JACK Session managerism. This might well be ahead of its time. And probably is. JACK session infrastructure and its promised functionality is still dormant in subversion source pits. However, good news are, no matter which flavor you pick, either JACK1 (>= 0.119.2) or JACK2 (>= 1.9.7), both already do it all to the promise. However still on their respective SVN trunks though.

Maybe this very announcement will get that all loose and out of the dorm ;) At least, I'm trying.

Meanwhile and until that ever happen, QjackCtl will be already here even though its JACK Session manager(istic) features will be just lurking to get out of redundancy. Fact is, this new source won't do much better than that of good old Patchbay, if compiled with existing JACK package distributions (latest are 0.118.0 and 1.9.6, respectively) . Nor even close. Actually, only when it gets ever compiled and built against a current JACK Session API it will take off. Fly high or low, you may ask. Well, may I say, it will only fly as high as many Linux audio application developers will do to embrace the daunting trouble of adding a few dozen lines of source code to their creatures. And to their help, chances are that Torben Hohn already has all the starters ready (ask torbenh on #jack @ irc.freenode.net; maybe he still has some fresh git repo/patch on the fridge:). Then again, this very announcement is being kind of a heads-up. Avast ye LADs!

Anyway, there are a few new tricks this old dog have been taught, besides putting the carriage before the horses, nevertheless... :)

That's it. Well, the uber-procrastinator sometimes gets over it. Sometimes :) Maybe there's a fine distinction between elegant procrastination and being just lazy. Tradition still rules: lazy enough to procrastinate no more :)

Aha, don't forget, you still can ;)

It's TYOQA (The Year Of Qtractor Automation:) what else? But wait, there's still three months to go... Meanwhile the foundations have already been laid and one can now tell that a rocky milestone is ready to get bumped. Ouch!

Release highlights:

• MIDI learn/controller mapping for all plugin parameters (NEW)
• Extended Clip fade-in/out WYSIWYG curves (NEW)
• MIDI resolution overflow (FIX)
• MIDI tempo standard base on quarter-note (FIX)
• Extended MIDI controller mapping for mixer/tracks (NEW)
• Audio metronome gain control (NEW)
• Mute/solo tracks while looping (FIX)
• MIDI Clock support (NEW)
• Audio clip import while looping (FIX)
• MIDI track bank-select/program-change transparency (FIX)
• VeSTige headers included for native VST plugin support (NEW)
• JACK transport sync support (FIX)
• Clip tempo-adjust tool (NEW)
• Audio tracks auto-monitoring (FIX)
• Transport back/forward stops on loop points (NEW)
• MIDI tracks redundant mute/solo (FIX)

Well, for whom who have tried the last incarnation of this thingy, as released just two weeks ago and found that JACK-MIDI support is a piece of candy-fubar, then this post is in deed for them--thanks, you know who and what ;)

That's all folks!

Howdy! It's been a long summer hasn't it? Bad news is that laudable spring cleaning has slipped a bunch and in fact, is still on going with no end on sight, exactly as the uber-procrastinator predicted! ;)

Nevertheless, QmidiCtl, QmidiNet 0.1.0 are out now!

This release marks the fact that QmidiCtl is now made available from the official Maemo 5 repository. So that you can download and install it directly from your N900. You'll find it on the Multimedia section. Second, QmidiCtl is now fully configurable with regard to which MIDI events are sent and/or recognized. It's not MMC-exclusive anymore. Third, QmidiNet also talks JACK-MIDI now. Although (very) experimentally. And you don't have to opt out on ALSA-MIDI. You can have both MIDI interfaces running as long as you please.

Finally, Paul de Vries shows us a magnificent video re. How To: Setup QmidiCtl on The Nokia N900 with Renoise. Alas, it's on Windows and using ipMIDI as the gateway back-end. No sweat :) If Renoise is to run on Linux he would use QmidiNet or multimidicast. Take note that the latter only does ALSA MIDI and doesn't handle MIDI SysEx messages as certain as MMC is. Kudos to Paul.

So much to tell, even more to do... then one could hardly shake, this long overdue. Lousy rhymes and no miserly times. And there it is: a bug-fix release, I'll mean to ease.

Oh crap! Let's get it through once and for all.

With huge compliments to all who got the nerve and report as many too much idiosyncrasies (nee bugs). Don't, never look back. There's plenty more ahead, no matter where you look, or hear, whether is up or down hill :)

Release highlights:

• MIDI Editor draw mode (aka paint mode) (NEW)
• MIDI Swing-quantize (NEW)
• LV2 UI Instance & Data-access extension support (NEW)
• JACK Session support (EXPERIMENTAL) (NEW)
• LV2 Save/Restore extension support (NEW)
• MIDI Editor event list in-line editing (NEW)
• MIDI Clip time-stretching (FIX)
• MIDI Clip editor file salvage quietness (NEW)
• MIDI Control bus switching crash (FIX)
• MIDI Bank-selection backout (FIX)
• Initial widget geometry extents (FIX)
• Input-only bus playback crash (FIX)
• Bus connection persistence crash (FIX)
• Drag-and-drop cloning plugins (FIX)
• MIDI Editor floating-selection persistence (NEW)
• Audio inserts garbage signal (FIX)

A bit more or not so detailed change-log is found below.

Late spring cleaning interruptus for some ramblings and babbling about my trip to the International Linux Audio Conference, LAC2010@HKU-Utrecht, which took place at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, May 1st to 4th.. Time is failing on me, or wasn't that the top excuse from this one self-called über-procrastinator. Better late than never.

Once again, five times now, I came to attend the annual international Linux Audio developers meeting, as it is on my call, being my main motivation the same as it has been since always: to meet and find together all the guys and gals that make up the scene. And so there we were. I am sorry to tell that this blog entry won't be in any way a chronicle of the conference but more like something else. Just a messy collection of thoughts that were haunting this vacant mind during those days.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, funk to funky. Yawn. Cut the non-sense, there's no burial service nor Bowie's song here. Just blowing some aging stuff, maybe giving the patine that it deserves ;) Almost one long year has gone by and sadly enough, there's no big new and flashy features to show off. But, nevertheless,

Qsynth 0.3.5 is out from the closet!

Hope you enjoy the (not so big) news :) Have fun.

Even though the Iceland volcanic ash plumes are still messing up the air, I decided to do some spring cleaning after all and started with what's laying around here, collecting dust. Bad timing or not, it's now or never. Über-procrastinator dixit.

Remember that piece of junk that I rig on every desktop which still has some PCI card slots anyway? If you don't, I'll tell you once more: the Yamaha DB50XG piggyback. I know it's not easy to find those nowadays, but there's always that auction sites for you to try. Moreover the hosting sound-cards which exposes a Creative Labs Waveblaster daughter-board expansion port, are no easier too. Ah, the good old nineties...

Never mind, so here it goes again:

QXGEdit 0.1.0 has fallen from the attic!

This stands as the second public release and who knows what next spring cleaning will bring ;)

Awe! Times they are a-changing although Bob Dylan has no D-Business here. The old and cutie gooey for JACK just got one turn around the verge of bit-rotting. This time it brings full JACK D-Bus support, or almost. It also adds D-Bus access for most GUI actions which some might find pretty handy for keyboard shortcut binding from your desktop environment of choice. However, if babies health is your top concern you can just turn this D-Bus thing off and play with the Old times ;) Ahem...

More details in the change-log, below.

QmidiCtl is a MIDI remote controller application that sends MIDI data over the network, using UDP/IP multi-cast. It has been designed primarily for the Maemo enabled handheld devices, namely the Nokia N900. In its current development state, which is obviously alpha as of this writing, it puts a mini multi-track recording control surface on your hands and on the go, so to speak. MMC is the feature and yours truly Qtractor the target. However, any other MMC enabled DAW may be considered.

However nothing of this would be possible without this little thing that gets also here its release announcement: QmidiNet is a MIDI network gateway application that sends and receives MIDI data (ALSA Sequencer) over the network, using UDP/IP multi-cast. Fundamentally inspired by multimidicast and designed to be compatible with ipMIDI for Windows, it's a little tiny application that sits as an icon on your system tray and exposes one or more ALSA Sequencer client ports which open the way for a MIDI network mesh. Pretty neat if you think wireless and not necessarily because of QmidiCtl.

Alas, you can transform any Linux/ALSA computer (or Windows/ipMIDI enabled one, if you dare to) into a MIDI-over-IP inter-connected node.

Be free, without cables :)