Blake Miller's Blog

May 11th, 2007 Ubuntu Studio was released and I finally decided to get my hands on it. Downloading and installing just like all the other Ubuntu Alternate installs. After installation was complete I immediate started messing around with many audio packages included. First one I started with was JACK.

JACK is used to change sound routes through your computer. In my case I first had ZynAddSubFX Software Synthesizer open and was messing around with the many different sounds it comes with. I then opened another cool app called JACK Rack and Patchage. JACK Rack allows you to add thousands of diffrent effects into the main mix. Then through the Patchage i connected the out put of the Synthesizer into JACK Rack then took the output of JACK Rack and connected it with the audio out put of my sound card. Heres a screen shot of what was going on.

I can now also take the input from the sound card and patch it through to the JACK Rack and guitar effects.

The one thing I didn’t like was not having control on volume with Audacity. So I went out on the net and found a package called Ardour. Ardour is a multi track recorder. Through JACK I can connect diffrent audio devises to Ardour. This means that if I have 4 USB Mic’s and 2 Guitars I could plug them into my box and connect the devices to Ardour. Then Ardour can record all 4 Mic’s and 2 Guitars individual. This is very nice for editing later on. You can ajust levels for certen Mic’s or guitars. Very cool.

Now of cores this all uses a fair amount of CPU. But if your using digital inputs (ie. FireWire recording devices, USB preamps, etc) it takes allot of the stress off your CPU. If you are looking into making a small or large audio editing studio I would strongly consider a Digital Mixer with FireWire out. I would also buy a high end motherboard and processor.

I have a bunch of broken USB PS2 head sets that I’m hopping to use for Guitar and Mic digitizers. I will make sure to document the hole experience.

The one thing I found about Ubuntu Studio is there is no good video editing apps. They all suck. I went out on the net and found A good one, but really it sucks to. I will get back to you if I find any good ones.

All-in-all I enjoy Ubuntu Studio. If your into audio editing or doing podcast I would strongly recommender Ubuntu Studio for you.

I’m writing to you from a very cool program that the people over at Windows Live just released. Windows Live Writer is a easy to use blogging tool. It allows you to blog from any location weather you have a Internet connection or not. It gives you all the functions of the normal writing box but it has a much nicer GUI then the web based one.

The software doesn’t come with any spy ware or anything you have to worry about.

Another cool feature of this program is it has the capability to add Official plug in to improve your blogging experience.

Writer is defiantly a keeper. Anyone wanting to post to Wordpress, and many other blogging software, Windows Live Writer is for you!