Low latency kernel for sound editing
 

Hi all...

I'm an amateur drummer and have been investigating a low-cost settup for recording music in my basement. Nothing fancy, but I want to be able to record practice sessions and email tracks to friends so they can lay down guitar, bass and vocal tracks over it. (or just play along)

I have a P-III 800 MHz HP-Pavillion from about 4 years ago that will probably become the guinea pig for this experiment... I also have not gone as far as picking up a midi interface or mixer yet...

I've read about running a "low latency" kernel with audacity and a few other apps but I know very little about this...

Is there a precompiled distro out there that is already set up to do what I want? Or a good tutorial about how to do this?

Keep in mind that I'm a computer newbie... and have only dabbled in Linux for about a year (SuSE, Mandrake, Vector, Lindows, Debian, etc)

I'd prefer to stick with Debian because I really dig apt... but I suppose any direction would work.

I'm not afraid of the command line, but I tend to sit with a book open and copy commands from it... :p

If anybody has any insight it would be greatly appreciated...

Thx
nube

Debian is probably the easiest one to compile your own kernel for. They have the low latency patchs for 2.4.x kernels.

"They have the low latency patchs for 2.4.x"

- I'm off to Google...

Thanks :)

I also managed to find this...

http://www.agnula.org/

In a couple hours I'll have ISO's to play with... :)

That link look's pretty good, but......

Just grab Slackware 9.1 and the 2.6.4 kernel. Then grab :

Ardour - http://ardour.org/

RoseGarden - http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

and finally

Audicity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ You don't even need low latency for this one.

And for the fun of it, a nice page with links to linux music....
http://www.zicweb.com/scripts/get.php?i=31&lg=us&t=2

I too am a drummer and also messed around with Linux audio. The setup above worked amazing and the quality rocked! Literally! :-)

Nice!

Slackware huh? I could live with that :)

What hardware did you use? I have microphones and what-not, but I'm just starting to look into a mixer, etc...

I was thinking a simple midi mixer and then drop that into the PC via Soundblaster Audigy 2. Tho I haven't checked ASLSA to find out if the midi interface there is supported.

The local music shops carry all kinds of goodies for Windows machines and Mac... but nothing for Linux.

:(

Dynebolic might be worth looking at. Dunno what it's latency is like though.

http://www.dynebolic.org/

Check out planet CCRMA. It might give you some good ideas on how to set up an audio workstation.

I looked into Dyne:bolic, but it has a lot of other multimedia stuff that I don't need...

I'll check out the link to CCRMA, thanks!

CCRMA looks nifty, but I'm not a big Red Hat fan... or Fedora for that matter.

Never could get core 1 to work right...

:)

i've been using the low latency patches for 2.4.XX for over a year, and they work well.
search for Con Kolivas patches i think.

nube, i was using an on board CMedia 8738 sound chip. Nothing really fancy. I know i could do a lot more with all of the hardware out there (and yes i mean for linux) but obviously money and space come into play. I used all my coin for my current box. My other computer (than one i use for music) is a AMD 2000Xp, 512ram, GF MX440 64meg, CMedia sound chip and Slackware 9.1 with a 2.6.4 low latency kenrel. But after looking at all of this stuff again, i started wonder what i could do with my current setup. I want to see my 64bit screaming with 64 tracks - all at once! :-))

Oh one more program you might want to check out, it's for drumming and i found it kind of cool for just laying in a beat when i didn't feel like actually getting up and playing it myself. You know what i mean. For a simple guitar track or to get ideas down. The program is called Hydrogen. You might have heard of it, but here it is. http://hydrogen.sourceforge.net/ Very cool program.

Will do...

Since I have time and patience I'm going to try Slack and the AGNULA Debian version and see what happens...

I've also found some easily downloadable patches for Deb similar to CCRMA for Red Hat...

So I have lots of options with the s'ware - hopefully one of them will work on the old P-III box I want to use.

Still not sure about hardware tho... maybe that's for a different forum...?

I added a thread in the hardware forum here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=165376

... regarding mixers, sound cards etc.

Phorem -

I've heard of Hyrdrogen, but haven't checked it out...

I'll get on it now. And a CMedia sound chip, cool.

How are you running the microphones in? Do you use a mixer or are you using an adaptor to your line in?

I know it's hurt'n but i just went straight in and let the software (there are a ton of plugins for Ardour and what not) do all the effects and cleaning up. I did use a mixer as well. I just obviously plugged it straight into the Line in. Now that i am starting to use and look at this stuff again (it has been a while) i have come to the realization that Linux audio is now on par ( i want to say above but i'll be civil ) with Windows. If you have used the likes of Cubase, Cakewalk and such - you will not be unhappy with linux audio at all. It's actually very powerful. Linux Rules! :-))))))))))))

I've used Cakewalk and a few others...

I've been working for the last year to find a desktop Linux that I'm happy with... I want to get away from Windows as much as possible.

For this application I just want something I can get for lower cost than Windows, Cakewalk, etc. And run more reliably.

I want to let this PC sit in my basement and run all the time... I may even set up an FTP server on it so my buddies can log in and download or upload files to it any time... so Windows is out.

(I don't want to have to go down there and reboot it every other day)

But I also know that the hardware support isn't quite what it is for Win and Mac... but it's getting there.

How do you like the 2.6 kernel BTW?

If you are looking for comparable programs, Ardour and Rosegarden will be very familiar to you. But don't rule out Audicity (as i mentioned above). You can record some basic tracks and it has monitoring! They can be mixed down and you can master the track in something else. I know there are mastering programs for linux, just not off the top of my head or without turning around and switching on my other computer - lazy. As for the 2.6, it has made my 64bit a reality. I have written extensively on this in these forums, but overall i like it. It has low latency built in and all of the other goodies i need to have in order to get my 64 up and running well.

Nice... I've been looking at an emachines 64 bit laptop this week and drooling. :)

I like audacity... I've played with it a bit. Haven't used Rosegarden but I've heard really good things about the latest version.

Once I get a distro and an install nailed down I'll have to start playing with all of them and figure some things out...

Thanks again!