Hardware & Software Recommendations?

[Erik Rasmussen]

Thanks so much for all the responses!  Any thoughts on these comments?

Need to work with full quality compressed files:
Ardour seemed like the program I should learn to use, but I was rather put
off by the lack of FLAC support and requirement to manually convert all
files to WAVE using some other software.  It also seemed like I randomly had
trouble getting Ardour to capture or playback audio.  Any tips?
*
*
In producing a 30 minute radio broadcast program, I work with numerous audio
files that are normally in excess of 1 hour in length.  Full CD quality Wave
files of this length consume a lot of hard drive space and with the volume
of files that I need to record, capture and edit, it is simply not real
practical to work in Wave files.  FLAC serves very well in that you get full
quality without the space consumption of Wave files.

Sony Sound Forge and Sony Vegas Pro do something they call "proxy compressed
files".  So when you go to open a compressed file their software
de-compresses it automatically, (without requiring the user to do so
manually), and allows you to work with the file, and then when you save the
software it will save back to the compressed format and automatically delete
the "proxy file" when you close the application.  It would be nice if Ardour
could do something like that.

I see that Daniel Worth said Ardour 2.8.3 can import and export FLAC files.
 Is that the version of Ardour that comes with Ubuntu Studio 9.10?

*AUDACITY:*
I want to like Audacity, but it seems very slow for me to save and a little
cumbersome to navigate.  As stated above, I'm generally working with large
files and perhaps that's what slows down Audacity?  When I started digital
audio production I had to sacrifice lots of wait time while the software did
it's saving.  I hate to have to go back to long wait times again.

Does anyone know of any tricks to make Audacity save large files faster, or
are there any other alternative audio editing and mixing software programs
anyone would recommend?

I really appreciate the advice and tips from you all.  This is my last
important task which I need to migrate to Linux before I can dump my last
Windows PC and run only on Linux.

Thanks!
-Erik


On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 08:20, Hartmut Noack <zettberlin at linuxuse.de> wrote:

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> Erik Rasmussen schrieb:
> > Looking for Hardware and Software recommendations...
> >
> > *HARDWARE:*
> >
> >    1. If you build your own desktop computer and you plan to install
> Ubuntu
> >    Studio to do broadcast audio and video production, what *motherboard *
>
> Any recent mid-price motherboard will do. If you buy a new one from the
> shelf the older the better....
>
> > and
> >    *audio **card *do you recommend?
>
> Depending on budget:
>
> lowest: MAudio Audiophile (around Euro/USD 80,-) no other reasonable
> card on the market works the same as smoothly.
>
> more: MAudio Delta (the same as the Audiophile yet with more analogue
> channels)
>
> pro: RME Hammerfall DSP - unbeatable yet with around 500+ on ebay not
> quite cheap.
>
>
>
> >    2. If you are about to purchase a *laptop *for audio and video
> production
> >    and to use Ubuntu Studio, what laptop do you recommend?
>
> > *What Linux native software do you recommend
> > for broadcast quality audio and video production?*
>
> Every software on Linux produces sound at the maximum quality level that
> can be handled by the hardware.
> There is no artificial limitation in terms of quality in free software
> for Linux.
>
>
> >
> > Brief list of *some *software features desired:
> >
> >    1. Can open, edit and save as FLAC audio files (without having to
> >    manually convert first).
> >    2. Multi-track editing capabilities.
> >    3. Very detailed graphical representation of waveform.
> >    4. Fast to open and to save files.
> >    5. Visual feedback of audio levels or graphical representation of
> >    waveform while recording and playback.
> >    6. Able to gracefully handle and mix with audio files of varying
> sample
> >    and bit rates.
> >
>
> I also recommend Ardour but you have to accept, that you need to open
> ("import") every file you want to use in Ardour. There is no
> "rightklick/open with ardour" option in any filemanager. Ardour itself
> knows only one fileformat, all external files you want to use are
> converted with the import.
> Thus Ardour can offer maximum performance/comfort and soundquality. And
> ask whoever you want in the pro-audioscene: nobody will name a single
> reason to actually work with compressed fileformats.
>
> Regarding movies: Ardour can be synched with the videoplayer xjadeo to
> make it work for post-production. To cut/arrange movies in the first
> place I recommend openmovieeditor - it is available for ubuntu studio
> and works reliable and fast while it has everything one would use dayly
> when working with final cut
>
> best regs
>
> HZN
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