jazzplusplus-devel

Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Change of direction?

[Kevin C. <ke...@do...>]

Dave,

Thanks for all the energy getting Jazz++ started again.  Bummer
that we couldn't get enough critical mass to shove the code back
into production state.

I like your thoughts on taking parts of Jazz++ with you to
Python, Qt & KDE.  Maybe this list would be a good place to keep
folks apprized of whatever work you do on this?  Maybe you'd even
get some help?

Myself, I've mostly moved on to Rosegarden.  It's VERY functional
now, and has a much easier user interface than does Jazz++.  What
I miss from Jazz++ is the harmony browser and the percussion
specific piano roll, which might be in the plans for Rosegarden's
future.  But, Rosegarden has a built-in notation editor that
prints out very nice sheet music, which my band-mates like.
Myself, I'm waiting on a drum-clef.  Since you say you like KDE,
then Rosegarden might be for you too, although it works outside
KDE as well.

All the best....

P.S.:	Are you an (the?) admin of http://jazzplusplus.sourceforge.net/ ?
        If so, then did you get the Sourceforge email about
        changing their site from the admin point of view?  It'd
        be nice if JazzPlusPlus didn't die in that transition.
        Is that something you can help it avoid?  Thanks.
--
Kevin

Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Change of direction?

[Kevin C. <ke...@do...>]

On 15 May 2005 at 15:41, Dave Fancella <da...@da...> wrote:

> Have you checked out Hydrogen?  It has an almost workable
> export to RoseGarden. :) It can also write midi files, iirc.
> It doesn't have a drum clef, but it's an excellent drum
> sequencer.

Yes, I've had a look at Hydrogen, and it seems to be the best drum 
seq I've seen since I had a Yamaha hardware seq in the '80s.  But, 
I play drums, and a sequencer doesn't help for the issue of looking 
at sheet music as a clue as to what thing to whack/kick next.  ;-)
Also, some folks will write drum parts for me and give me a MIDI file 
for the part.  Hydrogen doesn't (yet?) import MIDI as I recall from 
my look at it a few months back.

What about Rosegarden isn't nice for you?

Cheers....
--
Kevin

Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Change of direction?

[Dave F. <da...@da...>]

On Sunday 15 May 2005 01:35 pm, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
> I like your thoughts on taking parts of Jazz++ with you to
> Python, Qt & KDE.  Maybe this list would be a good place to keep
> folks apprized of whatever work you do on this?  Maybe you'd even
> get some help?

I'll definitely keep you guys posted if I manage to do anything.  Like I say, 
there are a lot of tools to fill the need.  But I don't actually like 
RoseGarden, I have serious problems with its interface, even though it's 
actually gotten more stable.  I've got a newer version of KGuitar that I 
actually like more than RoseGarden for composing music, but for all the other 
wonderful midi tasks it doesn't hold up.  Of course, it wasn't designed to be 
a midi sequencer, it's just a tab maker with midi export.  :)

> Myself, I'm waiting on a drum-clef.  Since you say you like KDE,
> then Rosegarden might be for you too, although it works outside
> KDE as well.

Have you checked out Hydrogen?  It has an almost workable export to 
RoseGarden.  :)  It can also write midi files, iirc.  It doesn't have a drum 
clef, but it's an excellent drum sequencer.

> P.S.:	Are you an (the?) admin of http://jazzplusplus.sourceforge.net/ ?
>         If so, then did you get the Sourceforge email about
>         changing their site from the admin point of view?  It'd
>         be nice if JazzPlusPlus didn't die in that transition.
>         Is that something you can help it avoid?  Thanks.

I don't remember if I'm an admin there.  I'm pretty certain it'll survive 
sourceforge's updates, but I'll stick around on the list in case you need me 
to help for that.  Actually the list is low traffic enough there's no reason 
for me to run off and unsubscribe.  :)

Dave

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Vanilla wafer.

Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Change of direction?

[Mark C. <ma...@re...>]

On Monday 16 May 2005 04:35, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
> Thanks for all the energy getting Jazz++ started again.  Bummer
> that we couldn't get enough critical mass to shove the code back
> into production state.
> ...

That's a very pertinent point Kevin. It is such a shame
that some excellent code and functionality buried in a
morasse of so-so code should die, unless someone
miraculously steps up to save it.

A suggestion: rather than even try to build it all back
into a working whole thing, why not focus on pulling
it apart into the smallest and most usable components
that are actually usable, chuck the less than stellar
parts, and rebuild smaller, more *nixy components, that
are strung together via jack and alsa-lib ?

Then the possibility of grafting on Qt/GTK/pythonian
frontends becomes a few-weekends potential rather than
a few-years target. I think the ultimate linux based
audio "app" does not quite exist yet because the smaller
apps (hydrogen, specimen, seq24, various synths) are not
based on the same set of middle level libs and are written
by a variety of authors. We already have rosegarden/muse
so the mega-app already mostly exist too. Sure, jazzplus
could be become a better mega-app but only if 10k man
hours of software engineering are applied to it... and
by that time, rosegarden/muse will also be much better
and... well, then what's the point of not spending those
man hours helping to improve current mega-apps that do
have engineering effort and inertia behind them.

What, to me, is still missing is a coherent set of
small focussed audio apps that do one job and do it
well, and allow moderate level programmers to be able
to maintain and extend them, and are designed from
the very beginning to work well together.

--markc