Open-source music and audio is finally delivering the goods: useful and unique tools that make sense even alongside commercial/proprietary software. And as a sign that the mainstream could get a taste of these tools soon, Intel is exhibiting at the massive Las Vegas CES consumer electronics show with Transmission, says Trinity Audio’s Ronald Stewart.

Transmission is Trinity Audio’s open source software bundle and live Linux distribution. It’s built for Trinity’s Linux-powered Trinity mobile studio device, which we’ll be seeing more of soon. At CES, it’s running at the Intel booth on the Samsung Q1 Ultra Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). (The advantage of the Trinity over the UMPC for audio folks: XLR jacks, among other things.) But you can also run this free software on your PC — try the live CD link below. Haven’t tried it on Intel Mac yet, but that should work, too, theoretically.

Audacity [the open-source waveform editor]

Burn is a cd burn app

DJ is IDJ for live podcasting ( i love this with a mic)

Drum is Hydrogen [the simple but fun software drum machine]

Mixer is the Gnome ALSA mixer [for mixing virtual channels of audio on your system -- something not nearly as functional on Mac or Windows]

Mixxx 1.6 beta (rips with the touch screen grabbing the tracks and faders)

Record is Ardourino (Ardour is so awesome) [the open-source DAW]

Sequencer is Qtractor (another great app)

Synth is amsynth

Upload is an ftp app [so you can upload your tracks]

Zynaddsubfx is another great synth

For more description and links to the individual tools — an excellent selection of the creme de la creme on Linux — check the Transmission site. (warning: auto-plays audio!)

Transmission

But no need to have a UMPC or Trinity device to give this a spin. This live CD will do the trick. For Mac users, it even includes the native (non-Linux) Ardour for Mac, an excellent free and open source DAW for Mac users.

Trinity Live Master CD

Even as someone dedicated to proprietary software I really can’t live without (hello, Ableton!), I think there’s huge potential in using these applications for specific applications (like mobile devices), for collaboration, and file exchange. If we were really lucky, some of those major developers would start to build in support for, say, Ardour’s file format. But that’s the subject of another story.

Below: the Trinity mobile device getting celebrity treatment.

Linux for music is everywhere, from the power behind the Korg Oasys to new, more usable Linux desktop music software. CDM got a chance to talk to Chris Cannam of Fervent Software,
developers of the Linux-based Studio-to-Go. Chris tells us a bit more
about Studio-to-Go, as well as more generally the past, present, and
future of Linux music-making — as well as some ideas about how you
might actually use this stuff.

I've been running Studio to Go! on my Pentium M laptop, and after having
struggled with previous Linux builds to get a studio up and running, I
can say this is easy enough for a Linux virgin.
Boot from the CD, and not only is Linux pre-tuned for music and audio,
but you have access to a complete suite of pre-configured music and
audio tools and toys. With a flash drive and the CD, your studio is
always as close as an Intel PC (hence the 'to-go' part), but with one
command you can also install the studio to your hard drive. It coexists
with my Windows XP partition without reformatting.

Read on for the review . . .

Cost: GBP 49.99 (GBP 64.99 with 128M flash memory)
Compatibility: Intel PCs (though Fervent says they'd love to support Mac PPC — no plans yet)

Correction: Early-edition copy for this story listed cost
with 128M flash key as 69.99 pounds instead of 64.99. 64.99 is the
correct price — good deal on the drive! -PK