Re: [Gwc-general] LADSPA plugin(s)

[Nik <ni...@us...>]

Jeff Welty wrote:
> Hi Nik,
> 
> Sounds like the 2 additional things you want are:
> 
> 1) recording
> 2) automatic track end detection.

Pretty much, yes. And in addition, if any of the Gramofile filters are 
in any way useful (do something better/different to those in GWC), I 
would happily bring them over as well.

Just to clarify: I basically want a single, simple GUI application, 
which non-CLI conversant friends can use to transfer analogue recordings 
to CD.

I've been using arecord, gramofile and sox, and have been thoroughly 
enjoying myself. So all I want in the GUI is the ability to record, 
prepare the tracks for CD (filter/clean/modify/separate), and burn the CD.

> I think integrating gwc functions into any other app may be the most 
> difficult task to get
> that done.

It's starting to sound that way.

On the other hand, once I've got GWC modified for my purpose (assuming I 
go that way), I may well still undertake the GWC/GWC-lib separation, as 
I understand it would be beneficial to both the GWC and Audacity projects.

> What I would encourage you to do, is build a simple little audio 
> recorder.  (or find one,
> I've looked for a graphical alsa recorder and not found one suitable)

I certainly like this approach. The issue for me is the apparent 
integration (or lack thereof) between the different applications.

This was the thinking behind my questions regarding stream-based 
architectures. If GWC could be part of a streaming pipeline, then I 
could connect a recorder at the input, and/or a CD burner at the output, 
and that would be my solution. (For scalability, the streams would be 
cachable to disk.) It would basically be a different form of plugin 
architecture (ala Gstreamer).

Another option might be to build Jack support into GWC. This would allow 
other Jack components to be used for recording etc. I doubt, however, 
that GWC is currently structured correctly to support Jack). The likely 
downside is that Jack seems to depend on a lot of other libraries, and 
so may create dependency-hell for GWC - which would be a *bad* thing. 
(I've been unable to install or build WaveMixer because of dependancy 
problems.)

> Keep it simple,
> focused and not cluttered with a bunch of features.  If you look on the 
> gwc site you'll find
> a little thing I wrote called track_rec which was designed to let you 
> record tracks from an
> LP.  But it doesn't work with ALSA, and it uses the old gnome libraries 
> as well.

I see my options being:

1. Modifying your track_rec to work with alsa (and possibly bolting some 
VU meters onto it);

2. Using existing recording code (from Audacity or WaveMixer, for 
example) and putting that into GWC;

3. writing a graphical front-end to arecord - hopefully inside GWC;

4. write something from scratch.

Of all these, 4 seems the least viable. I'm still unsure about the others.

> Putting automatic track end detection into GWC does make sense.  I find 
> myself doing that
> manually all the time -- i.e. I mark the start and end of each track, 
> and there is a little gap
> between songs.  It would be cool if the cdrdao TOC file writer could 
> somehow recognize the "non-song"
> gaps and not write them out to the TOC file.

Again, I see a number of ways of accomplishing this:

1. merge the gramofile track detection algorithm in as a separate menu item;

2. incorporate the gramofile track detection into the GWC TOC file writer;

3. create a graphical front-end to the gramofile program - hopefully 
inside GWC;

4. implement an algorithm from scratch.

Again, 4 seems least useful, and I don't yet know enough about the others.

> I usually 
> just fire up arecord and
> tell it to record a fixed number of minutes, start the tape or LP and 
> walk away if I'm busy with
> other things.

This is pretty close to my current workflow...

> These are just my views, please feel free to do whatever *you* think is 
> the most fun or rewarding.

:o)  Absolutely. As I said, I really want the same (or better) quality 
of processing as I have now, but wrapped in a simple GUI so that my 
friends can use it too.

> This is after all just a hobby for me too.

But a fun hobby :o)

Cheers!
Nik.


> Nik wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hi Jeff,
>>
>> Thanks for your reply.
>>
>> I am currently trying to work out the simplest and best (might be 
>> different) way to achieve my goal.
>>
>> Currently, my original plan seems to entail: separate gwc-lib, and 
>> then call that library from within Audacity. Given the nature of the 
>> data GWC likes to handle, I might have to add data-stream support to 
>> Audacity, either in native code, or through a library such as Gstreamer.
>>
>> Alternatively, perhaps I should just add record abilities into GWC, 
>> and then perhaps the Gramofile automatic track end detection?
>>
>> Another program I came across today, which already has Gstreamer 
>> integration, is WaveMixer. Have you heard anything about this program?
>>
>> http://wavemixer.sourceforge.net
>>
>> So in summary, can you give any advice in the following:
>>
>> Which would you see as the quickest way to get to my goal?
>>
>> 1. Put recording facilities into GWC?
>> 2. Put GWC facilities into an audio app such as Audacity or WaveMixer, 
>> and if so, which?
>>
>> Thanks again for your input.
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Nik.
>>