Subject: Re: [ecasound] midi syncronization in ecasound
From: Kai Vehmanen (k@eca.cx)
Date: Sun Nov 26 2000 - 22:09:07 EET
On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Robert Jonsson wrote:
> Is there anyway to syncronize ecasound to/with midi. I'm not sure how
> this would be accomplished at all.
> I'd just like to be able to start the sequencer and at the same time
> fire up ecasound. Possibly also with syncing during playback if that is
> necessary.
> Is this at all possible with todays audio architecture in Linux?
At the moment, no. This in fact, is quite a difficult subject. One
solution for running multiple latency-sensitive apps (such as audio and
MIDI apps) in the same machine, is a plugin-based approach, where one app
runs as the master, and all other apps are implemented as plugins. There
is strong evidence that using any other model will lead to shaky
performance latency-wise. On paper this looks very good, but unfortunately
fits badly to the current situation where almost all apps are designed to
be standalone.
So from app developer's point of view, there isn't much else to do, but to
work with other developers to come up with a common plugin-based audio
platform for Linux.
However, from ecasound's point of view, there are some things, that
although might not be optimal, should already be useful. One thing of
these things is improving ecasound's MIDI-subsystem. If you look at
ecasound's TODO-list, you'll see this as the #1 item for 1.9.x. I posted
my initial plans to this list a few months ago. Basicly, with support for
MTC (start, stop, continue), you could syncronize ecasound to any
MIDI-source (be it software or hardware). ALSA's new MIDI-sequencer design
already provides a flexible system for making connections between hw&sw
MIDI-ports.
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