talking linux wanted

[Janina Sajka]

Luke Yelavich writes:
> I am affraid you will have to stick to Windows if you need useful audio 
> tools that are accessible. While there are many tools for working with 
> audio under Linux, practically none of them are accessible.
> -- 

I had to respond to this. My response is that it depends on how you want
to work with audio whether or not you'll find satisfaction on Linux.

Certainly, if you're looking for a wysiwyg multitrack recording/editing
application, you may, or may not have success with Ardour2. Regretably,
they rolled their own widgets rather than building with gtk2. On the
other hand, they seem to have provided extensive keyboard options. So
the jury is out on this important app, but some of us inclined toward
optimism are cautiously so.

There is nothing even remotely on the horizon for recording/editing MIDI
that I know of.

On the other hand, apps like ecasound, csound, and sox are both powerful
and very accessible. If you're willing to work at the data stream level,
you could certainly work directly with midi data streams via amidi. If
you're interested in algorithmic composition and are willing to code in
lisp, you can even get intensive training this summer with faculty
conversant with working with blind persons at U.C. Santa Cruz:

http://summer.ucsc.edu/wacm/

So, the blanket statement is probably inaccurate. However, non of this
is soft and easy. Non of it is going to be uncrate your new computer and
write a new masterpiece overnight.

Janina