Re: [ecasound] Nama/Ecasound (was: Re: ecasound and lua?)

Excerpts from Joel Roth's message of 2010-07-17 23:31:25 +0200:
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 10:11:08PM +0200, Philipp ??berbacher wrote:
> > A waveform view is a future feature for nama. So far I've seen only one
> > frontend that has anything like that. Is it especially hard to do with
> > ecasound?
>
> To start, we could create a graph from the WAV data
> for a track. Ecasound isn't even needed for this.
> To draw a graph with Tk isn't especially hard.

I assumed that was the case. Different programs handle this differently
in the simple recording case, Traverso waits until the recording is
stopped before it draws the waveform, Ardour draws it in chunks. Either
way is fine IMO.

> But if you apply effects, say a fade, then probably you
> want to see the processed waveform, not the original.

Yes, probably. Traverso does this nicely. All effects in T(raverso) and
A(rdour) are realtime effects, so what they probably do is to work with
the waveform, not the actual audio data, when displaying stuff like
that.

> So it would be necessary to run the engine, record
> the track output as a WAV file, and display _that_.

I guess that's true for T and A as well, at least for any effect more
complex than a fade.

> In other words, you would have a processing delay after each
> effect tweak before you could see the result. Perhaps that
> processing run could could be performed in the background.

This is what audacity does, and part of why it is categorized as audio
editor, not a DAW, so I guess the question is more about the goal.
Offline- or Online-processing, or both?

> > I don't necessarily need it but especially in combination with
> > automation it would be a good thing to have.
> >
> > Said automation is another thing I'm wondering about. Is there a way to
> > do proper automation? Via MIDI CC possibly? Is there another way?
>
> If you just need an envelope of some kind, it is already
> possible with Ecasound alone. (See CONTROL ENVELOPE SETUP
> in the man page.)
>
> Nama already has simple fades, but of course could be
> tinkered to do more.

Thanks, I had a look at that part of the man page. Most envelopes seem
to be linear, which is fine in some cases but not others, however, that
one generic linear envelope that lets you specify any number of points
looks interesting after a quick glance.

> Ecasound effect parameters (whether internal or LADSPA
> plugin) can be controlled directly by a MIDI controller.
> An intermediate process would be needed for Nama to store
> those changes for subsequent replay.

Exactly what I had in mind. One downside however might be that MIDI CC
is limited to 128 values. I'm not claiming it's not enough, I have no
idea :)

> Ardour is ready to do all expected forms of automation
> today, and may be your best choice for instant
> gratification (minus Ardour's learning curve.)

I know my way around A2, but I don't want to use it anymore. It feels
very heavy, has loads of features I'll never need and also quite a
number of known bugs. It doesn't do all forms of automation either, per
clip automation is missing for example. Eventually it's a matter of
preference, nothing is perfect.

> > I know those are rather advanced features, I'll be glad if I manage to
> > write a proof of concept frontend during the next few weeks, but it
> > would still be interesting to know what would be possible.
>
> I'm very interested to learn about your concept
> as well as your proof. :-)

Hehe, my concept is quite simple.
Is it possible for me to write an ecasound frontend in lua?
And I'll already be happy about something that proofs that I could get a
usable result, given a lot of time :)
I try to stay realistic, I'm happy if I manage to write a GUI that
controls some simple aspects of ecasound. Actually writing the thing I
envision will certainly take a long time.

-- 
Regards,
Philipp
--
"Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan
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