Here is my new say “project”.  Looking for “cheap” multi-effect for my Theremin experiments I figure it out that what I do not like on computer based effect is the mouse interface. I thought it over and over and then found the small toy eee T91, a small PC with 1.33GHz processor and Touchscreen ;).

Although it’s hard to find it in a store I found one from second hand and went to install certain flavours of Linux. I have tried Ubuntu studio, then Debian, 64studio and then again Ubuntu studio I use still today (I thinking of Puppy, but I’m pretty much satisfied already).

Why I use Linux? First I like it and second with the Jack audio server I can have tiny mini delay even on this “slow”device and all the programs for free as well. Plus I can change the interface for my needs since it runs on Gnome and it’s easy to reconfigure. So it has for example such a huge sliders as you can see on the photo, without need to change a what ever program I choose… which uses the common GUI, indeed. What you can see here is a Jack audio server in the background with Jack Rack as the effector on top. It doesn’t eats the CPU that much as all others and has nice simple interface with countless effects. With such settings I have about 8.71 msec delay, I think it’s more then OK, when you thing of the way how Theremin works and what you can do with it, I think even for guitar is more then fine.

What is still in development are graphic drivers, I haven’t have time to look at and solve the way I like and frankly the built in sound card is not one of the best so there is still some noise. I think it has something to do with the Linux though, because when I switch to Windows it’s not “that” noisy. I have tried even my Zoom H4 as I sound card and the noise stays there so it seams to me the problem is kernel or something..indeed real-time in this case. And I’m not sure if I’ll go for on screen keyboard. I don’t think I really need it.

If you want to get rid of the potential hum, I never experienced with this eee you can always unplug it from DC and run it for next sweet 5 hours on battery ;]

If someone of you have any idea how to fix the noise, I’m one ear. An those who think of similar “project” the only thing I can recommend is think of a computer with better sound card. The rest is in this cute puppy more then OK…Right the screen response could be faster but I’m not going to draw on it.

I have a small talk on the Linux topic in AVU next week particulary Ubuntu studio :), because it’s more interesting for people here in Czech & the speach will be spoken in our lang. let me write the announce in Czech for them. Hope make for ya in En soon.

Linux – střípek budoucnosti

• 1. Proč používat jiný operační systém než moje babička?
  2. Instalce tučňáka. K dispozici bude cca 5 počítaču na které nainstalujeme Linuxovou distribuci Ubuntu Studio.
  3. Ubuntu Studio a jeho Výhody pro umělce a začátečníky.
  4. Seznámení s rohrazním a trocha praxe.
  5. Linux neni jen na hackování, ale na normální každodení práci.
     Ukázka užitečných programů.
  6. Mazlení s novým kamaradem.

Přednáška ma za cíl představit Linux pro normálního uživatele a ukázat mu možnosti za které nejen že nemusí platit, ale ješte se mu vyplatí.
dodatek: Pokud vás zajímaji nové příkazi v terminálu, asi by ste měli spíš navštívit google.com

[ pict ]

Michal Pustejovsky showed me an ubuntu brach UBUNTU STUDIO I never heard of, full of multimedia tools. As an “artist”what ever I ‘m who is interested in and work with sound, video, etc. I was curious how far I can go with the linux and if I’ll be able to get rid of the Windows and Mac os( I know again ;) ). I’m not going to write here list of all software it has if you like to know more you can always check the Ubuntu studio homesite.
Looking for the right source of download-able installation I found out that most of the links are dead or work-less at this time. I think it’s a pretty well done linux with bunch of useful programs for media artists & it’ll be pity if you guys end up on 404 error page. If you’ll end up there come back here and download the Studio from this link (ubuntustudio-7.04-alternate-i386.iso). It lies on pretty stable and fast server. Don’t worry I’ll keep it there for reasonable time.

update:..new ubuntu studio version is up, check it out here. ..I’m curious if it solves problems with parallel sounds ;) btw my attempt of update from 7.04 wasn’t really successful. It deleted all important thing such as jack(audio) and so on…and mes up the hard drive. Better reinstall it from scratch.

I like to welcome you on already third Czech Blender conference in Prague. The conference take place in the main building of Academy of Fine Arts Prague.(map to Academy)

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite for 3D modeling, Animation, video & sound editing & last but not least interactive game creation tool, available for all major operating systems.

Date: 14 April 2007 from 12/00AM till 21/00PM.

schedule:

• 12.00 – Car modeling / by bumpkin
• 13.00 - Scene lighting / by Ragnos
• 14.00 - Game engine / by Johny.D
• 15.00 - Material Node editor / by postolka
• 16.00 - Sequence, Node editor / by Slange
• 17.00 - Informations from behind / by Jiri Hnidek
• 19.00 - Open discussion

I can’t help my self not to write here my new experience with Ubuntu.
My friend has function less hard disk in her laptop, so she went to the service and they told her that the disk is broken and if she want her data back it will cost her about 500$ :D, kinda expensive fun huh?
Because I have some experience with data restoration I offered her my help. She sends my her disk and after I received it I hook up the disk into my Laptop. Because her original system with her data was Windows I booted into Windows. The disk was somehow mounted but not recognized by the Windows system. Then I have tried data restoration softwares like, Stellar Phoenics, Norton Utilities, Virtual lab, Get data back and other similar programs for such cases. Only Stellar Phoenics saw the disk but shows my an message with serious error. :O Hmm, after two days work I decided to boot back in to my Ubuntu installation and try what happen, just out of curiosity. I logged in and I couldn’t believe to my eyes. I saw the disk and I could read the content of it.
I simply don’t understand why Windows has problems with the disk mounting and Backup advanced programs couldn’t read any data from it and I don’t understand why Ubuntu has no problem at all. If you have any idea why, let my know. Thanks to Linux-Ubuntu developers my friend has data back almost for free :)