jackalpup 0.0 - (rc3) plug and play audio puplet

[puddlemoon]

Hi friends.
So I've decided to bite the bullet and share my personal project here for everyone's enjoyment (amusement?) (scrutiny??). Part of an effort to be more involved in the community.

jackalpup is an audio production focused puppy with jack sound server preconfigured.

-Remastered from Fossapup64 for an, almost, traditional base. (thanks @666philb)
-5.4.70rt40 from @rockedge (low latency kernels also available for easy swapping)
-A curation of linux audio apps and plugins mostly from the kxstudio repos but also drawing ideas and inspiration from Avlinux, studio 1337 and the wide world of FLOSS audio in general.
-Focused on including tools and plugins that are not available from the ppm.
-A lite(ish) starter pack of synths, sequencers, loopers, multi tracking and effects.
-Carla audio plugin host gives access to a few hundred audio/midi instruments, effects and utilities
-Plugin collections have been manually trimmed down almost entirely to one plugin format (lv2), to keep as small a base as possible while still having a hefty arsenal of awesome sauce ready to rock.
-Qjackctl with jack preconfigured for studio work and clean revert back to alsa.
-Customized jack capture for quickly recording all jack audio on the fly.
-Ported sound kit scripts (avlinux) for building sfz soundkits and h2drumkits from wav, flac, ogg files.
-Global dark theme for those of us who loathe a white screen.
-Extra utilities from the community built in (EasyDD, Fix-usb, MM_View, f4, YouTube-Getv3) Many thanks!

-Slim-iso (662 MB) has Carla 2.3 (with a few hundred plugins), qtractor , Luppp, guitarix, sequencer64, Qmidiarp, Helm, ZynAddSubfx and plenty more.
-adrv (161 MB) adds Ardour 6.6, calf rack, some more synths and several hundred more plugins.
-ydrv (101 MB) adds Hydrogen (with some light kits), Mixxx 2.2.4 and Odin2 2.2.4
-Full-iso (922 MB) includes all of the above.

I have also uploaded "multiboot.zip" files for flash drive. It has both refind for uefi and grub4dos for legacy bios mode.
Simply extract the .zip to the root of a FAT32 formatted usb (or first partition), to boot from a uefi machine. (secure boot disabled)
To add legacy bios boot capability, first set the boot flag with gparted, then run Grub4Dos bootloader config from the system->install menu. Select your usb drive and check the "Search only within this device" and "Do not rewrite menu.lst" boxes. This can be done from the live boot on the uefi machine or any other puppy.
It is experimental but I have had good results and I am curios how it works for others.

So if you have a need, interest, curiosity... Please try it out.

~Blessings~

----------------Discussion from rc2 begins here--------------

----------------Discussion from rc3 begins here--------------

[puddlemoon]

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---Download jackalpup here---
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[puddlemoon]

--Post install for low latency kernel--
The low latency kernel is made "preemptable" at build time. This enables the core aspects of realtime audio performance. This capability is activated at boot time with the "threadirqs" argument. It is already set on the iso and the zip file but will need to be added to your menus.lst, grub.cfg, refind.conf etc...
please add it to your configuration after you install a low-latency kernel to get the best realtime performance.
some example stanzas..

Code: Select all

--menu.lst--

kernel /jackalpup/vmlinuz   pmedia=atahd psubdir=/jackalpup pfix=fsck threadirqs

--refind.conf--

loader /jackalpup/vmlinuz  
    initrd /jackalpup/initrd.gz
    options "root=UUID=fe948ae1-3ec5-4423-8e0b-ef7c3baedd76 pmedia=atahd psubdir=jackalpup threadirqs"

--grub.cfg--

menuentry "jackalpup 0.0" {
    linux /vmlinuz pfix=fsck pmedia=atahd threadirqs
    initrd /initrd.gz

The low-latency kernel is considered (by some) to be a better daily use kernel as it does not conflict with nvidia drivers the way the full rt is known to and perhaps, (for audio) uses up less resources unnecessarily...
I recommend keeping both on hand for easy swapping.
If you are making heavy use of heavy software synths with controllers you may well want that extra bit of tightness the full rt can offer.

[ally]

mirrored here: http://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_jackalpup

[Sub Woofer]

Many thanks for your time and hard work in remastering this Puddlemoon
After reading the description I'm drooling with excitement of using this I'm currently downloading the torrent from the mirrored link that Ally shared, I've got a few errands to do this afternoon so I'm going to leave the torrent running to help seeding.

Hopefully I will sometime later on this evening to have a play around with it

[taersh]

-Ported right click actions (avlinux) for building sfz soundkits and h2drumkits.

Please, would you consider to publish this as a .pet package?

[puddlemoon]

Hiya @taersh
Well it's good that you asked about this because after making the .pet and testing it on another system, it has come to my attention that the right click function is not working properly...
It was a last minute addition and it seems I had only fully tested the script by calling it from terminal. (F4 from current dir)
The right click function runs the script with no errors but it is not creating the files as it should. My knowledge is very limited on this so I am currently stumped as to why. Maybe you can advise?

These are the steps I initially took to create the right click additions

- Place main scripts in /usr/bin
- Create second script in /usr/local to run " urxvt -e makesfz -I " . the "I" is interactive and needed for full functionality, especially from right click as there is no way to pass the options.
- Create .desktop file to run the interactive script and placed it in the relevant "OpenWith" locations in Rox.

On a closer look, this runs the script without error but it sees itself in /root yet still does not make any files there.
Again, the scripts succeed if run from terminal , " makesfz -I " or "makeh2kit -I "
They also succeed if the second "interactive" script from /usr/local is copied to the desired location and run in place.
For the .pet I actually placed the second script in /usr/loca/bin but no difference.

Since realizing the issue I have also tried:
-Make Rox application folders placed in /usr/local/apps with the AppRun script reading: exec makesfz "$@"
This doesn't seem to run the script at all even though it is the way the other OpenWith scripts are run.
-Create the .desktop in /usr/share/applications and linking it to the OpenWith locations, the way the other applications are added to the right click menu.

So any advice would be much appreciated as I'm currently stumped. The .pet is here for the actual scripts and a closer look at my initial attempt if anyone is keen.

Meanwhile, One will need to run the scripts manually from the desired location
" makesfz -I " and " makeh2kit -I " (no quotes of course)

I apologize for the anticlimax. Not exactly off to a good start...

[taersh]

Hi.

I changed the command in /usr/local/bin/make-sfz to:

Code: Select all

urxvt -e /usr/bin/makesfz -I --files "$@"

and it created 18 .sfz files from 18 .wav files inside of a single directory.
All the .sfz files were created in /root.

Though, I just hit enter all the time, as the messages weren't readable being white text in a white terminal.

I didn't make tests of creating hydrogen drum kits.

Edit 1:

After defining all the colors being Zero, I was able to read all the text in the terminal and to create a single .sfz file from those 18 .wav files inside of the single directory. Didn't test yet, if this .sfz file would be of any use.

Edit 2:

I'm going to create a GUI for the makesfz script and modifying the results to put the e.g. Waves directory plus the .sfz file together and then to change the paths inside the .sfz file to relative paths related to the location of the .sfz file. Currently it creates the .sfz file with absolute paths, which could cause problems using it on a different machine with different drives etc.

The GUI then will have a list of files from directory, and the files listed will be movable so, one can choose/change the order of the files related to the midi-keyboard keys to be used.

Thanks for offering the scripts!

[puddlemoon]

That's great.
Silly me, I actually tried that in a frenzy of attempts to modify the script but I was only looking in the current dir till later. Then I saw that it had created files in root but I did not know which attempt...

With the prompts (forgot to mention the white text) you can select a file name/destination with the full path e.g. " /mnt/home/audio/sfz/bells " where bells.sfz is created in said location.

This is much closer. Still it defaults to root as the output dir. When run manually it defaults to the current dir for output. would be nice to figure out the rest but this is usable for sure.

EDIT:
GUI sounds super. Glad to have your interest in this.

Carla can use sfz sound kits direcly as an instrument if you tell her where to find them.

EDIT:2
I've added the simple but working .pet to 3rd post. Thanks again.
The h2kit script is not working from directory and so I removed it from the inode_directory. It works fine to select all wav files in a directory and pick from open with list.
I honestly don't use hydrogen much as I find it just crashes... DrMrSampler can use h2kits as well but I have not used them here as yet.

[greengeek]

Hope you guys can continue to collaborate and develop this - it's an exciting project.
Thanks

[taersh]

The usage information seems to be a little confusing.
It says: KEY must be 0 - 127 or C-1 - G9

Where is the point/key when it changes to use or not to use - ?

Shouldn't it be either
KEY must be 0 - 127 or C1 - G9
or
KEY must be 0 - 127 or C-1 - G-9 ?

[puddlemoon]

Seems the hyphen is a typo as the script exits out when C-4 is selected but completes when C4 is selected

the resulting .sfz still shows key=60 however

[taersh]

Thanks.

I'm doing progress in GUI development.
Right now I created the first single .sfz file from multiple .wav files using the GUI.
Also all paths used are relative to the location of the .sfz file.
The .sfz file now is also created at the location of the samples directory.

[puddlemoon]

Super!
Sounds perfect. Portable will be very useful for me too...

I look forward to it. I need to wrap my head around sed and a few other things for another gui I have in mind for zita-a2j...

[taersh]

Hi.

In German there is this order used for the tones in C major

C D E F G A H

Do you know if this will work?
Or do I need to define it in English?

A B C D E F G

Sorry, seems I'm destroying your Topic...

[puddlemoon]

He He, no worries.

If I understand you correctly, it should also be the same in english,

CDEFGAB...

[taersh]

What I meant is: in German the B is called H. The German B in English is Bb.

[puddlemoon]

I see, then yes. I think it will be expecting "B"

[taersh]

Ok, thanks.

I found some error in my thoughts of C-1 to G9.
C-1 means MIDI key number 0.
So, one can define also C#-1 which then is MIDI key number 1.

[taersh]

First version published: viewtopic.php?f=88&t=1187

[puddlemoon]

I found some error in my thoughts of C-1 to G9.
C-1 means MIDI key number 0.

funny, no wonder the script quit. C-4 would be midi key -60....

[geo_c]

This is well worth the time installing and getting to know for all you audio enthusiasts and musicians. I migrated all my work to it from mainline fossa64 in a couple of hours. Well thought out and executed!

[jaylcee]

Thank you Puddlemoon for this remaster. Trying it since yesterday, so far so good. The idea of having such a light and portable music oriented distro is great!

[puddlemoon]

Thanks for the responses! So Glad to hear it's working for you!

I have been using it as my daily driver (laptop) and on my studio pc for some months now and it's been solid.
Music production has been slow lately because life is, well... Life. Mostly stockpiling ambient loops for later use..
There is little I would change after this time but I have a few things on the list for an update. Hopefully in the next week or so I'll come up with an update.pet and perhaps a new iso (and or ydrv) if life permits...

[puddlemoon]

Ok folks, I managed put together a substantial update after all. First post has been updated and the first download link. The mirror has not yet been updated.

Changes from beta:
- Ardour 6.6 and I don't know how many more plugins.. (adrv)
- hydrogen drum machine with a few of the lightest kits I had included (ydrv)
- The latest qjackctl and qtractor compiled with jackalpup
- More standalones.. amsynth, synthv1, padthv1, geonkick, wolf spectrum, wolf shaper, nonmixer...
- Plugin launcher (using jalv) to run lv2 as standalone
- "B" plugin series and sonobus (internet "jam room" app) compiled with jackalpup
- Extra puppy utilities from the community.. easydd, fix-usb, mm_view, f4, you-tube-getv3
- Menu and ui cleanup plus cleared out more vst and other unneeded doubles (ended up with smaller files but with more goodies)
- Rearranged the extra sfs so we now have, adrv (ardour+synths/plugins) and ydrv (hydrogen,mixxx,odin2) so some modular possibilities with those.

You can drop the new jackalpup files in an existing install and keep your save (backup first!)
Run fixmenus after bootup

It became a bit more than I expected but it was well worth the time. Please enjoy

[puddlemoon]

A few small but relevant updates added..
- qtractor 0.9.21 (with vst3 support if you end up adding some)
adds -Ignore snap while ALT key is pressed, on the main track-view and the MIDI clip editors (aka. piano-roll).
- sequencer64 0.96.9
Fixed issue where expanding a note left two broken notes instead.
- carla 2.3 rc2
- rtirq
Also added Drops sample player and added Suspend to the exit menu (instead of Lock Screen)

[globetrotterdk]

The basic jackalpup-0.0-multiboot_14.03.21 system runs fine on both my tower computer - an i9 Core powered tower computer with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card - and my Lenovo Legion 5i i7 Core powered laptop (both UEFI based computers). However, if I start Hydrogen or Guitarix, I just get a splash screen and nothing more. Ardour will start, but it craps out in setting Jack as the sound server. It would be interesting to get Reaper and Renoise in there (if possible) as trial software. Otherwise, maybe post some instructions how to install in a way that is compatible to the rest of the system - on the USB pen drive.
----
I should also mention that GRUB4DOS does not work on my Dell Vostro 3350 BIOS based laptop. At boot, it exits to the "grub>" command line, despite the files being the correct location, but that also happens with fossapup64-9.0.5 and slacko64-7.0...

[puddlemoon]

Hi @globetrotterdk
I am not able to reproduce those issues. Testing usb multiboot style, from an hp i3, uefi boot.
The closest I came was with jack off and hydrogen started using alsa, ardour does not want to connect to alsa until hydrogen is closed.. and vice versa, ardour connects and runs fine with alsa but hydrogen will not connect to alsa while ardour is running. Not a problem really as jack is the best/only way to have proper connectivity between such apps and this is working as expected. (a session that is entirely within ardour is totally fine to use alsa)
A good start would be to run from terminal to see what errors pop up.

But first... if you get the latest .zip from the second post, this is best. The one you have is almost but not quite the same.
(trying to iron out those differences between the archive links now)

For the other boot issue. the zip should have the folders, /EFI and /jackalpup then menu.lst and grldr etc.. at the root of the drive (there should be no /boot dir with this setup). If you confirm this and still no go, try to reinstall grub4dos to the usb and select "search only within this device"

[ally]

@globetrotterdk

the file you mentioned may be corrupt, I'm in the process of uploading a corrected file, however it is available here from puddlemoons page:

http://archive.org/download/jackalpup/j ... tiboot.zip

apologies if that was the cause

[globetrotterdk]

For the other boot issue. the zip should have the folders, /EFI and /jackalpup then menu.lst and grldr etc.. at the root of the drive (there should be no /boot dir with this setup). If you confirm this and still no go, try to reinstall grub4dos to the usb and select "search only within this device"

I think I missed something very basic here... "reinstall grub4dos"? I don't recall having seen any instructions about or how to install grub4dos to the USB pen drive...