LAC2014: submission accepted!

My submission for the Linux Sound Night at LAC2014 with The Infinite Repeat has been accepted. The Call for Papers page mentions the term “danceable” so I’m going to focus on that. Making danceable music is quite a challenge for me but it should definitely be doable to produce a solid set, especially now that I’m the proud owner of a Korg Volca Keys. I’m definitely going to integrate it in my current setup as the Volca reacts great on MIDI sent from my workstation. It has some fat sounds that just scream dance floor.


Korga Volca Keys

I’m really looking forward to this year’s LAC. It seems falkTX and avlinux are going too, it’d be great to meet these guys in real life!

LAC2014: submission accepted!

LAC2013: Friday 10th of May

“Hello, I’d like to know if I can take my electric guitar with me as hand luggage, would that be possible?”
“Well that depends on the whims of the cabin crew.”
“So if I can’t take it with me in the cabin would that cost me extra?”
“Yes, that will be €200.”

So I decided to take my guitar apart, wrap it in a big towel and put in my suitcase so that I could take it with me as standard baggage. I didn’t want to run the risk of having to pay €200 extra. When I arrived at the airport I was sitting next to a young lady with, yes you guessed it right, a guitar as hand luggage. She didn’t have to pay anything extra. Grmbl. You’ll see that when I unpack my stuff in Graz the neck of the guitar will be broken or something. Let’s hope not.

I had a transfer in Munich which went smoothly. The whole journey went smoothly actually. Thanks to 3G internet, QR codes of my tickets sent to my mobile phone and Google maps. Especially those QR codes are very practical, they save time and paper. Every counter and gate has QR scanners and the personnel just puts your mobile phone in the scanner and you’re done. Maximum efficiency. Google maps helped me out on quite some occasions too although the Grazians were very helpful too.

So on Friday around 2 PM I walked into the main conference building. I couldn’t be there on Thursday because of my son‘s birthday. So I already missed quite some interesting workshops, presentations and lightning talks. I was kind of bummed about that at first but as soon as I entered the building I forgot about all that. It was still lunch time and everyone got together in the main building to eat something. It was a warm welcome and great to see all those people again. I immediately spotted the MOD guys (my goal for this LAC was to get a MOD endorsement) and got acquainted with the one and only Kirill Alferov which was quite a nice surpise. After having something to eat I decided to check on the status of my guitar and to put it back together again. Luckily the guitar had survived the journey unharmed.

As soon as I started screwing the neck back on the MOD guys approached me to ask if they could borrow my guitar for their lightning talk on Saturday. Sure, but only if I could play around a bit with the MOD Quadra they brought with them. This was no problem so a few minutes later I found myself happily noodling and tapping footswitches on this amazing device. Even though it still had some rough edges it all felt, looked and sounded very professional to me. Yes, the MOD is a fine example of my view on Linux audio development: world domination. And I mean it. Within 10 years Windows and Mac OS will only exist for tablets or other small portable devices with touchscreens and Linux will be the only viable alternative on both other ends of the scale: embedded devices and fully fledged audio workstations in professional studios.

Right after that I headed off with Marc Groenewegen to the Linux/Ardour in a Recording Studio workshop where I soon found myself going through the mixing console manual together with Frank Neumann to find any references to GPL clauses as the console was running on Linux (see how quickly world domination is approaching already?). Of course we found nothing. The workshop was a bit too specialized for me so I decided to check in at the hotel and get rid of my baggage. The plan was to eat Schnitzels for dinner but when it was time to go to the restaurant it was pouring so we (me, Funs & girlfriend) arrived at the restaurant completely soaked. But I couldn’t care less when I got served my Schnitzel XL with a big pint of Puntigamer.

After dinner we went to the Mumuth. Amazing building. But me and electroacoustic music don’t go together that well. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’ve seen Sachiko M once and she blew me away with just a sine wave out of a sampler. Not just with the sine wave but more with her performance, her being there and getting totally absorbed by the sounds she was making. They had to carry her off the stage after she was done. Well, that didn’t happen at the Mumuth. Or I should’ve stayed until the end because now I’m basing my judgement on a mere three perfomances because I left earlier as I didn’t really dig the vibe.

LAC2013: Friday 10th of May

LAC2013: some videos

I’m planning on writing a nice and lengthy epistle on LAC2013 but for now you’ll have to do with some videos captured by rncbc and alg0rhythm. Thanks for uploading the vids!

The Infinite Repeat – Leave It All Behind

The Infinite Repeat – Nervous Walking

The Infinite Repeat – Slow Down

Using your electric guitar with Linux – workshop excerpt

Buschenschank Acid Crew

Creative Commons License All tracks by The Infinite Repeat are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

LAC2013: some videos

LAC2013: Your submission has been accepted!

Twee mailtjes in mijn inbox vanochtend. Allebei mijn submissions voor LAC2013 zijn geaccepteerd! Dus op LAC2013 ga ik een workshop doen over je electrische gitaar gebruiken met Linux audio tools en ik ga een optreden doen op de Linux Sound Night.

Ben blij dat m’n submissions zijn geaccepteerd, heb alles al geboekt en zou zonde zijn als ik niks had kunnen doen. Die kans was er want kennelijk waren er best veel aanmeldingen.

Submission #34: Using your electric guitar with Linux


Almost 20 years of experience with playing guitar and over 10 years of Linux experience, one day that just had to come together. With the advent of guitarix, a virtual guitar amplifier for Linux, this became reality and coupled with the modularity of the Linux audio ecosystem a whole plethora of possibilities became accessible. In this workshop I will show the current possibilities for a guitarist with Linux audio in a hands-on, live setting.

Submission #35: The Infinite Repeat


A musician with over 20 years of experience and a computer with Linux. That’s what it boils down to. The result: conventional, decent song-writing, different sounding because of the choice to not walk the threaded paths and because of an autodidactic background, an outspoken personal taste and a open-minded worldview.

LAC2013: Your submission has been accepted!

Linux Audio Conference 2013 – 9-12 mei – Graz – Oostenrijk

Op Facebook was het al aangekondigd en de officiële site staat in de steigers. Van 9 tot en met 12 mei vindt dus de Linux Audio Conference 2013 plaats in Graz, Oostenrijk en wel aan de IEM (Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics), University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

Ik ben zeker van de partij en wil graag weer twee workshops doen, een over het optimaliseren van je systeem voor Linux audio en een over het werken met electrische gitaar en Linux audio.

Linux Audio Conference 2013 – 9-12 mei – Graz – Oostenrijk

LAC 2010

Hij stond natuurlijk in het hol van de leeuw, Lennart Poettering, de auteur van PulseAudio. Op IRC werd al gezegd dat hij verdomd veel leek op een politicus. En zo voelde het inderdaad wel een beetje, hij probeerde toch vooral het slechte imago van PulseAudio wat op te poetsen. En daarbij was zijn verhaal best technisch, het meeste ging langs me heen. Dat gold niet voor Pieter Palmers, een van de belangrijkste FFADO devs, die zat zich half op te vreten want kon zich totaal niet vinden in Poettering z’n verhaal. Naderhand zaten ze dan ook druk te discussiëren in de kantine.

Lennart Poettering – Pro Audio is Easy, Consumer Audio is Hard

LAC 2010

LAC 2010

De hotline staat open (kan ieder moment vader worden) en op die voorwaarde zit ik nu naar Lieven Moors’ nogal rommelige lezing te luisteren. Hij heeft vanochtend een nieuwe kaart aangeschaft, een Edirol UA-25EX, en die werkt nog niet optimaal op zijn PC. Dus een hoop geklooi met kabels en instellingen in QJackCtl.

Maar hij is nu net klaar met Seq24 en nu verder met ZynAddSubFX, volgens Lieven de populairste softsynth voor Linux vanwege de “shitload of buttons”. Wel jammer dat hij nogal onsamenhangend uitlegt (wat zich ook wreekt in deze blog entry). Weet niet of ik dat red 150 minuten lang. Heb ook enorme trek in koffie.

LAC 2010

Linux Audio Conference 2010

ZIt ik een beetje rond te kijken op Open Blik zie ik dat de Linux Audio Conference van linuxaudio.org komend voorjaar in Utrecht is! Zo, daar word ik wel even enthousiast van. Nog mooier zou zijn als ik een bijdrage zou kunnen leveren aan deze conferentie. Gezien mijn universitaire achtergrond en mijn huidige werk bij de Universiteit van Amsterdam zou dat zo maar eens een hele mooie kans zijn.

Uiteraard blijf ik dit volgen en zal ik alle verdere ontwikkelingen hier neerpennen. Mooi iets om naar uit te kijken.

Linux Audio Conference 2010