Friday, August 03, 2007
Ménage à trois with robots part 11
I am done with this one for now. I work on it on and off for the last coupl'a weeks without blogging about it, so I'll jot down what I remember...
Recorded more handclaps for a total of six. Bounced to stereo.
Was having trouble with x-runs, slowdowns, and crashes so I cleared out tracks I clearly wasn't using. That left me with seventeen tracks of recorded audio.
What really seemed to help, aside from some slight adjustments in JACK, was changing an audio option in Ardour. In options > audio file format > data, I changed from 32-bit floating point to 24-bit signed integer. I don't know what either of those are but that seemed to help a lot.
While I was having trouble, I played around with the latency settings a little. This while recording one of the hand claps. The slight delay helped fatten up the sound on one section, which gave me an idea. I was gonna copy those tracks and double them, synced at a slight delay. I decided I liked the claps the way they were and didn't bother.
Recorded some bass guitar to the later sections of the song. I don't think it's needed before then. Bass was plugged in directly into the Lexicon Lambda. I was using the Zoom 506 pedal, but the battery died on me, before I was ready to record.
I was thinking about some lead guitar, but I don't think it is needed either. Or maybe I'm just lazy.
Added some LADSPA FX. 1st applied them pre-fader, but after reading a little of the online manual, applied them post.
TAP equalizer on a guitar track that had too much hiss on it.
TAP Stereo echo and TAP reverberator on the handclaps track.
Frequency modulator on the bass guitar track, which punches it up a bit.
Setup a bus to route vocals to apply effects. right now only using TAP DeEssor.
I took the spoken chorus bit off the DeEssor bus cuz I didn't like the way it sounded there. Also normalized that track as the choruses for that track got louder and louder.
I'd experiment with more effects, but I seem to be pushing this computer to it's limits. I'm not sure that should be the case.
I'll revisit this tune when it's time to configure the next album, whenever and whatever that is.
In the meantime the song can currently (as of this writing) be found on MySpace (faded out at a tolerable 4 min, 15 sec) and here in it's full version.
Recorded more handclaps for a total of six. Bounced to stereo.
Was having trouble with x-runs, slowdowns, and crashes so I cleared out tracks I clearly wasn't using. That left me with seventeen tracks of recorded audio.
What really seemed to help, aside from some slight adjustments in JACK, was changing an audio option in Ardour. In options > audio file format > data, I changed from 32-bit floating point to 24-bit signed integer. I don't know what either of those are but that seemed to help a lot.
While I was having trouble, I played around with the latency settings a little. This while recording one of the hand claps. The slight delay helped fatten up the sound on one section, which gave me an idea. I was gonna copy those tracks and double them, synced at a slight delay. I decided I liked the claps the way they were and didn't bother.
Recorded some bass guitar to the later sections of the song. I don't think it's needed before then. Bass was plugged in directly into the Lexicon Lambda. I was using the Zoom 506 pedal, but the battery died on me, before I was ready to record.
I was thinking about some lead guitar, but I don't think it is needed either. Or maybe I'm just lazy.
Added some LADSPA FX. 1st applied them pre-fader, but after reading a little of the online manual, applied them post.
TAP equalizer on a guitar track that had too much hiss on it.
TAP Stereo echo and TAP reverberator on the handclaps track.
Frequency modulator on the bass guitar track, which punches it up a bit.
Setup a bus to route vocals to apply effects. right now only using TAP DeEssor.
I took the spoken chorus bit off the DeEssor bus cuz I didn't like the way it sounded there. Also normalized that track as the choruses for that track got louder and louder.
I'd experiment with more effects, but I seem to be pushing this computer to it's limits. I'm not sure that should be the case.
I'll revisit this tune when it's time to configure the next album, whenever and whatever that is.
In the meantime the song can currently (as of this writing) be found on MySpace (faded out at a tolerable 4 min, 15 sec) and here in it's full version.
Labels: Ardour, Linux, Ménage à trois with robots, plug-ins, Ubuntu
Monday, July 16, 2007
Ménage à trois with robots part 10
I'm hoping to conclude this one soon. It's been over two years since I've done anything significant with it. I'd exported the audio to be used in Sonar, but since figuring out how to make my USB audio interface work in Ubuntu Studio, I'm gonna finish this in Ardour. That's the plan, so far.
All I did this go round was to play around with fader levels and cut the not quite silent sections of the guitar and vocal tracks. I recorded a hand clap track during one of the last couple of sessions (but forgot to mention it). I plan on building on that, and then maybe adding some lead guitar.
The latest...
I'll be posting audio on Vox (hat tip to the Undercover Black Man) from now on as it's better than taking up space and bandwith here. Also, it's free.
All I did this go round was to play around with fader levels and cut the not quite silent sections of the guitar and vocal tracks. I recorded a hand clap track during one of the last couple of sessions (but forgot to mention it). I plan on building on that, and then maybe adding some lead guitar.
The latest...
I'll be posting audio on Vox (hat tip to the Undercover Black Man) from now on as it's better than taking up space and bandwith here. Also, it's free.
Labels: Ardour, Ménage à trois with robots, Ubuntu
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Lexicon Lambda USB On Ubuntu Studio
Works just fine if I plug it in after Ubuntu boots up. Also had to change a few settings in Jack Control to keep Ardour from shutting down on me.
I found out about the boot up issue reading the following (at the bottom of that page):
I haven't tried the solution, yet. I'm happy the USB interface works. For now, waiting til boot up to plug the thing in will do. Eventually I'll mess with the above gibberish.
I found out about the boot up issue reading the following (at the bottom of that page):
If you use a USB MIDI keyboard or a USB sound card as your secondary device, you may run into issues with it taking priority over your PCI device as your main sound card. This tends to happen if you leave it turned on and plugged in during boot. Here is the solution:
sudo su -c 'echo options snd-usb-audio index=-2 >> /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base'I haven't tried the solution, yet. I'm happy the USB interface works. For now, waiting til boot up to plug the thing in will do. Eventually I'll mess with the above gibberish.
Labels: Linux, solutions?, Ubuntu
Friday, May 18, 2007
Ubuntu Studio! It's Here!!
I stopped checking for it a few days ago, but lo and behold; Ubuntu Studio has arrived. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I will soon. I need to save my data from my Agnula partition first.
Edit - figured I'd add the release notes...
Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavour of Ubuntu. It's built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional.
The Ubuntu Studio team is proud to announce its first release: 7.04 for Intel i386-compatible processors. With this release, which you can download for DVD in little over 860 MiB, we offer a feature that is somewhat reminiscent of Ubuntu Server: on installation, you can choose between the Audio, Graphics or Video tasks; and choose also to install a number of plugins, which for this release is mainly aimed at audio production.
We have endeavoured to keep as many of our packages in the standard Ubuntu repositories as possible. Certain packages, such as wired and our art packages, are kept in an external repository and fully up to Ubuntu packaging standards. Be aware however, that this is only a temporary solution and we will be pushing all our packages into Ubuntu for the next release.
The Audio task also provides a different kernel to the Video and Graphics tasks, which has low latency to enable easy JACK work, and for Gutsy we will be providing a fully realtime enabled setup. We have built upon the usability and support of Ubuntu as a foundation, and are certain that this was a wise choice, for we have access to a wide range of packages in the repository, and a stable base system.
For the video task, we have chosen the GStreamer-based PiTiVi as our central NLE. PiTiVi is written in Ubuntu's favourite scripting language, Python, and the GStreamer back-end enables it to use all the GStreamer-compatible codecs that are installed, and thus taking advantage of Feisty's Easy Codec Installation. It also uses our favourite widget set, GTK+, and thus keeps with the theme and flow of the Ubuntu Studio desktop, and tries also to stay usable in any environment, in keeping with Ubuntu Studio's aim that media production should be simple and accessible.
We have also packaged Ardour 2, which will debut on our disc. Our theme is heavily based around the dark style of Ardour and many other audio applications, and we are trying to have a release that is as integrated as possible with all of our applications and tasks.
Finally, the Graphics task deserves some attention. We have included a very wide range of very high quality applications that are also very well known. What we have done is added to this selection (with Enblend, for example), and brought them all together into a coherent set. Some main packages to note are the GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Hugin and Scribus, which are all provided with a default install of the Ubuntu Studio Graphics task.
As our wiki page at [WWW] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio states: "Our aim is to make it more accessible for new users to get into the tools that GNU/Linux has to offer for multimedia creation/production. We also want to spotlight what's out there. Show users tools they might not have know existed." We have certainly fulfilled that aim with our first release with 7.04, and can only continue to improve.
Thanks to all who helped in Ubuntu Studios creation! Bring on the show!
Edit - figured I'd add the release notes...
Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavour of Ubuntu. It's built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional.
The Ubuntu Studio team is proud to announce its first release: 7.04 for Intel i386-compatible processors. With this release, which you can download for DVD in little over 860 MiB, we offer a feature that is somewhat reminiscent of Ubuntu Server: on installation, you can choose between the Audio, Graphics or Video tasks; and choose also to install a number of plugins, which for this release is mainly aimed at audio production.
We have endeavoured to keep as many of our packages in the standard Ubuntu repositories as possible. Certain packages, such as wired and our art packages, are kept in an external repository and fully up to Ubuntu packaging standards. Be aware however, that this is only a temporary solution and we will be pushing all our packages into Ubuntu for the next release.
The Audio task also provides a different kernel to the Video and Graphics tasks, which has low latency to enable easy JACK work, and for Gutsy we will be providing a fully realtime enabled setup. We have built upon the usability and support of Ubuntu as a foundation, and are certain that this was a wise choice, for we have access to a wide range of packages in the repository, and a stable base system.
For the video task, we have chosen the GStreamer-based PiTiVi as our central NLE. PiTiVi is written in Ubuntu's favourite scripting language, Python, and the GStreamer back-end enables it to use all the GStreamer-compatible codecs that are installed, and thus taking advantage of Feisty's Easy Codec Installation. It also uses our favourite widget set, GTK+, and thus keeps with the theme and flow of the Ubuntu Studio desktop, and tries also to stay usable in any environment, in keeping with Ubuntu Studio's aim that media production should be simple and accessible.
We have also packaged Ardour 2, which will debut on our disc. Our theme is heavily based around the dark style of Ardour and many other audio applications, and we are trying to have a release that is as integrated as possible with all of our applications and tasks.
Finally, the Graphics task deserves some attention. We have included a very wide range of very high quality applications that are also very well known. What we have done is added to this selection (with Enblend, for example), and brought them all together into a coherent set. Some main packages to note are the GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Hugin and Scribus, which are all provided with a default install of the Ubuntu Studio Graphics task.
As our wiki page at [WWW] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio states: "Our aim is to make it more accessible for new users to get into the tools that GNU/Linux has to offer for multimedia creation/production. We also want to spotlight what's out there. Show users tools they might not have know existed." We have certainly fulfilled that aim with our first release with 7.04, and can only continue to improve.
Thanks to all who helped in Ubuntu Studios creation! Bring on the show!
Labels: downloads, Linux, Ubuntu
Monday, February 26, 2007
I Think Agnula Might Be Dead...
No news, no updates, no nothin' lately (except a change of domain due to a "miscommunication"). If I wasn't lazy, I could figure out (maybe) how to update some of the programs, especially Ardour which I understand has to be built from the source. But I'm not trying to do that right now.
Ubuntu Studio looks interesting, but isn't due till April. I'll try it out once it's released, but until then, I want to re-record my song, April Fool's Day. I need to be able to play around with pitch, and I don't know how to do that in the version of Ardour included with Agnula*, so I'm gonna play around with Sonar temporarily(?), and see where that gets me.
This project will end a fairly long, creative dry spell for me.
Assuming I get started...
* Feb 28th 2007 Been away (From Agnula) for awhile. Forgot about the LADSPA plugins. I'd rather be able to slow the tempo down, record the vocal or guitar and then speed up to normal tempo for that effect. I know I've done it in Cakewalk, but I don't feel like relearning that software, so I'll play around with the plugins in Agnula, for now.
Ubuntu Studio looks interesting, but isn't due till April. I'll try it out once it's released, but until then, I want to re-record my song, April Fool's Day. I need to be able to play around with pitch, and I don't know how to do that in the version of Ardour included with Agnula*, so I'm gonna play around with Sonar temporarily(?), and see where that gets me.
This project will end a fairly long, creative dry spell for me.
Assuming I get started...
* Feb 28th 2007 Been away (From Agnula) for awhile. Forgot about the LADSPA plugins. I'd rather be able to slow the tempo down, record the vocal or guitar and then speed up to normal tempo for that effect. I know I've done it in Cakewalk, but I don't feel like relearning that software, so I'll play around with the plugins in Agnula, for now.
Labels: Agnula, Ardour, DAW, distros, Linux, Sonar, Ubuntu
