There’s a lot of free material out there (looperman is outstanding, for example), but the ability to redistribute in most of these cases is either explicitly denied or completely ambiguous. That’s a problem.
If you come across free/public material where it is completely clear that we can redistribute, please point that out.
The audio files are another matter. I have found loads of gratis clips everywhere intended for loops, but as I can see so far, they do in general not have the basic and neutral style that this project needs, that’s the way I think of it anyway, and they might not be free to redistribute.
I would be good if Harrison could donate the MIDI files, or a basic portion of them, to the Ardour project. They are all generated by the software from “free-midi-chords” and “MMA” and have decent quality. With that in mind and when it comes to audio, I can record and make audio clips with good quality (bass, guitars, and other stuff that is not supplied by the MIDI files).
There are only thoughts from my side, I’m no expert in law questions but hope that what I say here makes some sense.
EDIT: I’m a long-time Mixbus32C user and have known about the clips from when they came but did not hear and saw them before yesterday. I think they are good for this purpose.
MIDI chords by themselves are taken care of, more or less.
For audio, I don’t see a requirement for a “basic and neutral style” … however, this is one subset of possible loops that it would great to have covered. It’s fine to have both “basic rock shuffle” and “highly idiosyncratic sort of reggae but also cumbia backbeat”.
I have reached out to a number of creators on looperman, but I suspect that many/most of them will not respond.
I’ve been experimenting a bit with MIDI and would like to submit my self-made MIDI files. There are not many. These are unique, unmistakable and guaranteed not to exist twice. To which email address may I send the packed MIDI files in ZIP format?
I was watching a YT presentation of Sonic Pi delivered by its author who noted all the samples used in the program are CC-0 licensed. Here is the git page where they are located if you are interested in checking them out:
That’s great! I do 1000+ loops in 120 audio tracks and my computer is hitting the wall. So I’m working on a way around it. Hopefully, I will be finished before 7.0 and hopefully, they will be good enough for use with Ardour.
Is there a cut off time for this? I would like to contribute some live drum loops (to a click of course) but will not have time until the end of the month to record them.
There’s no cut-off. We’ve decided to not include any of the content in the ardour download package due to size. Instead, there’s a new download manager built into the program. We hope to get 7.0 out by the end of this month (September), but will be updating the index of libraries on an ad-hoc basic going forwards.
I’ve hit the wall after a heavy post covid, but I will continue the work as soon as I’m able to concentrate again. I have recorded around 350 of more than 1000 audio files for looping so far and I’m a little worried that I just recreate the wheel.
I will have a look at what is already delivered or available for Ardour and eventually start all over if needed as soon as possible.