Sound On Linux, PUPPY STUDIO 3.1!!

-EDIT-

Since this was written a few weeks ago, I've done a few tweaks (as in installing two different OS after ubuntu studio) and think I've found a match for my quest, or at least the best candidate so far:

I'm running Puppy Studio 3.1:  A total install of less then 700mb, running off an 8GB Micro SD card on my old P.O.S compaq laptop (2 ghz single core with 2GB ram)

Puppy Studio comes loaded with:
.... real-time audio kernel (huh? means it records audio really fast, I guess)
.... support for Reaper (using WINE to run windows programs and JACK AUDIO to marry the two - and yes RiffWorks is running and still being tested)
.... support for VST (minimal success so far)
.... support for video production - OneShot is installed, not tested yet
.... basic web browser, basic office-type software, stripped down and lightweight
.... powerful image editor - GIMP - freeware, open source, awesome power from what I've read

The secret is JACK AUDIO set up to use the external audio card in my case the LINE6 GUITARPORT (see screenshots)

SETUP JACK AUDIO SERVER:   NOTICE  "INTERFACE" IS SET TO hw:2 -- THIS MAY CHANGE EVERY RE-BOOT. SOMETIMES I HAVE TO SET IT AS 2, SOMETIMES 0, SOMETIMES 1 --  CHECK BY CLICKING THE " > " FOR INTERFACE, LIKE BELOW......

YOUR REAPER SHOULD BE SETUP WITH THE INPUT DEVICE SET TO  "WINEASIO".  JACK AUDIO SHOULD MAKE AN AUDIO DRIVER CALLED WINEASIO AND ROUTE THE INTERFACE YOU HAVE SELECTED TO THAT AUDIO DRIVER (see screenshot below) 

Here's a sample of an audio clip recorded using Linux Puppy Studio 3.1 running Reaper. Very basic arrangement of "The Seeker" by The Who. I used the built in VST's that come with Reaper for Compression and Reverb.  On the guitar track I added the BlueDevil Studio VST that installs with RiffWorks T4 for a guitar amp as I recorded the guitar (and vox) dry.

“Recorded in Linux - Sample of The Seeker by The Who” Comment & more at RiffWorld.com

DOWNLOAD PUPPY STUDIO 3.1
-you can run your computer off the ISO you burn to CD or other ways without ever messing with your computer.
-You can install it directly to a USB Thumb Drive or an SD/Mini/MicroSD -- I am carrying my Puppy Studio 3.1 OS on an SD card!
-You CAN install it to your hard-drive by accident, so read you're screen, know what size hard drive you have (in KB, not GB!!) before you choose to install this to anything -- so don't use your main setup to install this, instead run off the live CD you burned from the download link silly!  Then if you are brave enough, put this bad boy on an old computer or on a usb stick

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60483
or
http://puppylinuxstuff.meownplanet.net/10wt3ch/

when prompted use:
Username: puppy
Password: linux



ORIGINAL POST:


Ever since I purchased a laptop loaded with Windows Vista "Home Premium", I've been aware of what an awful, bloated and frustrating product Microsoft can put out these days. (Don't even bother to ask why I didn't realize this after I purchased a Gateway desktop loaded with Windows ME back in 2001!) But in my own defense, I wasn't really doing any audio production at the time and I've never been an avid gamer, so browsing the internet and doing some web design was about as specialized as my computer use had been. My experience with Windows 2000 and Windows XP were both painless, but of course I wasn't doing any intensive computing on those operating systems.

As soon as I started using Windows Vista, I was jumping into Audio Production full throttle. Really, I have had very little trouble with recording audio on Vista and can't really complain about that aspect. What I do have a problem with is the overall slowness of the computer, requiring me to upgrade RAM and realizing that the 80GB hard drive suddenly seemed much smaller when Vista was taking up 20 gigs or so after all of my applications were installed!

For quite a few other reasons which I will not get into, a few years ago I set out to see if I could actually ditch Windows for Linux and still be able to produce high quality audio like I am currently doing using Windows.

Here is what I've found out so far:  NO, YOU CAN'T, at least, not easily!  -- let me explain.....

I jumped in on Ubuntu 7.xx a few years back. At the time, I couldn't get my Line6 GuitarPort to work. I abandoned my quest for a while because without being able to use my external sound card (guitarport), it wasn't really worth it to me to invest in some other equipment that might be compatible with Linux Ubuntu.

Jump forward a year or so and version 9.xx of Ubuntu....  I can now get Ubuntu to "see" the GuitarPort as an external soundcard and can route system sounds through it and hear them on the headphones.  But getting the input signal into a program like Ardour is hit or miss and I found the software to be cumbersome to what I was using on Windows, namely RiffWorks by Sonoma Wire Works and Reaper by Cockos.  At that point I started looking into WINE on Ubuntu which is a Windows Emulation layer which allows many Windows applications to run under Ubuntu.   I was able to successfully install RiffWorks and Reaper on Ubuntu using WINE, but I'm still not able to route the input of my Guitarport into either application using Ubuntu, so I abandoned the project for the time....

Jump forward to 2010...  I was dual booting my laptop with Windows Vista and Ubuntu 9.xx.  I found myself doing all of my surfing and non-intensive computing on Ubuntu and loving it, but all of my audio production is still being done on Windows Vista.  At this time, my wife started going back to college and her older Compaq  laptop running Windows XP is overheating, rebooting and she's not able to use it to do any of her school work.  If it did stay on it was slow as hell! We had already maxed out the RAM but it still just was so sluggish and prone to BlueScreens and other problems, she NEEDED a new laptop.  Instead of forking over a minimum of $400 to $500 dollars, I sacrificed my laptop as I could use our much more powerful desktop to do all of my audio production. I did a clean install of Vista for her (reclaiming the Ubuntu partition) and handed over my laptop to her. Although I didn't really want to be without it, I figured I could take apart her old Compaq and clean out all the dust that had accumulated (and there was a ton of it) and wipe XP off of it and install the latest Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid). It was very easy to do!  After installing Ubuntu 10.04, the old Compaq laptop was ROCKIN' FAST! I couldn't believe how much better this old  p.o.s was running with Ubuntu compared to XP. It was night and day as far as performance! My wife was happy and I was able to reclaim a laptop that would've been unused or even donated or thrown out eventually.

Jump forward to late 2010. I am full throttle into writing and producing music on my Vista desktop. I've been accomplishing things on Windows relating to audio production that I never dreamed I would be able to do with any computer 10 years ago! Although I am using the Compaq with Ubuntu 10.04, I really am disappointed that I can't use it for recording music, so I resume my quest to get my GuitarPort external sound card working in Linux again. You see, I work in a network operations center 60 miles from my home. During the winter, my company often puts us up in hotel room's during snow storms so they can ensure we will be able to cover our next shifts. It's during these times that I made the most use of my laptop with Vista, recording many songs while bored out of my skull in a hotel room waiting for my next shift. I really don't like the idea of not being able to do that this winter, so I've once again resumed my quest for "Sound on Linux".


So over the last couple weeks, I've been trying to get RiffWorks and Reaper working with my Line6 GuitarPort on the old crusty Compaq laptop. Since I had limited success with Ubuntu thus far, I looked for other options. The best fit I found was actually a customized version of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio 10.04.  I upgraded my laptop a few days ago with no issues and again installed Riffworks and Reaper with no issues using WINE.

Now for the good news. Although it took some time, I was able to configure "JACK AUDIO" under Ubuntu to see the GuitarPort as an external sound card, routing that signal to "Alsa".  Under WINE, I set the audio to point to "JACK AUDIO" and it worked!  I'll make a more detailed post on this in the near future with some screen shots and such to help others if they want to try to do this same setup for themselves.

Now for the bad news.  Although it did "work" in that I could get the input of my GuitarPort to actually be heard AND track into both Reaper and RiffWorks on separate attempts, I am only able to get a clean signal. I cannot use my Windows based VST's like Amplitube, PodFarm, or T-Racks3, yet......

So to sum it all up:  Can you use Linux for high quality audio production?  I guess it's possible, using supported hardware and native Linux applications.  However, can one just simply jump ship from Windows to Linux without reinvesting in equipment and software?  No.  At least not yet!  But as you can see, over the last few years, things have been looking up for me on my quest to ditch windows forever.  But for now, my music is married to Windows.

As far as everything else besides my audio production?  FUCK WINDOWS!

Chris

RiffWorks Recording Software - DAW For Analog Snobs Like Me

I'm old school.

My first computer was a Timex which used a cassette tape for it's "hard-drive". I recorded my first song on a 4-track cassette recorder. I learned the art of studio recording using vintage Neumann microphones and an Ampex-451 two track reel to reel as the main recording medium. During many of my live shows, I plugged my guitar directly into a Fender Bassman 135-watt tube amp connected to a 4-12 cabinet cranked up until the speakers distorted.....

So how the hell do I use a computer to record?

This was my biggest question a few years ago when I decided I wanted - rather needed to get back into writing and recording music if I would remain somewhat sane.  Go back even 10 years ago and I would have laughed in the face of anyone telling me a digital recording studio could create anything worth listening to - and with good reason, as the technology in 2000 fell far short of recording to tape! I'd been an "analog" snob for so many years, even the thought of 0's and 1's translating into something meaningful seemed preposterous to me. It just was not going to happen.

After leaving the music scene and eventually my home-town of Seattle, I looked at my situation and realized I would need to convert to digital if I wanted to continue doing what I love. I no longer had access to recording studio's with free recording time. I no longer had a list of accomplished musicians to take into the studio with me.......   I was completely on my own! Not only would I have to figure out how to record my music on a low budget, I would also have to do all the instruments myself.

It was the summer of 2007. After literally walking away from music for the better part of a decade, my wife urged me to get back into it - (lest she have to deal with a pouting husband for the rest of her life!). I started figuring out how to record my guitar onto my laptop and found a Line6 device called GuitarPort (a fantastic little device with 32kb recording capability) which came bundled with a trial version of RiffWorks recording software from Sonoma Wire Works.

I had already purchased Sony Vegas Pro 8, a full featured video production software that included a multi-track Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). On a week long business trip to Dallas, I holed up in my hotel room and recorded some new guitar ideas. It felt great to be recording again, especially since my little recording studio was completely "mobile". But after the novelty wore off, I was let down a bit. Although I had accomplished what I set out to do, record my guitar, that was about all I had done - just recorded my guitar over the built in "click-track". HOW BORING! I needed a drummer, bad!

That's when I remembered that the trial version of RiffWorks that came bundled with my Line6 gear touted a feature called "Instant Drummer". I dug out my installation disk and installed it on my laptop and fired up the program. At first glance, it looked like it was going to be very complicated to figure out, but I was so wrong.... within a few minutes, I had a drummer to play along with and was recording the first "riff" of  what would be the first complete song I had written and recorded in nearly a decade. Very quickly I recorded all the parts of the song, but I was not sure about the arrangement. Each riff (or section of a song) is recorded separately (loop based recording) and then each riff can be added to the song line. With a click and drag of a riff from one point of the song line to another point in the song line, I had completely changed the arrangement of my song... ON THE FLY!! This is when it hit me, how powerful this software is - I didn't have to re-record the entire song from the beginning to the end if I wanted to change the order of the song!  Back in my analog days of recording, this was simply not going to happen. Unless you were Aerosmith and had the luxury of writing your album for weeks on end in a recording studio to the tune of a $4,000,000, you needed to have your songs written and performed to the point of playing them flawlessly before you even thought of going into the studio. If at mixdown time, one of the band members said "You know, I really think the song should vamp on the first chorus for an intro and then break into the first veres.." -- it was a a wash. It meant going back into a tracking session and re-recording the entire song! Now, with a click-drag of a mouse, I had done the impossible....

So here's some of the features of RiffWorks that have made me want to spend my own valuable time ranting on a frickin' blog about it...

1. Able to make arrangements on the fly. RiffWorks is loop-based recording which allows the artist to record each section of the song separately and piece them together to make a complete song. If the order is not working out, just re-arrange the parts and see if it sounds better, or record a completely new section and "plug" it into the song where you need it.

2. Instant Drummer to help you get your groove on. RiffWorks comes with a built in drummer to help you lay down your tracks in time and with the feel of a real drummer. Nothing sucks worse then trying to come up with new ideas to a metronome. Give me a drummer with average skills and I can come up with new ideas all day long! The Instant Drummer comes with multiple different demo's for you to get started with and new drummer sessions are $10 each to add to the software. Each drum session is a professional sounding recording with many different beats and feels. You can dial in the feel and intensity for each beat. Although it's not quite the same as a real drummer, it's usable and pretty darn good for 0's and 1's!  Riffworks also allows for Rex Files to be used which can augment or even replace the Instant Drummer.

3. Built in effects! Sonoma has included their own award winning effects bundle for you to use, including compression, reverb, delay and sound modeling to name a few. Although not as flexible as some other DAW's, RiffWorks allows you to use some other VST's for your input recording (such as PodFarm or Amplitube, etc..)

4. One of the greatest features of this software is it's ONLINE COLLABORATION via Riffworld.com.  Got an idea but don't know where to go with it? "Riff-Link" your song on Riffworld.com directly from the software and within days, if not hours, you will have amazing musicians from all over the world contributing to your masterpiece!

I literally could talk for days about this software and what it means to me. Although I don't use RiffWorks exclusively for my music these days, I still can't find anything else that comes close to it for overall functionality. The greatest feature for me is the ability to write your song out and then change the order of the parts on the fly, seamlessly... that is well worth the cost of the software to me! The software has an incredible and positive, supporting community behind it on RiffWorld.com, a world-wide community of musicians like none other in the world (at least that I've found so far).

To sum it all up, RiffWorks recording software by Sonoma Wire Works is an invaluable tool for me to create music. If I did not find this software 3 years ago, I don't know if I would have ever gotten back into music and licensed my songs for film and tv placements which I did in 2010, my first official "music deal" in my 20 plus years in the music biz.

Hats of to Sonoma Wire Works for creating RiffWorks recording software!

A fair warning......

Hi and thanks for stopping by one of my little corner's of this "web 2.0" world we've all built into our existence.  You should expect to find a focus on music and the "business" of music.  Anything from being a musician, to an  engineer, producer, band member, concert promoter and all in between.  I will provide information about my own personal quest for "the song" and the dealings that come along, but my point is not to promote my own music, but to promote the art of creating music.  And since I only have my own experience to pull from, a lot of it will be based on personal experience and should not be taken as the only answer, but rather a starting point for discussion on the topic at hand.

I've been called a man of few words by people who know me in "the real world".  That is, those who do not peruse my virtual world of music postings, forum ramblings and now, blog's, have a vision of me being one who does not like to engage in much conversation.  Although a somewhat limited stock, my closest friends know they will rarely get me into a phone conversation or find me knocking at their door unexpectedly to hang out or catch up.  But get me started on the internet........ I can ramble on for days!

So, please be aware you will find this blog to be quite "wordy"!

A fair warning.........