Music software for Debian JR
I finally got Brahms running on my system!
Brahms is a CuBase type MIDI editor/sequencer This would be a bit more advanced
than the 8 and under age group, but would be indispensable for the more advanced
music student. It is very powerful and has lots of options for editing and
writing MIDI music. I haven't had a lot of time to work with it, but is does
seem extremely well done. Of course it is KDE based, which limits it's
usefulness to the high spec'd PC's.
XMMS is for Linux what WinAmp is for Windows and a whole lot more!
Starting out as just a WinAmp clone for Linux, XMMS initially provides the exact
same functionality for playing MP3's. It has a playlist and equaliser as well as
being skinable. Thanks to the modular nature of Linux, Lots of different input,
process and output modules are available for XMMS to expand its usability. It
even has an OpenGL 3D spectrum analyser display available, but be warned!!! This
is memory hungry without a great 3D graphics card to share the load.
Grip is a rather easy to use, once set up, MP3 ripper and CD player. Once the
right tools are set-up and Grip is configured, you can get MP3's from your
personal CD collection quickly and easily. It will even organise the MP3's into
a directory structure for easy keeping. With CDDB set-up, it can get the artist
and title info from the Internet automatically making it a simple matter of:
1) Put in the CD
2) select the songs to convert to MP3
3) start ripping!
Despite the current legal arguments against Napster and such, making an MP3 of a
CD you have bought and own is legal under the copyright laws of most countries.
Just don't share them with others are make MP3's from CD's you don't own.
Timidity++ is basically a command-line based MIDI file player that will give you
a new respect for the MIDI format. Rather than use the built-in instruments of
your sound card, which can sound rather poor, Timidity++ uses software-based
instrument patches which sound extremely good. Timidity++ by itself has no
instrument patches but Timidity-patches will provide them. Timidity++ does not
depend on Timidity-patches because you can use many different patches available
free and for a price from various sources. Playing a MIDI file with Timidity++
and the Timidity-patches will sound very like the real thing! You will never
what to use the built-in instruments of your sound card again! Timidity++ also
has a few different GUI's available, but these need to be compiled in. They are
based on gtk+, motif or lesstif, even an ncurses interface can be compiled in.
I've played with a few of these and find the gtk+ GUI to be quite easy to use,
although it does generate a few errors, I've never had it crash or hang on me.
And I have used it quite a bit. You would need to try the different interfaces
and see which would be best for the Debian JR project.
There are also various CD players, but these are much of a muchness, and I think
it is possible to get XMMS to play CD's with a little work. Ripping your
favourite CD's and keeping them in your home drive is much more convenient than
changing CD's anyway and keeps your CD drive free for other uses.
This is just some of the music software I've used and think would be
indispensable in any Linux system.
Cheers,
John Gay
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