very short - no matter what I did I couldn't set it to, say, 3 or 4 steps - it sounded more like in a rage of 0,5-1 steps which is rarely needed.

I can be wrong (I'd be happy to), but I am not sure that the free software world has enough sound processing plugins for an average electronic musician, whose music is based on sound processing. Am I wrong?

Louigi.