rncbc's blog

Ten years after, nothing to do with Alvin Lee's but one by-product of this über-procrastinator of yours truly :) here goes one more strike to the Linux Audio ecosystem. Rather an almost forgotten niche nowadays, I cannot let this rot in my hard disk. There it is, a XG Editor for the masses, at least the ones who love gems like the Yamaha DB50XG, a precious old piece of hardware that I do strive and joy (pun intended).

If, by this time you don't have the slightest idea of what I'm talking about, move on, there's nothing to see here. This is strictly pure nineties memorabilia but one of the finest pieces of junk you could rig into a PC and turn it on a full-fledged rave machine. Do you remember the days? Awe my 8)

Now that you're following in tune (probably you already googled around) you may reckon that XGEdit95 and XG-Gold are two fine examples of the same subject. More than fine, both do excel in their purpose. There were the high times of shareware (I've told you before, this is memorabilia:) ... yeah right.

Enter QXGEdit. While both of the former may drink the young wine just fine, it has been my prerogative doing things my own way. Linux straight. How could it be any other way? Truth is, this bastard has been slugging on my attic far too long, but this late summer it has revived to a new life. Time to bring it down and share. Provided theres still enough interest on the scene ;)

Howdy! Greatest thanks goes to Mathias Krause aka gizzmo, who contributed with the fundamental code to the new MIDI controller mapping functionality that now widens the Qtractor horizon with regard from generic control surfaces. Being the Behringer BCF2000 a notable example, control feedback is fully supported so that those fancy motorized faders, knobs and lights, actually reflect the whole mixing and editing session state. Some pre-made files are here provided for your convenience: bcx2000.qtc is to import into Qtractor (View/Controllers...) and a couple of presets goes into your BCF2000, Qtractor_Mixer_1-8.syx and Qtractor_Mixer_9-16.syx, respectively for the first and second set of eight channel/track strips.

Ah, the previous hardwired support for the JLCooper-like controls, provided by the Tascam US-224 and US-428 (via us428control), is now optional. You can have it back by just adding this file, usx2y.qtc, to the controllers map.

That's it:

Qtractor 0.4.2 (flaunty demoness) is out!

Release highlights:

• MIDI controller mapping (mixer) (NEW)
• Audio/MIDI multi-clip merge (NEW)
• Multi-clip selection export (NEW)
• Improved snap precision on drag/moving clips (FIXED)
• and some other asorted fixes (see change-log;)

Howdy! Simple as it could be,

Qsynth 0.3.4 released!

Once again and surpassing the least gloomy expectations, tradition has been kept alive and kicking. Even on these times of global economic turmoil, or so they say. One could blame it on the crysis if things would have gone less than regular. That was not the case however.

In spite of it all, I am proud to report that this years attendance and overall content and (in)formal exchange was not weaker that the previous events. In fact, it hasn't lost its spirit even though it's the first time ever that the international Linux Audio Developers meeting, officially known as the Linux Audio Conference has moved outside of Germany. No regrets, quite the contrary and as many of so unforgettable experiences.

All that to say that the Linux Audio Conference 2009 held on the La Casa della Musica (CdM) Parma, Italy, from April 16th to 19th, is now over and I'm already a little bit late to report about my attendance. So there it goes...

There are bugs which are resilient. One is never sure whether squashing one doesn't let a plethora of lurking others get loose, like one's skeleton in the closet falling apart. Paraphrasing Linus' Law, after ESR: given enough eardrums all bugs are shallow. Thanks to all the brave souls who keep harnessing the toy to the bone, some of those nasties could be whipped off. At least for the time being ;)

Trivially speaking, this dot-release marks the 4th anniversary of Qtractor as an active/personal project and, putting numerology to the side, it is being released on this April, 4th (04/04). But then, I do confess, this was just reckoned as an accidental after-thought, as everything in numerology, I guess :)

Although only one developer is still responsible for 99% of the code (that's me!:), there's some outsourcing (kind of) shaping and already pending in its early stages: MIDI event list editing; Windows native VST plugin support, much in the lines of FST/WINE, as in Ardour, perhaps; a new logo and/or splash-screen design is also under this way. Keep in mind that all translations will be asked only after the end of the current alpha phase, whenever it would be an end to it :P

Most importantly, there's serious help being needed on drafting the user manual. The current one available is getting outrageously outdated, ever since the 0.2 situation. It's already getting tough to play catch up. And everyone knows about developer(s) not feeling like doing documentation in the first place. Move on. The more participation the better.

In general, if you ever feel like, please pick up your favorite line on the ever still TODO list and do step in. You'll be more than welcome: eardrums, which usually come in pairs, just like eyeballs do, are pretty wanted!

So dress up your black leather and vinyl, put up the spiky collars and whip it, whip it good B)

Here we go:

Qtractor 0.4.1 (funky dominatrix) unleashed!

Release highlights:

• MIDI editor snap grid. (NEW)
• Multi-clip selection normalize and quantize (NEW)
• Audio export & sample-rate conversion (FIXED)
• MIDI & audio playback sync (FIXED)
• SSE optimization enabled (FIXED)

and a few more fixes and same lurking bugs ;)