Hello and Qtractor questions

Mr. Capela

Firstly thank you for all your great applications, I'm a big fan of QSynth and have been using it for both recording and live performances for a couple of years now, there is nobody in the Linux audio world that hasn't also been a user of the excellent Qjackctl as well.

I have been an Ardour user for a couple of years now and have only just recently become aware of Qtractor, I have just built it and look forward to putting it through it's paces, so far it looks very good!

I maintain a small but growing Debian based A/V Distro called AV Linux http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

Although Ardour has been the centerpiece so far I am not a real fan of Rosegarden and would be interested in asking your permission to include Qtractor in subsequent AV Linux releases. I know it is Open-Source but since it is in early alpha development I though I'd better ask first!
I really am looking forward to trying Qtractor and seeing it as it develops further.

Regards, GLEN

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rncbc's picture

Re: Qtractor questions

hi Glen,

You're welcome and thanks (you don't need to be that formal here though ;)

By all means you can include Qtractor in your current and future AV Linux releases. Although still on-going in alpha development it's functional enough for packaging and distribution. The more the better ;) Please try to package with full optional features included, most specially librubberband, liblo and native VST. Why not?

Cheers.

OK, That's great, thanks. I

OK,

That's great, thanks. I have built it with everything but VST support, my distro does include DSSI-VST and FST both so I'm not sure if I need the Native VST support or not at this time. This brings me to another question...I certainly don't expect Qtractor to be the same as Ardour but in Ardour there are JACK insert connections available in every track which work great with inserted JACK Client plugins like linuxDSP plugins here: http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/#

Perhaps I don't know my way around Qtractor well enough yet but I don't see that this is possible with Qtractor, am I mistaken? If this is the case would you consider adding this to future versions, it would certainly open it up to more plugins and additional VST Support with FST.

Anyway just some early impressions...this is a very impressive bit of software!

Don't give up the native VSTs

Adding Native VST should not even be at issue here. You should just do it. :)

Granted, there are not a lot of Native Linux VST plugins available ATM, but this site has some pretty nice ones (all might not work as expected yet):
http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=7
http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=8

What would be the point of depriving potential users from using these plugins? As I suspect you already know (from having read some of your posts on the Ardour forum a while back), Native VSTs are not the same thing as Windows VSTs using DSSI-VST or FST via WINE.

Good luck with your AV Linux distribution. While I have not tried it myself, I have read great things, and have followed your project with interest.

Lexridge

rncbc's picture

Re: native VSTs

@GMaq,
adding support to native VST/VSTi is pretty straight forward: you just need to put the VST SDK header files, which you should get yourself by accepting its license, in your build host's include search path or give it explicitly on ./configure --with-vst=/path/to/vst/include. Read the README.VST as in here.

Cheers

Re: Don't give up the native VSTs

Hey ...
http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=7
I never ran over this site ... looks promising. I think I should try these plugins ... thanks for that link.
I know its a litte bit off-topic, but as you seem to be a real END USER of linux audio... could you describe your working system? I mean: Which Distri do you use, which software, which plugins, what kind of Drum-Sampler? ...

END USER

@gizzmo
I assume your comment was directed at me.

While I'm not doing a lot of recording presently due to finishing up very large work related projects, I plan to get back into it later this month when things (I believe) will start quieting down a bit. I do tend to squeeze as much out of my machines as possible however.

I have a brand new sparkling AMD quad CPU w/4GB system on an Asus M3N78 Pro MB I've been trying to move to for about 6wks now. That system is running CentOS 5.3.

My present system is a dual core AMD w/2GB RAM, a Gigabyte MB and a Delta 1010LT with a homemade rack mount breakout panel. I use Hydrogen mainly with samples that I ripped from my old Ensoniq EPS, mainly because I love those old samples. ;) I will post a pic later this evening of my Rack. :)

This system has dual monitors, both widescreen (19" and a 24") running separate X sessions. The 24" monitor is used mostly exclusively for HDTV MythTV viewing, while using my 19" for simultaneous computing tasks. It works very well.

Lexridge

Re: END USER

@lexridge
Right, that comment was meant for you. Nearly the same hardware. I also got the 1010LT and therefore would like to see that rack *g*. Can you explain your software-setup in more details? Are you using vst instruments? Qtractor together with hydrogen? Any other software parts? QSynth? ... What I am currently missing is a full sequencer solution, like maybe Cubase or something like that... Therefore i am searching for the right linux tools which lead me into this direction.

[UPDATE]: And as you leaded us to the great site native linux plugins (http://www.anticore.org/jucetice/?page_id=7), i already tried out. There some good ones, aren't they? Let me ask you: How do you integrate them into qtractor? Can you use them as plugins? Or do you just connect them using a jack connection?

The Rack

Here are the photos I promised. Regarding my vsts, the only windows vsts I'm currently using are NI's B4 and GuitarRig. However, since I just discovered two native linux guitar rack processors, I may drop GR entirely. However, giving up the B4 would be difficult.

The Windows VSTs can work directly within Qtractor, or patched via jack using either FST or DSSI-VST. Either works well, but which ever you prefer. If I have a complex project, I generally load them directly into qtractor, as it gets confusing to manually reconnect all this stuff on a larger project (LASH might be of some help here eventually). Of course with Hydrogen, you have to use Jack, as I do not know any other way to patch it in.

Now for the pics. Please excuse my messy work area. I've not had much time to tiddy it up lately.

Photo 1 (EDIT: I mislabeled the amp, and it's actually 6x100 watts, not 5x100) It was custom built by a friend of mine a few years ago. It's also bridgeable to 2x300, but I see no reason to ever do that.
Photo 2
Photo 3
Photo 4

Lexridge

Re: The Rack

Hey.... thanks for you pictures ... really great vintage look ....

rncbc's picture

Re: track inserts

@GMaq,
Yes, track inserts are indeed planned. In fact, it's in the TODO list :- Audio effect send/return aux. inserts.

It will probably come in the form of internal/pseudo audio-plugins that just do nothing but expose some "send" and "return" audio ports to and from the outside. You then can connect the "sends" to your JACK client inputs and then their outputs to the respective "returns", ie. BAU as far as inserts go :)

Cheers

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