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Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

hydrogen-music.org

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Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#71

Post by diminish »

RileyKyeden wrote: post #68
diminish wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ..only reason I have Windows installed on my private computer When you say Reaper, you lose me. I have used it for a long time and it's really the most basic of all the DAW alternatives.

It comes with hundreds of effects, supports scripting, and has a huge library of user add-ons: http://stash.reaper.fm/ You must have a different definition of basic. I've never felt limited by Reaper.

Maybe You have never asked anything beyond basic DAW features. It lacks a live ecosystem and community too.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#72

Post by tofflos »

Pxtl wrote: post #50
donquichotte wrote: post #10

I have tried Hydrogen some time ago when I tried to build a linux audio workstation with Jack and Ardour. As much as it pains me to say this, don't expect it to be even remotely as good as commercial software drum machines like EZDrummer, Superior Drummer or Studio Drummer in terms of sample quality or usability. Generally, I found it prohibitively complicated to set up a well-working low-latency audio workstation, e…

After hearing some oldschool electronica my 9-year old asked me about drum machines. Is there a good kid-friendly one you can recommend for win or android?

Try Figure (originally by Propellerhead). It's not strictly a drum machine but it's fun to explore both from a musical and an user-interface aspect. Available for iOS and Windows.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#73

Post by baldfat »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #58
tjr225 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no issues with latency on MacOS with absolutely zero configuration. It's one of the reasons I won't switch from MacOS to linux.

Likewise, none of my audio devices have required special drivers for Mac, and I can easily get 3ms latency by just plugging it in and making sure buffer size it at a minimum. I produced on Windows forever and didn't believe there would have been a noticeable difference switching to OSX.

I have never in my life seen a Mac out perform a Window machine when it comes to latency and professional audio recording. When it comes to $100-$200 parts it comes to drivers and sometimes Mac wins and sometimes Windows wins. I have a bias that goes beyond Pro-Tools but Pro-Tools was a thing because Apple hardware was not capable of producing Professional level recording without spending thousands of dollars in their proprietary hardware.

Since Windows XP Windows and Audio Latency has not been an issue and both platforms require a lot of end user work to get lower and lower latency. The issue is really only significant for recording audio and not as much when doing live audio. Any modern platforms latency light years ahead of 2000 audio production.

The idea that Mac is better for audio or video because of the OS is marketing and not based on real life professional use of the platforms.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#74

Post by xatan_dank »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #36
peapicker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never used Kontact or EZ Drummer, but seems like it would be hard to beat Ableton Live Suite's combo of drumracks and stacking effects per drum sample... Do you have experience with both? Any reason I should look into the former when I've invested in the latter? edit: Nevermind, after looking at Native's offering (Kontact), I can see it has a lot of advantages for a certain kind of music, but that isn't the music I'm…

I use Ableton and Logic and their built-in drum software often. They're both very good. When you want to program super real sounding drums EZDrummer and especially Kontact are unbeatable (and as another comment mentioned Kontact has libraries for much more than just drums). For me the reason I like contact is that the mixing interface for each element in the kit is really easy to use and tweak. Besides that the sampl…

Thanks for the comment- I was hoping to hear about why you prefer using a 3rd party drum machine in a DAW. For the time being, I record or find all of my samples so I'm not particularly attracted to the kits. The interface looks great however. I probably won't use it anytime soon, but it does appear to be quite powerful.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#75

Post by bane »

Pxtl wrote: post #50
donquichotte wrote: post #10

I have tried Hydrogen some time ago when I tried to build a linux audio workstation with Jack and Ardour. As much as it pains me to say this, don't expect it to be even remotely as good as commercial software drum machines like EZDrummer, Superior Drummer or Studio Drummer in terms of sample quality or usability. Generally, I found it prohibitively complicated to set up a well-working low-latency audio workstation, e…

After hearing some oldschool electronica my 9-year old asked me about drum machines. Is there a good kid-friendly one you can recommend for win or android?

Caustic is great, a full DAW, cheap iOS, Android, windows (free), macos(free).

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#77

Post by squarefoot »

baldfat wrote: post #35
donquichotte wrote: post #10

I have tried Hydrogen some time ago when I tried to build a linux audio workstation with Jack and Ardour. As much as it pains me to say this, don't expect it to be even remotely as good as commercial software drum machines like EZDrummer, Superior Drummer or Studio Drummer in terms of sample quality or usability. Generally, I found it prohibitively complicated to set up a well-working low-latency audio workstation, e…

EZDrummer, and the other examples are a different beast. Those are sample based drum plugins. They are made to sound like real acoustic drums. They are great and wonderful. This is a pastern based drum machine for non-acoustic sounding drums (Usually). So you are comparing two different tools.

EZDrummer actually is a pattern+sample based drum machine like Hydrogen, while Studio Drummer uses pre-recorded audio patterns which could be wonderful to listen to but are very limiting in my opinion, even if played by world class drummers.

> This is a pastern based drum machine for non-acoustic sounding drums (Usually).

The only difference is the set of samples used. Hydrogens sample section, like soft-ROMplers such as NI Battery, has a multi layering method of arranging samples for each instruments according to the played velocity. Actually it offers even more layers than Battery so with the right set of samples it could even sound more realistic.

The only problem is the lack of free real sounding acoustic drum samples as most people don't want to use them in favor of distorted sounds with ton of effects. This is so wrong; a decent sound engineer can get the "industrial" sound out of a jazz acoustic set, but no mixing console god in the world can do the other way around. Never ever ever ever sample drums with effects, always record the samples dry and add effects afterwards when needed.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#79

Post by eropple »

baldfat wrote: post #73
squeaky-clean wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, none of my audio devices have required special drivers for Mac, and I can easily get 3ms latency by just plugging it in and making sure buffer size it at a minimum. I produced on Windows forever and didn't believe there would have been a noticeable difference switching to OSX.

I have never in my life seen a Mac out perform a Window machine when it comes to latency and professional audio recording. When it comes to $100-$200 parts it comes to drivers and sometimes Mac wins and sometimes Windows wins. I have a bias that goes beyond Pro-Tools but Pro-Tools was a thing because Apple hardware was not capable of producing Professional level recording without spending thousands of dollars in thei…

> Since Windows XP Windows and Audio Latency has not been an issue

Core Audio literally-just-works with low latency and aggregated devices.

DAWs on Windows still either use MME/DX for north of 50ms, often 100ms+ latency or ASIO (exclusive device usage and no aggregation, assuming your hardware even has ASIO drivers because ASIO4ALL is at best rickety) on Windows.

I don't know what you think is going on with OS X, but I suggest re-evaluating your assumptions.

Re: Hydrogen – An advanced drum machine for Linux

#80

Post by squeaky-clean »

baldfat wrote: post #73
squeaky-clean wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, none of my audio devices have required special drivers for Mac, and I can easily get 3ms latency by just plugging it in and making sure buffer size it at a minimum. I produced on Windows forever and didn't believe there would have been a noticeable difference switching to OSX.

I have never in my life seen a Mac out perform a Window machine when it comes to latency and professional audio recording. When it comes to $100-$200 parts it comes to drivers and sometimes Mac wins and sometimes Windows wins. I have a bias that goes beyond Pro-Tools but Pro-Tools was a thing because Apple hardware was not capable of producing Professional level recording without spending thousands of dollars in thei…

> Since Windows XP Windows and Audio Latency has not been an issue and both platforms require a lot of end user work to get lower and lower latency.

As the other commentor said, Core Audio "just works" for low latency. MIDI is great as well. Windows still needs third party ASIO drivers.

If a USB MIDI controller gets unplugged during a set on Windows, I need to restart Ableton. On Mac, you just plug it back in and it picks up immediately, even the audio interface will do that.

> The issue is really only significant for recording audio and not as much when doing live audio.

What? Latency is a non-issue for recording audio, and A HUGE ISSUE for live usage. Any half-decent DAW supports latency compensation on non-realtime tracks. You can record a vocal track when every other instrument has 10s of seconds of latency, as long as your monitoring for the vocals has none. When playing live, every single track cannot have latency.

Edit, hell many of the best audio interfaces don't even support Windows as a platform.

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