Starting September 7th I’m going to conduct a series of 6 workshops on music production with open source software at De Bakkerij in Castricum. With software I also mean the operating system so the OS I’m going to use will be an open source based one (probably Ubuntu or Debian). So basically it’s a series of workshops on music production with Linux Audio.
Last week I had something like, what the heck, I’m just going to mail De Bakkerij to ask if they’re interested since they host more DIY initiatives like the workshops inititiative I proposed. I didn’t expect much of it but I immediately got an enthusiastic e-mail back from the promotor of De Bakkerij. So after a few mails back and forth it was a done deal.
Rough outline of the workshops:
Introduction and base principles of open source software and using it for music production. What is open source, why use it, how does the open source audio ecosystem look like and will my hardware work?
Recording with open source software. What software is available (DAW), how to use it during the recording process, base principles of recording instruments and vocals (I’ll be focusing on home recording and not recording complete bands).
Making music with open source software. Softsynths, samplers, drum machines, amp/cabinet modeling, sequencers, trackers, DAWs, MIDI/OSC, plugin frameworks etc.
Mixing and mastering with open source software. What software is available, what kind of hardware do I need, base principles of mixing and mastering.
Showcasing the possibilities of the usage of open source software with the focus on low-cost solutions like the Raspberry Pi and RockChip based devices.
Concluding workshop: listen to and discuss the musical projects made by the attendees, discussion on music production with open source software.
There’s no fee for attending the workshops but you do need a notebook or netbook and an empty USB memory stick of at least 4GB.
Pulled out my soldering iron, soldered a reset button and a switch to boot into recovery on the PCB and connected my UG802 clone/revision to my TV. Nothing. lsusb. Crap, it boots in flash mode. Let’s try reflashing the whole bloody thing. Well that works so the NAND is not defective or anything. Reboot. Nothing, lsusb still reports the device is in flash mode. So I removed all my soldering efforts which I really regretted because it was quite nicely done given my poor soldering skills and tried again. Still nothing. Arrrggghhhh. Enjoyed a cold Warsteiner and let it rest.
Today I brought the device with me to the office. Hooked it up to a Windows machine, ran the ROM flash tool from Finless’ custom ROM package for this device and powered it up. I was greeted with the most ugly Android boot animation I had ever seen. But at least the device works again so thanks Finless!
So now I can move on again. I had Jack1 running on it so it should be possible to turn this device into a very cheap, yet powerful alternative to do real-time, low-latency audio. Compared to the Raspberry Pi JACK already consumed way less CPU (12% on the RPi compared to 2% on the RK3066 device with the same JACK settings) and I noticed the device has some more IRQ’s so if I could get all of those threaded that should give me some more flexibility to get everything working in a more stable way. I did have to disable WiFi otherwise the whole USB stack crashed after starting JACK. Also tried with an external WiFi dongle, same issue. I can even generate xruns when pressing keys on an attached keyboard. So it’d be really nice if I had serial console access to this thing. But I’ll figure that out too. And maybe the USB part of the kernel can be tweaked to improve things on the USB level.
Somehow I managed to arrive just in time to set everything up for my workshop, like always. I’m very good at stumbling in at the very last moment. The Nvidia binary blob didn’t like a beamer attached to it so I couldn’t properly display my slides. The well-filled room didn’t seem to care, they were more interested in what I had to say and the equipment I brought with me. I talked and talked and only briefly demonstrated the Raspberry Pi I brought with me. Guess I could’ve done a whole workshop about the RPi because apparently that little device caught most of the attention.
Right after my workshop I rushed to Rui’s intercalated workshop about the software he develops. I missed his first workshop which took place on Thursday. But since Rui had so much more to show after that initial workshop the LAC2013 organization decided to allot him more time for an extra workshop. But I also didn’t want to miss Jörn’s workshop so I decided I also wanted to see part of that workshop too. Even though I’ve been using Rui’s software for years (I’m a QA, Qtractor Afficionado) he showed things I had never seen before. And I probably attended one of the best parts of Jörn’s workshop where he showed and made us listen to what he did with a live recording. An ear opener, really, amazing what you can do with a good pair of ears, years of experience and the right tools.
Then it was lunchtime already. Missed out on the warm lunch but when that was all cleared the alternative food stand was set up again which had probably even better food. They had great salads, fruit juice, bread and other tasty things, all for free. Many, many thanks to the organization for setting this up, it really added up to the overall positive vibe of the conference.
Now I had a bit of a problem. I needed to go to the Forum Stadtpark to do a sound check for the Linux Sound Night. But walking was not an option with all my stuff and public transport would take too long as there was no direct connection. Luckily I could tag along with the guys from SuperDirt² so I hopped into their car and off we went. SuperDirt² had to play last so they did their sound check first. I watched their sound check in awe, these guys were good! I was up next. Everything went smooth, monitors were good, the sound guy was a really cool guy and so was the stage manager for the event. All omens were very positive!
We got back right on time for Albert Graef’s talk on creating LV2 plugins with Faust. We witnessed a glimpse of the future. If I got it right it will be extremely easy to create your own LV2 plugins in the near future. Just throw some Faust code against it and upload it with your browser and within moments you can download your own LV2 plugin! Time to learn some Faust I guess. One lightning talk later we witnessed another glimpse of the future. No, not my acrylic guitar in the hands of Bruno Gola but the world premiere of the MOD Quadra digital pedal board. The excitement was tangible. But the MOD guys quite easily redeemed the high expectations. The MOD Quadra is simply an amazing device, the web GUI looks stunning and it’s all so easy. And it runs on Linux people, using the LV2 framework. If this doesn’t propel LV2 into mass adoption then what?
For dinner we ended up in a nice Italian restaurant. The Gösser tasted good, same for the dish I ordered (Calamari alla griglia). After dinner we walked to the Forum Stadtpark where we were welcomed by the pleasant chaos of Android drummers. I installed the app and joined the concert. It was fun. Then the beamer got switched on showing us two terminal windows with vim on the right side and something compile-ish on the left. On stage a person in front of a notebook, coding live. The result? Really cool stuff if you ask me, just watch for yourself.
Algorave to the max all y’all!
Then it was time for something remotely dance related, namely me. Really enjoyed the gig even though my voice let me down after the third song. The guy that came after me unfortunately was a bit the odd one out so the contrast with the last act, SuperDirt², couldn’t have been bigger. As soon as Käpt’n Dirt hit the strings of his cello we knew this was going to be a blast. And when Ras Tilo kicked in the party was complete. What a great show!
After the encore of SuperDirt² it was time for the Open Jack Session. Not Jack as in JACK but Jack as in 3.5″ mini-jack. It was lying there on the table on stage and after ClaudiusMaximus Marije Baalman plugged in. Live coding in SuperCollider with every once in a while Marije stretching her arms because of the anti-RSI alarms that kept popping up. Great stuff, very enjoyable to listen to and the added humorous note of the anti-RSI alarms perfectly summed up what this conference was all about: having a great time. Despite the submerging inebriation I was enthralled.
We stayed until we got kicked out. That’s how it should be. Sole minor blemish: the beer. That Murauer stuff was close to undrinkable.
Een alleszeggende titel. Vorige week kennis gemaakt met iemand die bij mij om de hoek woont (en dan ook echt om de hoek) die een complete educatieve muziekomgeving onder Linux heeft gebouwd met behulp van JACK, mididings, QMidiRoute, QmidiNet, Qsynth en Bash scripts. Waanzinnig. En werken als een trein. Hele klassen kunnen via het netwerk met elkaar muziek maken, meespelen met backing tracks of gewoon lekker rommelen met diverse instrumenten. Heel bijzonder en je begrijpt wel dat ik heel graag wil meewerken aan het verder perfectioneren en professionaliseren van deze leeromgeving.
M’n Raspberry Pi’s lagen wat stof te happen maar daar is sinds een paar weken wel een einde aan gekomen. Werd eigenlijk getriggered door een post op de Jack-Devel mailinglist met een patch voor ARM platformpjes zoals de RPi. Een vergelijkbare patch was maanden geleden al een keer gepost maar is bijkans niet meer googlebaar dus aan mijn aandacht ontglipt. Door de patch op Jack-Devel kon ik weer verder als in JACK (zowel Jack1 als Jack2) draait prima op de RPi met deze patch. In eerste instantie kreeg ik de boel niet goed draaiende (vooral full-duplex kreeg ik niet voor elkaar) maar na me goed ingelezen te hebben heb ik mijn RPi zo weten te tweaken dat deze bruikbaar is voor real-time, low-latency audio. Afgelopen woensdag m’n bevindingen laten zien en horen op een Horus meeting en de RPi hield zich prima als virtuele gitaarversterker. En dat allemaal op een ontwikkelboardje van nog geen €30,-. Mijn bevindingen heb ik neergepend in de linuxaudio.org Wiki: http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspberrypi
Ook op mijn werk heb ik het erg druk. Heb me gestort op het WebRTC gebeuren en dat begint nu wel te lopen. Klanten zijn bijzonder geïnteresseerd in het videobelplatform dat we aan het ontwikkelen zijn en het werkt gewoon goed. Ook is het altijd fijn om nieuwe dingen te leren (WebRTC, WebSocket, STUN/TURN/ICE) of je meer te kunnen verdiepen in dingen waar je al wel wat van af wist maar die je nooit echt praktisch hebt hoeven toepassen (audio- en videocodecs, encrypten van datastromen, iptables). Ondertussen zijn we al weer verder aan het kijken naar een volgend project waarbij de focus ligt op router-achtige hardware en software, oftewel we gaan proberen zelf eenvoudige network appliances te gaan bouwen. Onze bureaus worden inmiddels bevolkt door RPi’s, MikroTik RouterBoards en PC Engines Alix boardjes. En die mag je dan onder de baas z’n tijd gaan zitten hacken. Hoe vet is dat. Vooral als het werkt en je met elkaar kunt bellen via een boardje met een 400MHz MIPS processor waar zelfgebouwde OpenWRT firmware op draait.
