{"id":156,"date":"2011-05-10T03:51:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T03:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/?p=156"},"modified":"2024-10-29T01:33:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T01:33:55","slug":"free-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/free-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Free software tools"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"JACK,<\/a>
JACKlock at the Lucerne Festival Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

News:<\/strong> Video is now available of my JACKlock<\/em> software in action at the Lucerne Festival Academy<\/a> for the JACK Quartet’s performance of\u00a0Hora\u021biu R\u0103dulescu’s Fourth Quartet<\/em> for 9 string quartets. The software uses PureData to control a networked relay and display over OSC (Open Sound Control) to a set\u00a0of tablets and phones located with each quartet. WATCH THE PERFORMANCE HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n

Open Source Software<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been committed to the use and dissemination of open source software since the late 1990’s. My audio software bundling package,\u00a0Turnkey Linux Audio<\/em><\/a>, originally written at the Eastman Computer Music Center, continues to underpin the curriculum at Eastman and has since been ported, by me, to OSX, for use at Cornell.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of my creative work is done using free or open source software programs. This not because I have anything against commercial tools or even the commercial model, there are many excellent commercial software tools like Max\/MSP, Ableton Live, Propellerhead Reason, and others. I just a) prefer tools that are modular or don’t enforce one way of working, b) have found greater utility, power, and customizability in software where the source code is available, c)\u00a0value “future-proof” over “latest-greatest”, and d) feel more open using\u00a0tools with no obvious\/natural aesthetic\u00a0bias<\/strong>. Plus, free software users have the benefit of direct contact with developers (even becoming one!) to improve functionality, request new features, and generally feel good about contributing work and ideas for the benefit of other musicians…just as those who came before us have done.<\/p>\n

\"\"Free software is, therefore, an excellent way to develop a personalized toolkit for music. There are many powerful applications available. \u00a0Indeed, many represent unique compositional tools unmatched in the world of commercial music software. Below is a recent compilation of recommended software for various operating systems. \u00a0All software is available for free to the user and most has source code available under the GNU Public License (GPL). \u00a0I tend to favor tools with cross-platform implementations. \u00a0This gives the user a further freedom, allowing them to use whatever operating system they choose (or are provided with). \u00a0Before listing items by operating system, it is useful to list tools which will “run anywhere”. \u00a0As this list grows, the list of system-specific tools can, hopefully, fade away. \u00a0A “*” denotes tools which are available for Unix systems only such as Linux, Mac OSX, Sun Solaris, etc.<\/p>\n

Audio\/video:
\n<\/strong>Ardour* (Multitrack recording\/editing) —\u00a0http:\/\/ardour.org<\/a>
\nAudacity (Audio editing\/recording) —\u00a0http:\/\/audacity.sourceforge.net<\/a>
\nAudicle (One-the-fly programming) —\u00a0http:\/\/audicle.cs.princeton.edu\/<\/a>
\nCecilia (Uber-app) —\u00a0http:\/\/cecilia.sourceforge.net<\/a> and\u00a0http:\/\/www.csounds.com\/cecilia<\/a>
\nCeres3 (Spectral editor) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.music.columbia.edu\/~stanko\/About_Ceres3.html<\/a>
\nChucK (On-the-fly programming) —\u00a0http:\/\/chuck.cs.princeton.edu<\/a>
\nCLAM (Spectral modeling\/editing) —\u00a0http:\/\/clam-project.org\/index.html<\/a>
\nCsound (Uber-sythn) —\u00a0http:\/\/csounds.com<\/a>
\nJACK* (audio signal control) —\u00a0http:\/\/jackaudio.org<\/a>
\nJAMin* (audio mastering) —\u00a0http:\/\/jamin.sourceforge.net<\/a>
\nPraat (spectral analysis) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.fon.hum.uva.nl\/praat<\/a>
\nPureData, PD (Modular audio programming) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.puredata.org<\/a>
\nSndtools* (audio visualization) —\u00a0http:\/\/sndtools.cs.princeton.edu<\/a>
\nSooperLooper* (Loops) —\u00a0http:\/\/essej.net\/sooperlooper<\/a>
\nSpear (Spectral editor; Mac and Windows only) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.klingbeil.com\/spear\/<\/a>
\nSuperCollider* (real-time synth) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.audiosynth.com<\/a>
\nTapestrea (Sound design, analysis\/resynthesis) —\u00a0http:\/\/taps.cs.princeton.edu\/release<\/a>
\nVideLANClient , VLC (play\/view\/stream anything) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.videolan.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Images\/office\/publishing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

GIMP (Photoshop replacement) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.gimp.org<\/a>
\nGIMPShop (Photoshop replacement) —\u00a0http:\/\/plasticbugs.com\/?page_id=294<\/a>
\nHugin (Panoramic image stitching\/editing) —\u00a0http:\/\/hugin.sourceforge.net<\/a>
\nInkscape (Illustrator\/Freehand replacement) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.inkscape.org<\/a>
\nScribus (High-quality publishing) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.scribus.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Web:<\/strong>
\nDrupal (web management software) —\u00a0http:\/\/drupal.org<\/a>
\nFirefox (web browser) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.mozilla.com\/firefox<\/a>
\nGallery (online photo gallery software) —\u00a0http:\/\/gallery.menalto.com<\/a>
\nGAIM (multi-protocol IM) —\u00a0http:\/\/gaim.sourceforge.net<\/a>
\nGoogleTalk (IM) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.google.com\/talk\/<\/a>
\nNvu (free WYSIWYG web editor) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.nvu.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Other interests:<\/strong>
\nCelestia (a 3D celestial browser) —\u00a0https:\/\/celestiaproject.space\/<\/a>
\nStellarium (a virtual planetarium) —\u00a0http:\/\/stellarium.sourceforge.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Mac-specific Recommendations<\/strong> (often Mac version of above apps):<\/p>\n

AudioMove (Audio conversion) —\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/github.com\/jfriesne\/audiomove<\/a>
\nffmpegX (play\/encode\/decode anything) —\u00a0http:\/\/homepage.mac.com\/major4<\/a>
\nGentoo (software management) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.metadistribution.org\/macos<\/a>
\nHandbrake (DVD to Div\/X) —\u00a0http:\/\/handbrake.m0k.org<\/a>
\nJackOSX\u00a0 —\u00a0http:\/\/www.jackosx.com<\/a>
\nPVCX (OSX PVC) —\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.waveformsoftware.com\/PVCX\/pvcx.htm<\/a>
\nOpenDarwin (Unix core) —\u00a0http:\/\/www.opendarwin.org<\/a>
\nSoxWrap (Audio conversion)–\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.waveformsoftware.com\/SoX_Wrap\/soxwrap.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Linux Applications:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike Windows and Mac, Linux is not an “app-by-app” world.\u00a0 Installation is automated within the operating system.\u00a0 WIth a base system in place, one can simply ask for applications and Linux will find them, download them, and install them for you.\u00a0 This has led to application “bundling” (when it’s so easy to ask for one, why not create ways to ask for lots of applications at once?).\u00a0 Below are several audio\/video-specific bundles of this kind.\u00a0 Follow the directions on these pages and you will have a full-blown music environment running under Linux (for free) in a few hours.\u00a0 One or two even run directly off of a CDROM (see below), just pop the disk in the drive, reboot, and you are ready to make music.<\/p>\n

Linux will run on any hardware (PC, Mac, Sun, Xbox, toaster, etc) so you might consider adding it to your machine alongside your curret operating system.<\/p>\n

Audio Bundles<\/strong> (install on Linux)
\nUbuntu Studio:\u00a0http:\/\/ubuntustudio.org\/<\/a>
\nPlanetCCRMA: http:\/\/ccrma.stanford.edu\/planetccrma\/software\/<\/a>
\nAGNULA: http:\/\/www.agnula.org\/<\/a>
\nTurnkey Linux Audio:\u00a0http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/turnkey\/<\/a>
\n64 Studio: http:\/\/64studio.com\/<\/a>
\nDave Phillips Pages http:\/\/linux-sound.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Bundles which run from CDROM<\/strong> (no install required)
\nDynebolic: http:\/\/dynebolic.org\/<\/a>
\nPlus24: http:\/\/www.plus24.com\/m-dist\/<\/a>
\nStudio to Go: http:\/\/www.ferventsoftware.com\/<\/a> (commercial)
\nApodio: http:\/\/www.apo33.org\/apodio\/mediaw <\/a>(in French)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Video is now available of my JACKlock software in action at the Lucerne Festival Academy for the JACK Quartet’s performance of\u00a0Hora\u021biu R\u0103dulescu’s Fourth Quartet for 9 string quartets. The software uses PureData to control a networked relay and display over OSC (Open Sound Control) to a set\u00a0of tablets and phones located with each quartet. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1548,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/digital.music.cornell.edu\/kevinernste\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}