[linux-audio-user] Mac? Linux PC?

[Renato Fabbri]

There is a big budget heading my way and it is clear
that buying a new lapop will be nice. But I am kind of
confused about the choices. Mac or a Linux PC? I can
spent anything like ten thousand dollars on this.
I am a composer, mainly of concert music.
Unfortunatelly, I used a win PC for compatibility on
some temporary jobs I was doing. Already mess a little
with macs and just loved this start on linux for
audio.
Macs are traditionaly dedicated to multimidia, ok,
everyone knows they have splendid softwares for audio
and that it is stable, beatiful and smells like
flowers. On the other hand linux, it is a dream to
just install, run and get a 8ms latency just for
start, everything free, very configurable, very sable,
PD runs better and with more things, jack is
outstanding, PCs are cheaper...

Please, have anyone experienced both macOS and a linux
PC as a composer and/or a live performer (I intend
doing both with it) to give some clearer view?

I am grateful in advance.
ref

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[Christoph Eckert]

Post by Renato Fabbri
Please, have anyone experienced both macOS and a linux
PC as a composer and/or a live performer (I intend
doing both with it) to give some clearer view?

no, but maybe a Mac book Pro with dual boot (if it is possible) gave the
opportunity to have both worlds in one machine?


Best regards


ce

[Carlo Capocasa]

Hi Renato! Sure :)

I say if you wanna do loop-based composing, go for either Mac OS X or
Windows and use some proprietary software. I don't do that myself so I
cannot really recommend anything but I hear that Ableton Live and
FruityLoops are quite good (automatic time/pitch adjustment for loops, etc.)

Linux's real strength is softsynths. Linux softsynths (ZynAddSubFX, Om,
PureData) are absolutely amazing. Not to mention you can play them live!

I tend to have a simplicity-based philosophy and have recently dropped
the jaws of a few of my loop-based friends with the type of sounds I can
synth, even though I am using two one-megabyte programs and don't filter
the results.

I tend to think that all that extra jazz that Mac and Windows have got
are mainly used to compensate for their complexity and the end result
can be similar but will always be more 'mudded' with proprietary tools,
simply because there is a complexity-based philosophy.

For example, my friend has a Win plugin that has measured, as audio
files, the reverb characteristics of all major concert halls of the
world. It's a three-hundred megabyte monster that takes ages to install
and costs a fortune (Okay the dude Kazaas the stuff but that's probably
also the only reason he can afford to even think about stuff like this).

So you have a lot of ooos and aahs there when you hear all those fancy
concert-hall names, but I would doubt that the end result will be worth
much. It's NOT a concert hall, it's a friggin' simulation... And even
if, WTF do you give a damn if Schubert and Schubinskiy played there?
They're the past, the future is now.

If you will excuse the mini-Rant :)

So it's really a matter of what you want... If you don't mind doing a
little technical work and end up with a fully-customized, extremely
simple and effective powerhouse you can also use to play live
(note/typesetting software is available but I haven't tried it... I
don't write notes :)... Go for linux. For recording I say linux is just
as good and all the 'extras' you get for Windows go into the category I
mentioned above... Trying to stroke your ego, charge a lot, no real
benefit for your LISTENERS.

If you want things to be more streamlined at the price of flexiblity, a
Mac or Windows box will be fine. You do however have to deal with a
hoard of flatterers, combat spyware/malware/viruses/security glitches,
deal with Mac/Win company politics (if they don't want you to have a
certain effect because their friends in Hollywood are profiling
themselves with it, you WILL NOT have it), bloat and pressurized
(=error-prone, humorless) programming.

Well, to me the choice is obvious, but I am a tad cyberpunkish! In case
you haven't heard enough after this long-ass post, please do ask away.

Carlo

[Dana Olson]

Post by Carlo Capocasa
Hi Renato! Sure :)
I say if you wanna do loop-based composing, go for either Mac OS X or
Windows and use some proprietary software. I don't do that myself so I
cannot really recommend anything but I hear that Ableton Live and
FruityLoops are quite good (automatic time/pitch adjustment for loops, etc.)

For looping, seq24 is a good sequencer, and LMMS is kinda all-in-one
it seems, and is supposed to be similar to Fruity Loops, although is
quite new, but progressing nicely.

Dana

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,

Post by Renato Fabbri
There is a big budget heading my way and it is clear
that buying a new lapop will be nice. But I am kind of
confused about the choices. Mac or a Linux PC? I can
spent anything like ten thousand dollars on this.
I am a composer, mainly of concert music.

IMO Macs are overprized. The range of software actually isn't that
big, and with the coming of the new Intel-Macs, a lot of software
isn't even there yet.

I don't know enough about your working style, but if you haven't used
a Mac before, I see no reason to start with that now.

With Common Music, Lilypond, Pd, Csound, Supercollider, every
programming languange you want, and with the ability, to run the
occasional foreign software through Wine, Linux is a very good
platform for Composers IMO.

Ciao

[Rob]

Post by Frank Barknecht
With Common Music, Lilypond, Pd, Csound, Supercollider, every
programming languange you want, and with the ability, to run
the occasional foreign software through Wine, Linux is a very
good platform for Composers IMO.

And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or
Supercollider code to do what they want. The programs they do
use, like Live, Fruityloops and Cakewalk, are still way beyond
any compositional tools we have available to us under Linux,
with all apologies to the Pd, SSM and Rosegarden guys.

I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones that
can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages, which are
evil and must be destroyed), but then, I'm a composer who's also
a computer programmer.

My advice to the parent poster is to get an Intel Mac (either a
Macbook or one of the new Mac Minis) unless one of your specific
goals as a musician is to create your music using free software.
That's one of my own goals, or I'd already have a Mac myself.

Even then, some popular compositional tools (like Fruityloops)
are Windows-only at this point. The musicians I know who work
professionally are about a 50/50 split between OSX and Windows.
I'm the only fool I know who's trying to do everything under
Linux.

Rob

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Rob

Post by Frank Barknecht
With Common Music, Lilypond, Pd, Csound, Supercollider, every
programming languange you want, and with the ability, to run
the occasional foreign software through Wine, Linux is a very
good platform for Composers IMO.

And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or
Supercollider code to do what they want. The programs they do
use, like Live, Fruityloops and Cakewalk, are still way beyond
any compositional tools we have available to us under Linux,
with all apologies to the Pd, SSM and Rosegarden guys.
I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones that
can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages, which are
evil and must be destroyed), but then, I'm a composer who's also
a computer programmer.
My advice to the parent poster is to get an Intel Mac (either a
Macbook or one of the new Mac Minis) unless one of your specific
goals as a musician is to create your music using free software.
That's one of my own goals, or I'd already have a Mac myself.
Even then, some popular compositional tools (like Fruityloops)
are Windows-only at this point. The musicians I know who work
professionally are about a 50/50 split between OSX and Windows.
I'm the only fool I know who's trying to do everything under
Linux.
Rob

Rob,
Just chiming in to say I agree. No composer I ever met is
interested in actually language-based programming to get sound. I
think that's the purview of subset of folks, such as university
oriented people, etc. I'm sure it's rewarding for some but it doesn't
even approach being mildly interesting to a guitar player like me.

I can use Linux successfully for very specific things - audio
recording using Ardour and a few soft synths. Wine is mostly a
curiosity. It works OK for Quicken but beyond that it's more of a
frustration than it's worth to me. I understand that VSTs under Wine
are a relal plus for Linux only folks, but for those with multiple
platforms why bother is my general decision. I'm not intersted
(personally) in being that much of a trail blazer.

Mostly I still compose in Windows and more on the Mac since I
bought my first machine a few months ago. I'm an Acid Pro guy vs.
FL/Ableton, but they all allow me to put ideas together far faster and
more accurately than I can with any of the tools on Linux.

I enjoy audio recording using Ardour. It works as well or better
than Pro Tools did for that. I'm not much of a MIDI guy, really, but I
do miss having a real audio/MIDI platform in Linux like I had in
Windows and do have on the Mac. Loop recording would be my biggest
miss in the Ardour area, and somethign to replace ALL of Acid Pro is
only a dream after 4 years and no developer interest.

Anyway, I write to you from my Linux machine where I'm playing
around with VMware type solutions. Maybe one day, right? ;-)

Cheers,
Mark

[cdr]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Rob
And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or

Just chiming in to say I agree. No composer I ever met is
interested in actually language-based programming to get sound. I

just chiming in to say my favorite composers are those who actually use computers to do what prior devices cant, rather than just using them as glorified/more-convenient tape-loops/tape-decks or mixers. Icarus, Autechre, Dirty Danger (programming fruityloops is programming too).

if theyre just using the computer to turn on and off Loops in LIVE and slather on McFX, or to get that pristine 32/192 sound which is so much more boring than a grimy old 4-track, forget it - give me some Sun Ra or something Rudy recorded in Hackensack...

[Mark Knecht]

Post by cdr

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Rob
And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or

Just chiming in to say I agree. No composer I ever met is
interested in actually language-based programming to get sound. I

just chiming in to say my favorite composers are those who actually use computers to do what prior devices cant, rather than just using them as glorified/more-convenient tape-loops/tape-decks or mixers. Icarus, Autechre, Dirty Danger (programming fruityloops is programming too).
if theyre just using the computer to turn on and off Loops in LIVE and slather on McFX, or to get that pristine 32/192 sound which is so much more boring than a grimy old 4-track, forget it - give me some Sun Ra or something Rudy recorded in Hackensack...

I didn't say there weren't good ones out there.....I only said I've
never met one! ;-)

- Mark

[Rob]

Post by cdr

Post by Mark Knecht

also computer programmers". None of the people I know in
real life who compose music are going to be writing

Just chiming in to say I agree. No composer I ever met is

just chiming in to say my favorite composers are those who
actually use computers to do what prior devices cant, rather
than just using them as glorified/more-convenient
tape-loops/tape-decks or mixers. Icarus, Autechre, Dirty
Danger (programming fruityloops is programming too).

Yeah, I don't know Icarus or Autechre or Dirty Danger in real
life, but I bet they all use Mac or Windows anyway.

Rob

[Lee Revell]

Post by Mark Knecht
Loop recording would be my biggest
miss in the Ardour area, and somethign to replace ALL of Acid Pro is
only a dream after 4 years and no developer interest.

Not surprising, Linux has not been a viable audio platform (without
patching the kernel or installing a custom audio distro) for very long.
I would expect developer interest to pick up quickly once it becomes
widely known that you can pop in any Linux live CD and OOTB get better
latency than OSX or Windows (still not the case, the upcoming Ubuntu
Dapper will be the first).

Lee

[Lee Revell]

Post by Rob
And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or
Supercollider code to do what they want.

Hey, that's not fair - Linux is good for audio engineers too ;-)

Seriously, you are right, but I think it's only a matter of time before
Linux attracts a much wider developer interest - the key is to be able
to just boot any Linux CD or install any distro and get superior
performance OOTB.

I think it will start with people who just want to use their computer as
a live effects processor - this is still kind of a pain with Windows,
mostly because it's not reliable enough to use on stage!

I don't even think running proprietary VST plugins is essential, if I
can boot a CD, plug in my guitar and amp and get a nice auto wah, noise
gate and some filters with a decent GUI I am all set, I suspect there
are lots of people who aren't interested in sequencing or really even in
recording and just want to play their instrument and get a crazy
sound...

Lee

[Dan Easley]

Post by Lee Revell
I think it will start with people who just want to use their computer as
a live effects processor - this is still kind of a pain with Windows,
mostly because it's not reliable enough to use on stage!

While I've played around with linux on and off since '97, and lurked
on this list for three years before setting up a linux audio
workstation, I must admit - use as a live effects processor and synth
is what's hooked me.

The jack-rack/qsynth/linuxsampler/freewheeling combination is pretty
much everything I ever wanted out of a live rack - total cost of a
refurb dell laptop, a usb audio interface, and one of those really big
behringer footpedals came to about $1100: far, far less than the total
cost of the huge bunch of pedals and rackmounted units I'd need to
duplicate functionality - indeed, I'm unaware of any hardware units or
commercial software that can do what freewheeling can.

--
***@gmail.com
***@towndowner.com ***@burntpossum.com
http://towndowner.com http://burntpossum.com

[cdr]

Post by Lee Revell
a live effects processor - this is still kind of a pain with Windows,
mostly because it's not reliable enough to use on stage!

this is pure FUD. JACK segfaults / hiccups / kicks clients out way more often than any decent VST host ive used...

[Lee Revell]

Post by cdr

Post by Lee Revell
a live effects processor - this is still kind of a pain with Windows,
mostly because it's not reliable enough to use on stage!

this is pure FUD. JACK segfaults / hiccups / kicks clients out way more often than any decent VST host ive used...

You must be running buggy apps or have shit for hardware or something.
Which clients are these?

Lee

[cdr]

Post by Lee Revell
You must be running buggy apps or have shit for hardware or something.
Which clients are these?

PD :) for fans of that app i'd suggest the investment in a MacBook and Max/MSP..

[Paul Davis]

Post by cdr

Post by Lee Revell
You must be running buggy apps or have shit for hardware or something.
Which clients are these?

PD :) for fans of that app i'd suggest the investment in a MacBook and Max/MSP..

maybe you can find 2 other people who use PD who actually think that
Max/MSP is a step up from what they already have. then you may have a
point.

[Lee Revell]

Post by cdr

Post by Lee Revell
You must be running buggy apps or have shit for hardware or something.
Which clients are these?

PD :) for fans of that app i'd suggest the investment in a MacBook and Max/MSP..

Last time I checked it was a known problem that PD is not written in a
fully RT safe way.

Lee

[Jean-Baptiste Mestelan]

Post by Rob
I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones that
can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages, which are
evil and must be destroyed)

Would you please elaborate a bit ? just curious :-)
I recently have been feeling an itch to learn Nyquist (a Lisp dialect,
or Lisp-like language : not sure yet) which Audacity is based upon.

Cheers

[Loki Davison]

Post by Jean-Baptiste Mestelan

Post by Rob
I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones that
can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages, which are
evil and must be destroyed)

Would you please elaborate a bit ? just curious :-)
I recently have been feeling an itch to learn Nyquist (a Lisp dialect,
or Lisp-like language : not sure yet) which Audacity is based upon.
Cheers.

Some people don't think right for lisp based language. There are
actually people out there that like j2ee, asp, etc and enjoy writing
huge amount of code to do very little. Lispers don't often fall in
this group. ;-) Though i really like lisp i personally find python
more useful for most stuff, much better libs, and much saner than ansi
c lisp.

Loki

[Rob]

Post by Loki Davison
Some people don't think right for lisp based language. There
are actually people out there that like j2ee, asp, etc and
enjoy writing huge amount of code to do very little.

I actually prefer perl, and have started a couple times to try to
come up with a perl module for composition. My perl chops
aren't good enough to write such a thing, though, and perl's
object syntax is so clumsy that it probably would have sucked
anyway.

For code that I and others are going to have to look at in 6
months or more, yes, I do prefer things like BASIC. Gambas is
my current favorite for desktop development and I'm slowly
moving from Perl to PHP for web development. (I gave up on Java
for anything client-side back when the Microsoft JVM was heavily
deployed and ruined everything.)

But I haven't tried to write any music programs in Gambas or PHP,
much less try to come up with a way to compose music in them
directly. They're both probably too wordy for the
expressiveness required in a music language, but I'd say the
same of Python too.

Anyway, the kind of people who tend to successfully write music
languages tend to be CS people who just love the simplicity (to
a CS major) of Lisp, so I'm resigned to sticking with
applications, and as I said in my original post, they just
aren't the answer for any composer who's not a programmer and
many who are.

Rob

[Loki Davison]

Post by Rob
Anyway, the kind of people who tend to successfully write music
languages tend to be CS people who just love the simplicity (to
a CS major) of Lisp, so I'm resigned to sticking with
applications, and as I said in my original post, they just
aren't the answer for any composer who's not a programmer and
many who are.
Rob

As i said, if you can program well you like lisp ;-) If you can't you
like java, etc. Have you tried python for you're website stuff? It's
really very nice. PHP is quite horrible (i work coding php and c)
though propel (php db lib) is quite nice.

Loki

[Rob]

Post by Loki Davison
As i said, if you can program well you like lisp ;-) If you
can't you like java, etc. Have you tried python for you're
website stuff? It's really very nice. PHP is quite horrible (i
work coding php and c) though propel (php db lib) is quite
nice.

Python is in the same category as COBOL for me.... it has stupid
indentation tricks. I have modified other people's Python
programs but I won't use it myself.

Anyway, I am utterly unsurprised that someone who likes both Lisp
and Python would hate PHP and Java ;)

Rob

[Paul Winkler]

Post by Rob

Post by Loki Davison
As i said, if you can program well you like lisp ;-) If you
can't you like java, etc. Have you tried python for you're
website stuff? It's really very nice. PHP is quite horrible (i
work coding php and c) though propel (php db lib) is quite
nice.

Python is in the same category as COBOL for me.... it has stupid
indentation tricks.

Bah.
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-does-python-use-indentation-for-grouping-of-statements
http://blog.ianbicking.org/brief-defense-of-significant-whitespace.html


self.relurk()

[Loki Davison]

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by Rob

Post by Loki Davison
As i said, if you can program well you like lisp ;-) If you
can't you like java, etc. Have you tried python for you're
website stuff? It's really very nice. PHP is quite horrible (i
work coding php and c) though propel (php db lib) is quite
nice.

Python is in the same category as COBOL for me.... it has stupid
indentation tricks.

Bah.
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-does-python-use-indentation-for-grouping-of-statements
http://blog.ianbicking.org/brief-defense-of-significant-whitespace.html
self.relurk()

Don't play with them. Using php/java/vb/etc is as much suffering as
anyone needs.

Loki

[Rob]

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by Rob
Python is in the same category as COBOL for me.... it has
stupid indentation tricks.

http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-does-python-use-ind
entation-for-grouping-of-statements
http://blog.ianbicking.org/brief-defense-of-significant-whites
pace.html

Yeah, great, Python advocates defending Python's one true coding
style. I'm sure it does aid in tracking down syntax errors, as
the FAQ says, but I'd rather not be penalized for other people's
inability to type "control-alt-\". Nor for accidentally typing
"alt-Q" or doing something that converts tabs to spaces or vice
versa and ending up with a program that, had it been Perl or C,
would still run fine, could even be made to look pretty again
with three keys, but is a pile of meaningless nonsense to Python
because 30 years' worth of tools have been written using the de
facto standard that says whitespace is compressible and
interchangeable, almost all of which the Python authors decided
was just not that important.

All of which can also be applied to COBOL, which is why Python
and COBOL share a special place in my list of language
preferences. I'll fix the programs when they break, but I won't
code in them unless you pay me a lot of money.

But since there's no MusicPython or MusicCOBOL yet, I guess it's
a moot point.

Rob

[Loki Davison]

Post by Rob

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by Rob
Python is in the same category as COBOL for me.... it has
stupid indentation tricks.

http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-does-python-use-ind
entation-for-grouping-of-statements
http://blog.ianbicking.org/brief-defense-of-significant-whites
pace.html

Yeah, great, Python advocates defending Python's one true coding
style. I'm sure it does aid in tracking down syntax errors, as
the FAQ says, but I'd rather not be penalized for other people's
inability to type "control-alt-\". Nor for accidentally typing
"alt-Q" or doing something that converts tabs to spaces or vice
versa and ending up with a program that, had it been Perl or C,
would still run fine, could even be made to look pretty again
with three keys, but is a pile of meaningless nonsense to Python
because 30 years' worth of tools have been written using the de
facto standard that says whitespace is compressible and
interchangeable, almost all of which the Python authors decided
was just not that important.
All of which can also be applied to COBOL, which is why Python
and COBOL share a special place in my list of language
preferences. I'll fix the programs when they break, but I won't
code in them unless you pay me a lot of money.
But since there's no MusicPython or MusicCOBOL yet, I guess it's
a moot point.
Rob

there are om bindings for python and for phat.

Loki

[cdr]

Post by Rob
months or more, yes, I do prefer things like BASIC. Gambas is
my current favorite for desktop development and I'm slowly
moving from Perl to PHP for web development.

you should check out Ruby/Rails. i slowly moved from PHP & Perl to mod_python a few years ago, and now moving on again. such a big fan of the 1.1 release that im doing some standalone GUI apps in it instead of say PyQT or TCL/Tk (using Ruby-GtkMozEmbed and Mongrel)


off to google Gambas...

Post by Rob
Anyway, the kind of people who tend to successfully write music
languages tend to be CS people who just love the simplicity (to
a CS major) of Lisp

yeah, SCLang looks nice, shame it wont run on my OS :)

[Rob]

Post by cdr
you should check out Ruby/Rails. i slowly moved from PHP &
Perl to mod_python a few years ago, and now moving on again.
such a big fan of the 1.1 release that im doing some
standalone GUI apps in it instead of say PyQT or TCL/Tk (using
Ruby-GtkMozEmbed and Mongrel)

I like Rails and may use it for my next big project (having run
into a number of walls trying to come up with my own Perl AJAX
framework.) PHP seems to have critical mass at the moment,
though, just as Perl had critical mass for web apps when I
started doing them in 1996.

Rob

[Brad Fuller]

Post by Rob

Post by cdr
you should check out Ruby/Rails. i slowly moved from PHP &
Perl to mod_python a few years ago, and now moving on again.
such a big fan of the 1.1 release that im doing some
standalone GUI apps in it instead of say PyQT or TCL/Tk (using
Ruby-GtkMozEmbed and Mongrel)

I like Rails and may use it for my next big project (having run
into a number of walls trying to come up with my own Perl AJAX
framework.) PHP seems to have critical mass at the moment,
though, just as Perl had critical mass for web apps when I
started doing them in 1996.

If you are speaking of dynamic web design (you mentioned PHP) try
looking into Seaside:
http://seaside.st/

It's power is smalltalk - either visual works or squeak
(http://squeak.org/About/)

If you are looking into programming languages, look into squeak. See the
link above for more than my brief intro here, but also the homepage for
info: http://squeak.org/

The complete system is open and at your disposal for modifying,
inspecting, learning, debugging, creating, etc.
Squeak runs on many platforms and the image is bit-identical for all
platforms (although there may be some a plugin that only runs on only
one or a few platforms - but I don't know of any off hand.)

Developers see: http://squeak.org/Features/Development/

I'd be happy to answer any questions about squeak.

brad

[Cesare Marilungo]

Post by Brad Fuller
It's power is smalltalk - either visual works or squeak
(http://squeak.org/About/)
If you are looking into programming languages, look into squeak. See the
link above for more than my brief intro here, but also the homepage for
info: http://squeak.org/
The complete system is open and at your disposal for modifying,
inspecting, learning, debugging, creating, etc.
Squeak runs on many platforms and the image is bit-identical for all
platforms (although there may be some a plugin that only runs on only
one or a few platforms - but I don't know of any off hand.)
Developers see: http://squeak.org/Features/Development/
I'd be happy to answer any questions about squeak.
brad

Brad,
are you involved in the squeak development? Can I countact you in private?

Being an old HyperCard fan (wrote a mail reader more than ten years ago
with it) and then a Director developer and teacher, I'm excited by what
I've seen.

I've just installed it and started playing but this is awesome.

Is the deployment easy? What about the license?

Thanks for the link!

c.

[Brad Fuller]

Post by Cesare Marilungo

Post by Brad Fuller
It's power is smalltalk - either visual works or squeak
(http://squeak.org/About/)
If you are looking into programming languages, look into squeak. See the
link above for more than my brief intro here, but also the homepage for
info: http://squeak.org/
The complete system is open and at your disposal for modifying,
inspecting, learning, debugging, creating, etc.
Squeak runs on many platforms and the image is bit-identical for all
platforms (although there may be some a plugin that only runs on only
one or a few platforms - but I don't know of any off hand.)
Developers see: http://squeak.org/Features/Development/
I'd be happy to answer any questions about squeak.
brad

Brad,
are you involved in the squeak development? Can I countact you in private?

sure. There are multiple mailing lists as well. They are on the site, too.

Post by Cesare Marilungo
Being an old HyperCard fan (wrote a mail reader more than ten years
ago with it) and then a Director developer and teacher, I'm excited by
what I've seen.

I think that as you explore you'll find that the environment is rich.

Post by Cesare Marilungo
I've just installed it and started playing but this is awesome.
Is the deployment easy?

you can deploy the image. There are methods available to strip
everything out except what you want in and methods to strip out
development tools or disable them, disable morphic halos, etc. in a
nutshell: if you want to deploy an application it's fairly easy.

Post by Cesare Marilungo
What about the license?

the license is on the site. Note that it is open and freely
distributable. The license is being reviewed as well to make it more
open or to remove some items that are not open (for instance, there are
some fonts from apple included in the image.) I am not a part of the
legal issues so I can't really comment.

Post by Cesare Marilungo
Thanks for the link!
c.

[Cesare Marilungo]

Post by Brad Fuller
I'd be happy to answer any questions about squeak.
brad

Brad,
how can I send midi output from within squeak to other apps linux (via
alsa midi)?

p.s. After just one day, I'm already in love with squeak and smalltalk.
It's such a powerful environment. A computer inside a computer.

c.

[Brad Fuller]

Post by Cesare Marilungo

Post by Brad Fuller
I'd be happy to answer any questions about squeak.
brad

Brad,
how can I send midi output from within squeak to other apps linux (via
alsa midi)?

ha! I've never done that. I'm currently (unfortunately, off and on)
creating a squeak plugin for portaudio.
I'd have to look and I don't have time right now.
You should Join these mailing lists:

www.create.ucsb.edu/mailman/listinfo/squeakaudio
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/squeak-dev

and send your question to both mailing lists.

Several additional midi classes have been created by others for MTC and
midi machine control, as well.

fyi more mailing lists:
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo

Post by Cesare Marilungo
p.s. After just one day, I'm already in love with squeak and
smalltalk. It's such a powerful environment. A computer inside a
computer.

[nescivi]

Hiho,

Post by Rob
Anyway, the kind of people who tend to successfully write music
languages tend to be CS people who just love the simplicity (to
a CS major) of Lisp

c> yeah, SCLang looks nice, shame it wont run on my OS :)

you mean supercollider?

it runs on most platforms now... osx, linux, and windows...

algorithmic composition has been in and out of fashion for several
centuries by now, so it's no wonder when composers now try and use
programming languages to formulate more complex algorithms.
How it is eventually presented to the interpreter (be this a human
musician or some machine) is another question.

sincerely,
Marije

[Rob]

Post by Jean-Baptiste Mestelan

Post by Rob
I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones
that can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages,
which are evil and must be destroyed)

Would you please elaborate a bit ? just curious :-)
I recently have been feeling an itch to learn Nyquist (a Lisp
dialect, or Lisp-like language : not sure yet) which Audacity
is based upon.

It's purely a personal thing, like my distaste for COBOL and
Fortran and other people's distaste for Perl or PHP or BASIC. I
think Lisp is one of the most annoying languages I've ever
worked with, and I've managed to reduce my contact with it in
the last 10 years to the point where I had to actually look up
how to turn off auto-fill-mode in my .emacs file last week.

I probably would have taken to algorithmic composition long ago
if most of the major audio languages had been Algol-derived
rather than LISP-based. The obvious exception is Csound, but
that seems much more oriented towards synthesis whereas all I
want to do is play my PAT files through Timidity and maybe use
Bristol or Zyn for some fake analog color and Hydrogen for
percussion, and haven't seen any examples of Csound being used
for that type of thing.

Rob

[Jeremiah Benham]

Post by Rob
And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also
computer programmers". None of the people I know in real life
who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or
Supercollider code to do what they want. The programs they do
use, like Live, Fruityloops and Cakewalk, are still way beyond
any compositional tools we have available to us under Linux,
with all apologies to the Pd, SSM and Rosegarden guys.

Most of the composers I know just use pencil and paper. Usually it is
staff paper.

Jeremiah

[Rob]

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Most of the composers I know just use pencil and paper.
Usually it is staff paper.

Believe it or not, I've only ever known one of those, and he
still did most of his work via MIDI. (I notated on staff paper
myself a lot in high school, too, but that was before the Amiga
came out....)

Rob

[Brad Fuller]

Post by Rob

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Most of the composers I know just use pencil and paper.
Usually it is staff paper.

Believe it or not, I've only ever known one of those, and he
still did most of his work via MIDI. (I notated on staff paper
myself a lot in high school, too, but that was before the Amiga
came out....)

but, if you are trained on that, as most of us are, that's what you do.
Even now writing on paper for me is superior to any other composing
software. There is no contest.
The problem is getting that composition to the computer which has
superior capabilities after you compose (or even jot down ideas.)

brad

[carmen]

Post by Renato Fabbri
Please, have anyone experienced both macOS and a linux
PC as a composer and/or a live performer (I intend
doing both with it) to give some clearer view?

i used //gs-OS from 1988 to 1992, MacOS from 1992 to 2001, winXP from 2001 to 2005, and linux from 2005-. i truly believe they were the best platforms for music during their respective timeframes (ok, Amiga/Atari was proabbly better than IIgs), due to things like having the 'critical mass' and exclusive development not occuring on other platforms

i'd say if you are only interested in commercial software, go XP. if you value commercial software foremost, and would like enough POSIX compatibility to dabble in some mostly-working ports of linux apps, go OSX. if you are into free software, check out freeBSD or Linux. chances are your scoring app or whatever you need from WinXP runs with WINE...

cheers

[Hans Fugal]

Post by Renato Fabbri
There is a big budget heading my way and it is clear
that buying a new lapop will be nice. But I am kind of
confused about the choices. Mac or a Linux PC? I can
spent anything like ten thousand dollars on this.
I am a composer, mainly of concert music.
Unfortunatelly, I used a win PC for compatibility on
some temporary jobs I was doing. Already mess a little
with macs and just loved this start on linux for
audio.
Macs are traditionaly dedicated to multimidia, ok,
everyone knows they have splendid softwares for audio
and that it is stable, beatiful and smells like
flowers. On the other hand linux, it is a dream to
just install, run and get a 8ms latency just for
start, everything free, very configurable, very sable,
PD runs better and with more things, jack is
outstanding, PCs are cheaper...

Your choice at this stage is really between windows and osx. You can
dual boot linux either way. I haven't researched it, but I believe
linux will run great on the macbooks in short order. My iBook G4 is the
best linux laptop I have ever laid eyes on. I also love OSX, but not for
audio. (that might change if I was serious and had a bunch of
proprietary apps, but I'm not and I don't).

Apple hardware is nice, too. The little things add up. So does the cost,
but you said it was a big budget. :-) Really, if it's a laptop for live
performance you probably want to consider second to whether you want to
dual boot Windows or OSX (or neither), what sound card, mobo quality,
etc. It would probably be a shame not to have dual cores now if you can
afford it.

[Lee Revell]

Post by Hans Fugal
Apple hardware is nice, too.

Sorry, I couldn't help but mention this, I just found it today and I
think it's hilarious:

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/11/18/video-ipod.html

Apple does make good hardware, but this is worth keeping in mind ;-)

Lee

[cdr]

Post by Lee Revell
Apple does make good hardware

they make hardware? last i checked they just knew how to charge twice as much as HP or Dell for Chinese hardware assembled by Quanta. kudos to them..maybe everyone else will understand the power of industrial design and branding one day..

in the meantime im happy with the services my DIY "who? you?" hardware provides..

[Lee Revell]

Post by cdr

Post by Lee Revell
Apple does make good hardware

they make hardware? last i checked they just knew how to charge twice as much as HP or Dell for Chinese hardware assembled by Quanta. kudos to them..maybe everyone else will understand the power of industrial design and branding one day..
in the meantime im happy with the services my DIY "who? you?" hardware provides..

Goodbye, "Made in USA", hello, "Designed by Apple in California,
Assembled in China" (reading straight off an iPod box) ;-)

For anyone who didn't bother to read the last article the gist of it is
that to play back videos from your iPod to an external device you can
either buy the expensive shiny white Apple cable, or you can use any
Radio Shack AV cable and (drumroll) switch the yellow and red plugs
around.

It really makes me despair of the future of open standards - even if you
have a perfectly good one the marketing dept will INSIST that you be
incompatible for no reason. This belief that proprietary == good is
really ingrained in some places. For example I saw an episode of "24"
the other day (guilty pleasure ;-) and they had to hack into some
corporate network to stop some terrorists, and were stymied by the
network being "proprietary" which meant it was unhackable and they had
to give up and just blast their way in, or some crap.

Of course any IT person could tell you in a second that black hat
hackers LOVE proprietary systems. Then again the shows main sponsors
seem to be Dell computers and Cisco IP phones... coincidence?

Lee

[Hans Fugal]

Post by cdr

Post by Lee Revell
Apple does make good hardware

they make hardware? last i checked they just knew how to charge twice as much as HP or Dell for Chinese hardware assembled by Quanta. kudos to them..maybe everyone else will understand the power of industrial design and branding one day..

Perhaps I should have said they design good hardware. I could care less
who puts the screws in or where the plastic/metal comes from. I was
referring to the design. The rest is just a bag of atoms.

Post by cdr
in the meantime im happy with the services my DIY "who? you?" hardware provides..

As am I for desktops. I've actually never personally owned a prefabbed
desktop, and probably never will. For that matter I have only bought one
machine all at once, the rest has been partial (and sometimes major)
upgrades.

[cdr]

Post by Hans Fugal
linux will run great on the macbooks in short order. My iBook G4 is the
best linux laptop I have ever laid eyes on.

i still tend to prever my MS-1013 over an iBook. why? Metal vs Plastic, Turion vs G4, 2 mouse buttons, pageup/down keys, no OSX Tax, and top of the line components instead of entry level for the $999. but to each his/her own..

Post by Hans Fugal
I also love OSX, but not for
audio.

why not? i usd to talk shit aobut OSX, mainly because it was slow on my G3. but they were the first with an on-GPU GUI, which was 90% of the resource usage. linux will maybe have this ironed out by about 2008, but of course there will praobly be forks/camps around DE lines, proprietary-driver-support biases etc.

as for audio - windows users are stuck with a turd of an internal system that was bypassed by Steinberg under the name ASIO. Linux is in a similar situation - theres the gstreamer apps, and the JACK apps. id argue for merging of gstreamer and JACK so that we can finally get what CoreAudio has had for years. but clearly the two sides havent shown much interest in merging their efforts.

i'd say there are a few advantages to the 'Dictatorial' approach to Apple's software design. especially when theres a lot of talented engineers around (thanks high hardware margins!) to put it all together..

[Lee Revell]

Post by cdr
why not? i usd to talk shit aobut OSX, mainly because it was slow on
my G3. but they were the first with an on-GPU GUI, which was 90% of
the resource usage. linux will maybe have this ironed out by about
2008, but of course there will praobly be forks/camps around DE lines,
proprietary-driver-support biases etc.

I think it will be much sooner - I predict a mainstream distro will ship
a 3D accelerated desktop by the end of 2006. I definitely expect Linux
to beat Microsoft on this.

Ever since the XFree86 -> Xorg transition X development has drastically
accelerated, after years of glacially slow development.

Lee

[Gene Heskett]

Post by Lee Revell

Post by cdr
why not? i usd to talk shit aobut OSX, mainly because it was slow on
my G3. but they were the first with an on-GPU GUI, which was 90% of
the resource usage. linux will maybe have this ironed out by about
2008, but of course there will praobly be forks/camps around DE
lines, proprietary-driver-support biases etc.

I think it will be much sooner - I predict a mainstream distro will
ship a 3D accelerated desktop by the end of 2006. I definitely
expect Linux to beat Microsoft on this.
Ever since the XFree86 -> Xorg transition X development has
drastically accelerated, after years of glacially slow development.
Lee

Yes, and Novel just donated to the X.org project, the latest version of
their whiz bang super accelerated x accelerator eye candy. They have a
site up with a capture of the stuff they did at a show in Germany a
couple of weeks ago, and let me tell you it was damned impressive even
when played back by an mplayer pluggin. I should have bookmarked the
site, but hindsite seems to be the better working sight for me today.:(

[Paul Davis]

Post by cdr
as for audio - windows users are stuck with a turd of an internal system that was bypassed by Steinberg under the name ASIO. Linux is in a similar situation - theres the gstreamer apps, and the JACK apps. id argue for merging of gstreamer and JACK so that we can finally get what CoreAudio has had for years. but clearly the two sides havent shown much interest in merging their efforts.
i'd say there are a few advantages to the 'Dictatorial' approach to Apple's software design. especially when theres a lot of talented engineers around (thanks high hardware margins!) to put it all together..

i've been a strong advocate of the dictatorial approach. but one thing
you are missing here is that it took this (LAD) set of rag-tag
programmers to bring inter-application audio routing to CoreAudio. JACK
continues to provide the OSX community with something that neither Apple
nor Propellerheads have so far been able to willing to do. Dictators are
useful, but so are a bunch of blowhards, sometimes.

--p

[Renato Fabbri]

Post by Rob

Post by Rob
And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers

who are also

Post by Rob
computer programmers". None of the people I know

in real life

Post by Rob
who compose music are going to be writing Csound,

CM or

Post by Rob
Supercollider code to do what they want. The

programs they do

Post by Rob
use, like Live, Fruityloops and Cakewalk, are

still way beyond

Post by Rob
any compositional tools we have available to us

under Linux,

Post by Rob
with all apologies to the Pd, SSM and Rosegarden

guys.
Most of the composers I know just use pencil and
paper. Usually it is
staff paper.
Jeremiah

since 1960 (1940) things are changing much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroacoustic

and, from 90´ till now, electronic concert music
composers are growing fast in number and more and more
active. Just some of them that are well known: Michel
Chion, François Belle, Unsuk Chin (recent one, I
havent listened to it yet) etc.

At the link above you can find samples of this.

We generally work with instrumental and electronic
music, and we do not always use note or a staff paper.

cheers
ref

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[Renato Fabbri]

Post by Jeremiah Benham

Post by Rob

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Most of the composers I know just use pencil and

paper.

Post by Rob

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Usually it is staff paper.

Believe it or not, I've only ever known one of

those, and he

Post by Rob
still did most of his work via MIDI. (I notated

on staff paper

Post by Rob
myself a lot in high school, too, but that was

before the Amiga

Post by Rob
came out....)

but, if you are trained on that, as most of us are,
that's what you do.
Even now writing on paper for me is superior to any
other composing
software. There is no contest.

I write music on staff and compose electronics on
computers without thinking of a single note. Different
things to do different things. Of course, it is nice
and ok to like bananas better than pineapples, or inverse.

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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[Folderol]

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:10:08 -0800 (PST)

Post by Renato Fabbri

Post by Jeremiah Benham

Post by Rob

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Most of the composers I know just use pencil and

paper.

Post by Rob

Post by Jeremiah Benham
Usually it is staff paper.

Believe it or not, I've only ever known one of

those, and he

Post by Rob
still did most of his work via MIDI. (I notated

on staff paper

Post by Rob
myself a lot in high school, too, but that was

before the Amiga

Post by Rob
came out....)

but, if you are trained on that, as most of us are,
that's what you do.
Even now writing on paper for me is superior to any
other composing
software. There is no contest.

I write music on staff and compose electronics on
computers without thinking of a single note. Different
things to do different things. Of course, it is nice
and ok to like bananas better than pineapples, or inverse.

To me the invention of MIDI was the opening of a door. For very many
years I struggled with notation on paper, and achieved very little. I
was physically incapable of realising my ideas on a keyboard with
anything more than the simplest of melodies and the most basic
accompaniments. Dots on paper simply didn't convey anything to me - in
spite of 5 years formal piano lessons as a child.

Once I had a sequencer however. I could immediately just *play* the
melody, and part at a time add in counter-melodies, rhythm patterns and
anything else I wanted. The few pieces I've put up for people here to
hear would never have been done without. On my website I even refer to
that with 'The Crystal Ship'. I spent so many years of utter
frustration with the musical 'image' quite clear in my head but
absolutely no way to realise it. I also believe that having that image
there was probably sort of blocking me from developing other ideas.