Please start a MS-Windows Fork of this very good aplication!

Hello,
yes I know it, it has been posted serveral times before.
And I know, that there are many reasons against it from a programmers view.
But there is not only the real big problem, that many of the musicians around the world already build up a Music PC around the Windows OS and want to use their old applications further on in the future.
(In my case, I am the proud user of Sonar producer and Tascam Gigastudio. Both applications will surely never run on Linux.)

But the most important problem is, that there are so many AD/DA-converters around the world that do not support Linux.
I own the Motu2408 Interface.
There is only a windows Driver and a MAC-OS Driver available yet.
I remember exactly the words of the complete (!!) answer Email I got from the american support some years ago:
“We do not support Linux! No!”

You would say:“So what? Go there with your Applications and be happy, Its all right for you.”
But what about my pupils? I want to teach them the stuff around mulitmedia and most of them do not have the money to spend around 1000 Euros for a basic Music-PC Software bundle.

For them your application is the best. It shows music editing from a professional view and maybe gives some of my pupils the flip to start a career as a professional sound engineer.
Best regards, Markus

Well, your situation and mine are quite similar. I used to own a motu 24i and run Sonar - and tascam gigastudio on a different machine. Sonar was unreliable as hell, I could never record at low latency, and sonar over the course of 3 versions kept crashing - permanently - so it would not restart without a complete reinstall, and I was always misplacing the license key.

I had this happen in the middle of a critical, paid gig, and I lost not only a lot of money, but a lot of respect from the customer. I was incredibly angry, as you might imagine, and resolved to never again be dependent on code I couldn’t fix.

100 bucks a year for sonar upgrades wasn’t worth it as my bugs weren’t getting fixed.

So… After begging the motu guys for years for specs for their board so I could write a driver for linux, and/or begging them for a driver, and getting the same “hell, no” response you did…

  1. I researched companies that had a good history of linux support, and chose the RME-audio multiface.

  2. Publically denounced motu’s squareheadedness as loudly and bitterly as possible. I sold my motu 24i’s to a dedicated mac-head.

  3. Threw out my windows PC and upgraded to a dual opteron 64 bit linux box…

… And, today, admittedly after some rough spots - I couldn’t be happier.

Ardour2 ROCKS! It works great 64 bit
Linuxsampler does a great job with gigastudio files
And I just added a digimax FS (via ADAT) to the rme-audio multiface, giving me 12 tracks of 96khz audio or 16 tracks of 44.1 - and it sounds great.

Now… I sold the used 24is for something like 400 dollars each.
I haven’t upgraded my sonar in a few years - so I’ve saved at least 300-400 bucks in upgrade fees, just on sonar. Gigastudio has come out with a few new versions (but is worth buying just for the sample libraries). There’s a new windows version out - doesn’t work terribly well for 64 bit, and costs some serious money.

So, all in all, throwing windows out of the studio entirely has resulted in:

  1. Vastly improved reliability, with an os (linux-rt)truly targeted at multimedia
  2. A huge cost savings in software, letting me buy much better hardware
  3. I can run all my applications on a single dual-core machine with very low latency
  4. A sense of satisfaction of “sticking it to the man”
  5. The ability to participate in the process at any level you might choose. In my case, I’ve been speeding up plugins lately…

… so… why should we invest serious resources into doing a windows version of ardour… again?

You wrote:

But what about my pupils? I want to teach them the stuff around mulitmedia and >most of them do not have the money to spend around 1000 Euros for a basic >Music-PC Software bundle.

why make them spend the money to run windows at all? A windows based platform costs a lot more than linux platform. Windows + Sonar + Gigastudio is nearly a thousand dollar investment just in software. Linux + ardour + rosegarden + linuxsampler is free.

Your students would benefit quite a lot from something like Studio To Go, 64 Studio, Planet CCRMA, or ubuntustudio.

Note: I DO miss many of the whiz-bang features of sonar and gigastudio - I do miss vst plugins - but I don’t miss the expense, and I certainly don’t miss their support departments blowing me off when I have a problem, and I don’t miss the darn licensing keys and dongles and other crap that comes with windows.

Well, I understand your problem, after you invested money in both hardware and software that aren’t (very) compatible with Linux, you’re in a somewhat dead end. I think many of us have been in that position.
When that happens you have the choice of remaining stubborn and trying to make the best out of the platform (a platform that is fundamentally not suited, broken, even), so you can keep using the soft/hardware you invested in, but you’ll never quite really get out of the “jail” that exists because lack of control over proprietary software (both the OS and tools). the further you go, the worse it will become.
You could also choose to take the other route, like mthat did, selling your incompatible stuff and buying new stuff, loosing some money (because of lower 2nd values etc) but gaining value because of more free software. However the real gain is not expressed in dollars or euro’s, the real gain is the better platform, the liberty, the community (support), the fact that the people who write the software are the guys you chat with on irc, the guys who also want something useful for free, people co-operating in software that together builds a suite of tools that does what we want, and we’re getting there, slow but steady.

Personally I think that the time that would be used for porting apps to to windows, is time that is taken away from “real” advancement.
It’s a gain for those stubborns (I would even say selfish) who don’t want to loose their windows box, but a loss for the others.

That said I can understand you’re hesitant for the change, after all, not everything on linux is perfect, there simply are very good plugins and other pieces of software on windows that aren’t matched by free software.

But when you started talking about your students, it became a no-brainer to me: give them a linux livecd… it works, it does all they want, it’s free, it has a highly didactive value (there are many “scientific”-oriented plugins and pieces of software out there for linux, written by guys obsessed by science, unlike on windows where the target audience are musicians).

And best of all, it’s the number one way from keeping your pupils from making the same mistakes as you made, as so many of us did.

From my understanding, the current JACK code depends on an operating system that implements POSIX threads. Windows XP and Vista do not have an implementation of this technology, therefore JACK would have to be adapted to use something else. Since Ardour depends on JACK for it’s audio I/O, Ardour won’t begin to be useful on Windows until the JACK developers choose to approach that problem.

JACK has been ported to Windows and is available.

Ardour has been ported to Windows and is not really available. We don’t plan to change that for some time. We cannot offer effective support nor can the existing community handle the influx of windows users that will result. When we figure out some way for a new windows community to emerge, we’ll make the windows port more available (although the truth is that its in SVN for anyone to look at). Please do NOT ask questions about getting the Windows port to run - they will be ignored.

Wow, cool. Sorry for not reading the manual. I’ve been absent from the audio world for so long I remember when the whole POSIX compatibility thing was an issue for Windows. Good to hear it’s branched out.

Hi, our situation is not as equal as it seems to be.
I was a Cakewalk-user since the very first 2.0 Version for windows 3.11.

And except some versions (7 and 8) it has been and it is the most stable program on windows. Cakewalk Sonar 5.0 is very good.
It runs the whole day long without breaking down.
Its slightly different with gigasampler (Gigastudio 3.0). It has a good performance but is not very stable.

I bought the hardware from motu in 1997. And it was the first professional PC Interface with 24 I/O Channels and ADAT support.
But you’re right. The very first audio-drivers for windows were very bad. :slight_smile: We all knew the statements from Motu in the past. Its always been the wrong configured user PC, that has been wrong, never a buggy driver.
But after 8 Month there was the first stable driver and since this time I use the Interface with much fun and I already got additional Converters from RME (two 8 Channel ADAT AD/DA “ADI 8 pro”).

Yes there is much software for Linux. But i am not familar with this os.
Why not start on windows and migrate to linux some days after tomorrow.
I already installed Linux on a second PC but as I said, most of my software is for windows and there are some plugins I really depend on.

And the other thing is, that there are too less PCs with a linux system.
Anyone has Windows. And I have no chance to bring my pupils to the point of installing a new OS for only one main application named ardour.

Best regards, Markus

I was a Cakewalk-user since the very first 2.0 Version for windows 3.11.

I started with the DOS version.

And except some versions (7 and 8) it has been and it is the most stable program >on windows. Cakewalk Sonar 5.0 is very good.
It runs the whole day long without breaking down.

I’m glad to hear that. Sonar 1 and 2 is what caused me to break down.

Its slightly different with gigasampler (Gigastudio 3.0). It has a good >performance but is not very stable.

I’m pretty pleased with linuxsampler. Generally it runs for… checking… my current instance has been running for 11 days, and I play 1-2 hrs a day. That said I can crash it at usually the most annoying times. Now that ardour2 is out perhaps I’ll take a harder look at it.

since this time I use the >Interface with much fun and I already got additional Converters from RME (two 8 >Channel ADAT AD/DA “ADI 8 pro”).

Cool, you are well on your way towards replacing that motu with a digiface… which has excellent driver support for windows, mac, and linux, and a non-arrogant company behind it.

Yes there is much software for Linux. But i am not familar with this os.

No better time to start than today. :slight_smile: Or better, please take a hard look at studio to go or one of the other distros I mentioned earlier.

Three core points:

  1. they come with ALL the major linux music software
  2. several of the distros are “live cds” - you can experiment without installing
  3. Perhaps a student of yours would like to try it out.

Why not start on windows and migrate to linux some days after tomorrow.

Because developing for windows costs time and money which are both in short supply.

Because supporting window costs time and money which are both in short supply.

Donations of both time and money are gladly accepted.

Currently handling mac and linux are several full time jobs.

Lastly, there are plenty of pretty good DAWs already in the Windows market.

I already installed Linux on a second PC but as I said, most of my software is >for windows and there are some plugins I really depend on.

I was very dependent on a few plugins. I’ve found Linux replacements for all of them in swh-plugins, tap-plugins, cap-plugins, and cmt.

Well, I really miss antares. However:

Ardour, running in 32 bit mode, supports many a vst plugin. (still, except antares and quite a few of the more complex ones). If you’d like to list your favorite plugins and what they do, someone here can point you at near-equivalents in ladspa.

And the other thing is, that there are too less PCs with a linux system.

A lesser percentage every day, I hope.

Anyone has Windows.

Not me. Do I sound like a fan boy? :slight_smile: I have a mac, too. No windows.

And I have no chance to bring my pupils to the point of installing a new OS for >only one main application named ardour.

rosegarden, sooperlooper, bristol… all those and more come with a modern linux music distribution…

and you don’t need to actually install linux to try it, as I said.

Best regards, Markus

Short answer to your original post: If Ardour is the best tool for you or your students, then Ardour’s favorite environment is yours as well. I forget who said this, but… “People don’t use operating systems, they use applications. Applications use operating systems.” Usually, that means Windows or MacOS is simply the best platform for Joe Sixpack-- who needs to log into AOL and download his iTunes. It cuts Linux out of the picture until the big vendors catch on. But this time, that knife cuts the other way.

And the other thing is, that there are too less PCs with a linux system.

That’s not a reason to avoid it. There are far fewer DAW systems running Ardour than the industry’s big-ticket offerings, but you still want to get that up and running, yes?

Also, it’s not entirely effective to invite people to redouble their efforts so you can conserve your own time. If it’s your students’ time or familiarity you’re worried about, do them a favor-- teach them to use a computer instead of teaching them to use Windows. Lastly, if a Windows port were forthcoming, it could be two more years before it was as stable as what we have in front of us.

P.S. It’s good to hear you’re already working with Linux, and I think we’d all be happy to help make that effort worthwhile. But to paraphrase the author of Frozen Bubble: Don’t spend your energy to port my app to Windows, or ask me to. They already have it all, and don’t need any help.

This might be completely besides the point.

But if your BIOS supports booting off of USB,
you can install linux an external HDD drive(which is what I did). That way all you have to do is connect the drive and boot off of USB.

No need to even touch the files on your Windows system. Your hard drive essentially becomes your linux box.

Not sure what USB2 does for latency, but if ardour VST/AU compatibility increases dramatically, you can use Ardour and run all the VST in Linux. And you would even need a separate machine to do this.

I think as their are more and more useful apps compiled for OSX and Linux, the OS will become less of an issue for people. If many of the top OSX apps were also Linux apps, it’d become increasingly harder to tell the difference between the two. I hope to see this OSX/Linux connection exploited in more apps.

Looks like Linux is fast becoming a contender in the audio field. Can’t wait to see Ardour 3.0!

For my part, I bought an 828mk2 without doing much prior research, and got stuck with it when I tried to use Linux for audio. So I use OS X. It’s stable, fast and runs a lot of neat programs. I can’t use all the linux apps I drool over, but If I had a whole stash of ram I could use a virtual machine running linux.

I tried to rally support for getting MOTU to release specs. It didn’t go over so well.

Motu has taken “not listening” to an art form.

But I’m glad to hear the 828mk2 works well with OSX and with Ardour.

I look forward to replacing my aging G3 with something a bit more modern.

Well, the problem is bigger than it seems.

Windows/ReactOS (and many other platforms such as Haiku) still don’t have a good multitrack recording/editing suite. And remember that JACK is not multiplatform.

Assuming this, the best (and more probably the unique) solution is to start an open dependencies-less project to achieve the goal.

A suite of libraries that achieves little tasks (record, edit, modify, play, etc) could be the best approach (to me) and could benefit 3rd party software too (like Ardour, Audacity, etc).

Some better ideas ?

note: may KRISTAL AE be the (closed) Ardour Windows port ? :wink:

(a) JACK is more multiplatform than anything except PortAudio. It has no external dependencies, compiles on anything reasonably POSIX like, and simply needs a backend to work with the audio driver architecture on a given platform. JACK exists for Linux, OS X and Windows (though the Windows version is not as trivially installable as the other two).

(b) “a suite of libraries that achieves little tasks” … it appears to me that you know very little about a DAW works. if you want to pursue this approach, check out GStreamer’s GNonLin (for “non linear”)

© as mentioned above, ardour has already been ported to windows.

(a) “anything reasonably POSIX like” don’t sounds so multiplatform in my hears… I don’t know if is the right example, but i feel a similar difference (with my idea) in the video codec scene between FFMPEG and ffdshow… both uses (derives from ?) libavcodec but FFMPEG seems more platform indipendent. In a sentence: JACK stay to Linux as ffdshow to Windows… so it would be great to have a libavcodec-like engine(s ?) for DAWs softwares.
Anyway i’m not a developer nor a Linux user, so my view could be completely wrong. Please clarify !

(b) I’m a Windows/Sony Vegas user, so i don’t know how it works: i just wanna use it.
BTW i’m an open source fan too, and i hope to switch both to open alternatives (ReactOS or, better, Haiku and…) so i’m trying to stimulate portings.

© Oh, really ? Sorry, i missed that !
Where is the (official ?) download link ?

Marco Ravich

I’d have to say, when the founder and dev of both JACK and Ardour states that said apps are multi-platform (windows, linux, osx), I would take his word on it. :wink:

re (a): yes, your view is completely wrong
re (b): then keep using Sony Vegas for now
re ©: its only available from our source code repository, we offer absolutely no help with building it, and its months out of date. if this information isn’t enough to get you started, then i can guarantee the port will be of absolutely no use to you.

to paul:

re (a): not that clear. I can’t undestand why is impossible to build something that simply uses “libraries” (like MediaCoder for video, that is just an MPlayer/MEncoder/FFmpeg GUI) ? Clarify !!!

re (b): of course, unfortunally. Even if, as already said, i found an interesting alternative in KRISTAL Audio Engine and in a -possible- future port of HyperEngine-AV

re ©: why ?

No Release Early, Release Often here ?

Thanks in advice,
Marco Ravich

UPDATE: NASPRO website finally online !

    NASPRO, recursive acronym for "NASPRO Architecture for Sound PROcessing", is a free, modular real-time capable, thread-safe, scalable, standard-agnostic, cross-platform DSP framework aimed at becoming a powerful and reusable sound processing engine.

Official website

Marco Radossevich