[PD] Digidesign hardware

[delire]

save your money on all that silly hardware. buy nine more PC's or a Very Good Bicycle and try Ardour instead.

<http://ardour.sf.net> - if you don't know already, ardour's a powerful DAW and is jackable with pd. i used pro tools for years until recently and find this a good alternative. used to be a dog to compile - now it's just fine. it's come a *long* way in the last year..

features list cited from the page. much more than listed here as this is kind of old now..

..to not answer your question ;) 

julian

//-->

16 or 24 bit recording
    All formats are supported by your audio interface are usable by Ardour. It uses 32 bit floating point as its internal sample format throughout, making the hardware format largely irrelevant. Various output dithering options are available via the JACK Audio Connection Kit that Ardour uses for audio capture and playback.

Sample rate neutral
    If your audio interface can provide a 96kHz or 192kHz data stream, and your disk subsystem can support the required data flow for the number of tracks you want to work with, Ardour can record at this sampling rate. Of course, it handles 44.1, 48 and 88.2kHz just as well.

Any number of physical channels
    Ardour's channel capacity is limited only by the number on your audio interface and the ability of your disk subsystem to stream the data back and forth.

Support for pro-audio interfaces
    This comes care of the ALSA project, which provides high quality, well design device drivers and API's for audio I/O under Linux. Any interface supported by ALSA can be used with Ardour. This includes the all-digital 26 channel RME Hammerfall, the Midiman Delta 1010 and many others.

Full MIDI Machine Control
    Ardour can be more or less completely controlled from any hardware that sends MMC. The Mackie Digital 8 Bus has been the reference MMC controller during development.

Unlimited Takes Per Track
    Any track can have any number of takes, subject to your available disk space.

Standard Sound File Format(s)
    Ardour records each chunk of captured audio to mono, 32 bit float Broadcast WAVE or WAVE files. Ardour can also export complete sessions to WAV, AIFF, and several other standard audio file formats.

Extensive non-destructive, non-linear editing
    Ardour contains a powerful multitrack audio editor/arranger that is completely non-destructive and capable of all standard non-linear editing operations (insert, replace, delete, move, trim, select, cut/copy/paste). The editor has unlimited undo/redo capacity and can save independent "versions" of a track or entire piece.

LADSPA plugin support
    Ardour's editor supports the community-developed LADSPA plugin standard. Arbitrary chains of plugins can be attached to any portion of a track, limited only by your CPU's processing power. Note: Ardour will support VST plugins as soon as Steinberg permits the redistribution of VST header files by independent developers. See the FAQ for more details on this.

Per-track and whole session looping
    Loop points can be adjusted in realtime, in units of samples, msecs, 1/10th secs and seconds.

Time scaling
    Stretch or shrink regions using time-domain algorithms for generally excellent results.

A Unique Approach To Metering Digital "overs"
    Because the whole notion of a digital "over" is a rather flexible one, Ardour uses a rather flexible metering system to record them. You can define for yourself what constitutes an over, both in terms of the sample amplitude and the number of samples at or above that level. You can define two such categories of overs, and you'll never miss another them while not looking, because Ardour keeps both over counts on screen until you manually reset them. Please note: this novel idea could have been the basis of a patent. But because its inventor, Bill Gribble, and Ardour's author don't believe in this nonsense, its an idea we hope will spread to other recording systems

Track-independent varispeed
    The speed of each track can be altered independently of all others, with enormous variation possible, limited only by your disk subsystem's throughput. Some users have reported up to 70x speed ups, for dramatic audio FX.

Dynamic Punch
    When enabled, Dynamic Punch allows you punch in tracks while the system is playing and/or recording. No latency, no delay.

Automatic cross-fading
    Overlap two audio regions and Ardour will (if requested) automatically crossfade between them.

Arbitrary I/O routing
    Every mixer strip can have any number of inputs and outputs, not just mono, stereo or 5.1. An N-way panner is included, with support for various panning models. Pre- and post-fader sends exist, each with their own gain and pan controls. Every mixer strip acts as its own bus, and thus the bus count in Ardour is unlimited. You can submix any number of strips into another strip.

Sophisticated solo & mute models
    Solo supports solo latch mode, where any number of tracks may be soloed, or solo toggle mode, where 1 track is soloed at a time. Solo safe is available for each track as well, independent of the soloing mode.

    Mute can be set to affect any or all of:

        * pre-fader sends
        * post-fader sends
        * main outs
        * control outs

Auto Punch
    Define a pair of locate points, and Ardour will punch in automatically as it passes through the first one, and punch out as it passes through the second. Unlike some proprietary systems, you don't have to think about "voice allocation", or "transport startup time" for this - it just works in exactly the same way that a tape system would.

Auto Input
    When the "Monitor In" button is set for a channel, Auto Input makes sure that you monitor what you'd typically want to hear. If Ardour is rolling, you'll hear the already-recorded material (if any). If its stopped, then rec-enabled tracks will monitor their inputs. Its a bit more complex than this, but not much.

Fully "skinnable"/"themeable" GUI
    If you don't like Ardour's appearance, and have some to waste with computer graphics, you can completely change the images used for controls and every color (except the meters).

Open Source, GPL software
    You get all the source code, which you can read, study, discard, modify, copy, re-distribute, critique or sing to your friends.

Multi-processor capable design
    Ardour will run on conventional uniprocessor systems, but it works much better on a dual (or even quad) CPU system,

It Runs On Linux
Forget regular system crashes and buggy program behaviour. Linux stays up for months, and Ardour has been run for full days without crashing.

//<--

On Sun, 02 Mar 2003 17:03:03 -0600
David Sabine <dave at davesabine.com> wrote:

//Hello all,
//
//Does anybody on this list use PD with Digidesign Hardware?
//
//I'm planning to furnish my studio with the Digidesign HD system and would
//like to use PD in conjunction with Pro Tools or perhaps as an alternative
//interface to control the Pro tools proprietary hardware.
//
//Any thoughts?
//
//Regards,
//Dave S
//
//
//
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