Sound Loom for Linux?

Started by lynx, November 19, 2014, 12:14:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

lynx

Does anyone know if Sound Loom is to be released for Linux at some point?

sleestack

i get the feeling Mr. Wishart is a bit of the eccentric   :D

sleestack

i really want to hear Trevor Wishart â€" Encounters in the Republic of Heaven


lynx

#3
"Eccentric", as a word, carries a lot of negative baggage for me.  I feel that Trevor's books suggest someone comfortably seated in who they are as an individual, and perhaps even someone who has made trying to gratify certain passions and curiousities a way of Life.  I can only applaud him if this is so.  I haven't heard Encounters, either, and will put that on my "playlist."

The Linux release of the core CDP tools has enticed me to consider a dedicated machine for CDP.  I think what would clinch my decision is if I knew that a CDP GUI would be released for this platform before too long.  (In the interim, I would be happy hacking around with the CDP processes directly or via TCL.)

sleestack

#4
people have called me eccentric and i rather love it.

i was reading last night about soundloom. seems like the way to go if you want to most from cdp. trevor keeps adding new stuff too.

someone should make a computer training video about working in soundloom. how to get around the gui,  etc .stick it on vimeo or youtube.  that would be super helpful i think.

it is the gui that's the main complaint. i know people who had cdp for years and could never work it out

lynx

I suspect that Sound Loom vexes some people because it is foremost a tool for Trevor, and is therefore built primarily for his needs and workflow.  Unlike an application intended for general consumption, SL may require a new user to "get inside" Trevor's head on some level before it starts to make sense.  I don't know if this is actually true, however, because I did not find SL the giant obstacle to working with CDP that some on this forum apparently do.

I genuinely empathize with their frustration, however.  I've a reasonably technical bent, but I've never been able to get my head around the disjointed workflow of most pro-grade DAW software.  Inundated by functionality that does not come together cohesively in my mind, I could never feel "at home" with any of them, whether it be REAPER, Logic, Cakewalk, Pro Tools, etc.--rote memorization isn't one of my strong suits.  Watching other musicians cruise around their favourite DAW with minimal frustration and without breaking stride leaves me a little bitter about my ineptitude in this respect.

sleestack

sorry i messed up your thread. it is a good request. im switching to windows just to use soundloom.

lynx

No worries!!  You did not mess up the thread.   :)

sleestack

have you tried sms tools, lynx? it sounds really good.

lynx

I haven't!  In fact, I hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it.  This does look interesting.

On the topic of neat tools that run on Linux, I've always been a fan of Bill Schottstaedt's Snd.  Apart from being a very capable sound editor, it has the core generators of CLM (via SndLib) built right in.  But the default language binding is Scheme, and I don't think a Python binding has been developed yet.

sleestack

thanks ill check that out.

sms is building this thing called clam network. it looks interesting but i dont know how to install for Mint 17

lynx

Taking a gander at CLAM, it seems almost like a heady fusion of concepts taken from Perry Cook's STK and Pure Data(/Max) with the capabilities of SMS tied in.  (Not having tried it, though, I don't know if that impression is actually accurate.)  Looks primarily geared for your developing your own audio applications, but the Network Editor does look mighty powerful.  Having not used Mint or its package management system, I wouldn't even know where to how to advise installing it (short of building it from the source).

As for me, I think a lot of my interest in CDP comes from having relatively simple & direct ways of working with sound.  I've "had my fill" of of complex software ecologies complete with plugin systems and large supporting libraries/frameworks just from working with Windows & conventional DAWs.  I'm ready for a change of pace . . . CDP, maybe Snd, and I'll probably pick up Tcl scripting to tie it all together.  Hopefully, not much more than that.

sleestack

#12
im with you on that, exactly what i was attracted to also. CDP provides alot.

im trying to get my head around snd. looks amazing, but difficult to grasp? hope not

lynx

#13
As a sound editor, Snd is not so hard to use.  The initial impediment for me was just learning the key bindings for common operations.  (Opening files, jumping to the nearest "zero-crossing", trimming regions, saving files, etc., etc.)  Once learned, however, you can really breeze around files without your hands much leaving the keyboard.  The author isn't kidding that virtually every function can be customized or extended, so you can even remap all the key bindings if you think they suck or add new ones for functions that don't have a keyboard shortcut.

As just a sound editor, Snd would be pretty great (imho).  And it would be just fine to stop there.  But a typical install includes the Scheme listener and CLM.  The syntax of Scheme is quite simple and remarkably consistent compared to even Python.  (Don't let all the parenthesis intimidate!)  If you only learn to set variables and call functions in Scheme from the listener, you can do an awful lot in Snd without having to know much else.  (That's all I learned, initially.)  It's not really advertised as such, but you really have a very capable (non-realtime) audio processor/synthesizer under the hood!  A lot of functions have equivalent functionality in CDP.  In absence of a proper GUI for CDP on Linux, you may find using Snd preferable in the interim for some operations (e.g., imposing envelopes on sounds).  It's a rather unusual tool.  It probably tries to do too much by including CLM, but--like CDP--allows for a lot of precision.  I think a lot of the reason it seems overwhelming is really all this "extra" functionality built in--the author really gets carried away in the documentation describing all of it!

sleestack

i cant even figure out how to install snd