Re: Lilypond for FL Studio ...

[Johnny Ferguson]

On 07/22/2010 05:19 AM, rosea grammostola wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Johnny Ferguson <address@hidden
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     On 07/21/2010 05:24 PM, Bernardo Barros wrote:
>      > They can still make money with GPL. Yes, they are not going to do
>     that.
>
>     <rant>
>
>     I think it's far too easy to make a statement like "They can still
>     make money with GPL" especially in light of the fact that there
>     ISN'T a GPL equivalent to FL.
>
>
> I think you're right when you state this. The best example is Ardour,
> they can make a living, but it's not easy. There is LMMS btw.

Ardour is not a proper DAW in the modern sense. It doesn't let me (for 
example) drag a softsynth onto a track and start programming it with 
midi data. As a multitrack recorder, It works fine. I wouldn't call it a 
DAW though (at least not in the modern sense of the word).

Also, I'll just pretend you didn't say LMMS. Not that I'm ungrateful for 
their trying, but it's just not FL in any way, shape, or form. 
Developers need to stop creating low quality clones, and begin their 
projects with notions of what makes the programs they want to emulate so 
great in the first place. Again, both being an artist and being a 
programmer are heavy specializations. I'm not surprised that you don't 
find many hybrids posessing both skills who want to commit their efforts 
for little compensation.

>     IL has been making FL since I was in high school (time ago). In all
>     that time, no one has managed to make a non-crappy GPL DAW. I
>     suspect it has something to do with the fact that most of the
>     programmers are not artists. The only good audio app I know of
>     that's native for linux is Renoise (and it's not GPL).
>
>
> This is not true. You have Ardour and qtractor for instance. If you know
> how to work with JACK there are things possible for sure. I know people
> who where using FL Studio and Ableton Live and use now Ardour, Qtractor
> and Renoise instead on Linux.

I do know how to use JACK, but it's a bit of a pain to manage 
configurations. In a program like FL, configuration is saved as part of 
the project file, as far as I've seen with JACK, the usefulness of 
multiple programs being linked together is negated by the fact that the 
configuration has to be managed separately. And one may argue that the 
same thing is true of FL using rewire, but because FL does almost 
everything you could need, I find the argument irrelevant. This is in 
stark contrast with the "small, simple, modular" philosophy I find in 
linux audio software. While better in the long run, it has some 
shortcomings in the present.

That is: instead of loading one program and opening a single project 
file, I have to load up JACK, load up all the programs involved in the 
project, load all the project files for each program, then finally load 
the JACK configuration for everything else that's open.

If I'm wrong on this point, please let me know. I hope I'm wrong, but if 
I am, then I think JACK could use some better documentation. If I'm 
right, then JACK needs some kind of complementary application that has 
some notion of "project workspace". Within such a space various programs 
would be opened in a given manner and then linked when ready.

The closest I came to that was writing a bash script that would open up 
QSynth, call sleep for a few seconds, then load up jack and connect 
everything up to my midi keyboard. I don't want to write a bash script 
every time I start a new project. While I appreciate that functionality, 
I don't think that's what will make people prefer a system like JACK.

>     I just have a hard time dealing with GPL fanaticism, some attitude
>     that seems to believe that anything created under a morally superior
>     guideline must also be a better product or tool (essentially a
>     non-sequitur). While it holds true for most GPL software, tools for
>     audio and graphics are complete rubbish.
>
>
>
> I do not agree. Ardour, JACK, Qtractor for instance are good tools. The
> problem is that most people are not able to configure their system
> properly or refuse to learn how to work with JACK properly.
>
> \r

That's a fair argument. I'd actually never heard of QTractor, and I'll 
be checking it out in the next few days. Looks similar to sonar, and 
from screenshots I think I see some kind of JACK integration which looks 
intriguing.

I don't like the idea that the faults of JACK are that people aren't 
willing to learn some kind of specialized rocket science though. JACK on 
a conceptual level is quite simple, but if it requires more than a day 
of study to use effectively, it's probably too complicated. I'd argue 
that it is JACK that needs to learn to work with musicians, not the 
other way around.

Granted, it's fun for fooling around with, but as it lacks a sense of 
"project awareness" (as far as I've seen), I've never used it for 
anything serious (except perhaps sample making via ZynAddSubFX and 
JACK-Rack)

-Johnny