[Fedora-music-list] Musicians' Guide in Development; Testing Needed!

[Christopher Antila]

Perhaps I should have made it more clear that the link I posted in the
latest email is only to portions of the Guide that have a completed
first-draft.  A list of topics is available elsewhere.

This link contains links to all written material that exists so far:
__ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Crantila/FSC __
-Project Schedule
-List of Topics (i.e. Table of Contents)
-Fully-Completed Drafts
-Testing Information ("What Needs Testing Now")
-Software to Consider for Subsequent Editions

Everybody:
Please feel free to directly edit all documents but the schedule -
especially "Software to Consider for Subsequent Editions."  I'll be sure
to incorporate your changes.

Niels:
Thank you for the links about mastering and especially the "K System" of
metering and level practices.  I have no formal training with regards to
audio recording, so although I've experienced the issues discussed in
Katz' article, I didn't realize the extent of the situation, or its
causes.  Nor, in fact, had I even considered recommending that people
use an external level meter, because it adds a new level of complexity,
as you recognize.

And finally, regarding the added level of complexity, I'm glad that
you've been recommending Qtractor so strongly, because it's made me
change my mind about the specific layout of the Guide, and how it's
going to deal with three DAWs.  Qtractor really is easier than Ardour,
and it does a good job of working with both audio and MIDI, so that's
how it fits in.

Now to find a place for Rosegarden.


Christopher.

On 07/10/2010 01:37 PM, Niels Mayer wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Christopher Antila <crantila at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Qtractor from RPM Fusion may be quite buggy, but in no way have I had an
>> experience to consider it nearly unusable.  I've been using it for quite
>> a while now, and it hasn't crashed once.  Keep in mind, Qtractor is
>> still "Alpha" software, according to its SourceForge website.
> 
> FYI -- the reason why I mentioned Qtractor is because I saw it absent
> in the guide URL you posted. I'm glad to see you're using it and hope
> your guide will include information on this premier Linux DAW.  The
> other reason I mentioned it: Nicholas' reply  suggested some very
> capable and complex tools that would all have to be explained,
> configured, interconnected, etc. This would be very discouraging to a
> student faced with the complexity explosion caused by combining
> Ardour, Qjackctl, and Hydrogen: That's why I suggested a
> more-integrated tool like Qtractor  is appropriate to the student and
> beginners. Tools like Ardour would be more appropriate for the "pro"
> doing mastering.
> 
> Regarding my statements about instability in RPMfusion versions of
> Qtractor. Note that I'm one of Qtractor's biggest fans -- which is why
> I always want the latest and best version. Some of the bugs depend on
> what you're doing with it. I basically abuse the software and do
> things that it wasn't expecting to be used for, and then i can crash
> it (although I'm usually impressed with the fact that it doesn't crash
> despite the abuse I throw at it). There's been enough fixes in
> subversion that I'm getting more stability just from having the svn
> directory around, and doing "svn up" once a week, then "make" and
> "make install" ...
> 
> Here's one example of the kinds of bugs I'm talking about -- you won't
> see it unless you're using a multichannel audio interface and
> performing certain operations on audio buses ...
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=733076&aid=3021645&group_id=135501
> I've hit this bug too -- just fixed:
>  http://qtractor.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/qtractor?view=revision&revision=1597
> 
> Niels
> http://nielsmayer.com
> 
> PS: Regarding Mastering and Level setting (
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Crantila/FSC/Recording/DAW_Common_Elements#Level
> ).
> Consider using http://www.64studio.com/book/export/html/1236 as a
> starting point ( from http://www.64studio.com/manual/audio ).
> 
> Consider suggesting Bob Katz' "K System"
> http://www.digido.com/level-practices-part-2-includes-the-k-system.html
> which is implemented in  Fons Adriaensen's jkmeter (
> http://www.kokkinizita.net/linuxaudio/downloads/jkmeter-0.4.0.tar.bz2
> ) and available PlanetCCRMA's repositories.
> 
> See also: http://old.nabble.com/First-release-of-jkmeter-td18798950.html
> http://old.nabble.com/digital-volume-sounds-better-at-0-dB--ts28928647.html