What about low cost microcontrollers? Listen to what the Tsynth can do using just a small uC board such as the Teensy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCA2L7CeWSE
It also has libraries for sound generation and effects, all FOSS. You can develop pretty much everything, from guitar stomp boxes to MIDI expanders, etc.
Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#32M4B-Tool is super useful for people who enjoy audiobooks along with Audiobookshelf. M4B-Tool is getting reworked into Tone which could use some help at the moment.
https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#33PipeWire is still new-ish(Edit: mobile keyboard autocorrected Jewish) and has a few things to work out,I'd say it definitely solves a useful problem and it appears to be the future of sound on Linux.
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#34Jamulus is a very cool project and I was blown away by how jamming over the internet was not just usable but actually enjoyable.
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#35JUCE: http://juce.com/ Tracktion: http://tracktion.com/ Both very powerful audio frameworks - JUCE does plugins and audio drivers and low-level DSP, oh my - and Tracktion does all the stuff a DAW needs, on top of JUCE. There are tons of ways to contribute, from building open source samples, to testing, or even adding functionality. Both dev teams are open to good quality PR's being submitted and both frameworks have…
JUCE is a dual-license commercial product though: Apart from a small ISC-licensed core, it's GPL or commercial. While I totally respect the decision of the JUCE developers to want to make a living out of their project and to adopt a licensing scheme that is in line with that goal, It would be a disqualifying criterion for me if, like OP, I was looking for an open-source project to dedicate a non-small amount of my ow…
That's a fair point, and I guess its weighed in my balance by the fact that I'm contributing under the GPL but also doing commercial work with it (plugins) as well, so for me its quite a win-win situation. I have no problems contributing to the framework I'm also using extensively ..
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#36Cool to hear people interested in audio. If you also are interested in Machine Learning, consider joining the Sound of AI community. https://thesoundofai.com/index.html#about
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#37Faust is selected for Google Summer of Code, see: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2023/organizati...
And https://github.com/grame-cncm/faustideas
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
JUCE is a dual-license commercial product though: Apart from a small ISC-licensed core, it's GPL or commercial. While I totally respect the decision of the JUCE developers to want to make a living out of their project and to adopt a licensing scheme that is in line with that goal, It would be a disqualifying criterion for me if, like OP, I was looking for an open-source project to dedicate a non-small amount of my ow…
That's a fair point, and I guess its weighed in my balance by the fact that I'm contributing under the GPL but also doing commercial work with it (plugins) as well, so for me its quite a win-win situation. I have no problems contributing to the framework I'm also using extensively ..
> its weighed in my balance by the fact that I'm contributing under the GPL
Are you sure you're contributing "under the GPL" though? It's common for such dual-license commercial projects to demand (lest contributions be ignored and not integrated) of external contributors that they agree to a Contributor License Agreement, which grants the dual-license commercial project the right to sublicense the contribution however they please… as opposed to being bound by the terms of the GPL like you would for their code. In the case of JUCE: https://cla.juce.com/
So it's really a totally asymetric situation:
* for their code: you either pay them a hefty price for a commercial license… or you only get it under GPL terms and thus have to release your own code using it under GPL as well (which effectively thwarts most monetization options for your work)
* for your contributed code: they don't pay you and (unlike the other way around) are NOT bound by the GPL but can sublicense your code however they please… and of course they make money with it, you don't.
Now I'm not saying that that would totally hold me off from contributing. It wouldn't bother me for small ad-hoc patches that I don't want to wait for them to fix. But it sure would be a disqualifying criterion for me when it comes to pouring in significant time of unpaid voluntary work. For that, I'd look for a more community-based project on an equal footing. But then again, to each their own criteria and evaluation.
Re: Ask HN: What audio/sound-related OSS projects can I contribute to?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a fair point, and I guess its weighed in my balance by the fact that I'm contributing under the GPL but also doing commercial work with it (plugins) as well, so for me its quite a win-win situation. I have no problems contributing to the framework I'm also using extensively ..
> its weighed in my balance by the fact that I'm contributing under the GPL Are you sure you're contributing "under the GPL" though? It's common for such dual-license commercial projects to demand (lest contributions be ignored and not integrated) of external contributors that they agree to a Contributor License Agreement, which grants the dual-license commercial project the right to sublicense the contribution howev…
>release your own code using it under GPL as well
Yes this is what I'm doing - although there are a lot of ways GPL'ed software can nevertheless still be used to generate revenue ..
>For that I'd look for a more community-based project on an equal footing.
I've found the JUCE community to be quite supportive, very knowledable and for those who don't want to pay the small license fee, the GPL requirement has been enough to produce a lot of great projects. The OP would be well-advised to inform themselves: