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Pocket FL Studio!
Hello, I am really interested in the new Nokia N900 and I might even buy it, if there would be an application that you can make music with.
I have seen some apps, but they were more like toys. I use FL Studio on my PC, It's my favourite audio workstation, and I would like something very similar, but mobile version. I'm talking about an application that you control with the stylus, not your fingers. If you look at fl studio at the first time, you will see a spaceship control panel-like interface. It would be really hard to navigate through all those functions, so I gathered all those I would need. http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/535...properties.png 1. Pan/Volume knob 2. The volume properties of the instrument.(Delay, attack, release etc) 3. ModX = cutoff frequency http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/217...rolleditor.png This is the most important part, the piano roll, this is where the melody is composed, and this is why this application will be hard to use with fingers. There won't be any sliders on the screen. Scrolling will be done with the physical keys. I wouldnt want to see any other on screen, just the piano and the space for the notes. Selecting tool and playing the notes would be done by pressing key combinations like P for playing pattern. CTRL + touch for selecting notes. SHIFT+ touch for resizing them. Touch to move them. Now onto the drums, http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/9210/patterneditor.png Those little boxes are the notes, they dont have controllable pitch. This is an easy way to create a drumloop. That little graph button activates the volume switch for the channel you selected then you can modify the volume for each note. The app should have some basic samples to work with and should be able to use the sound files on the phone or memory card. Do you think this is possible with the new phone? Any suggestions? This would be a SUPER application and it would make great advantage against other phones like the iphone :p Garfield2142 |
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Glad to see another fellow audio creator on the scene. I'm a hardware guy myself, but I cut my sample manipulation chops on early Fruity Loops versions. However, I think building a new app would be better than porting FL Studio. I'd look at an interface more similar to MachFive instead, given the smaller screen. I expect someone will give us musicians and beatmakers an option. Maybe create a brainstorm or something...
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FL Studio in a linux world = LMMS ( http://lmms.sourceforge.net )
Now running lmms on an N900 is another story |
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I agree. The environment doesn't lend to all of the buttons, which is why I suggested a MachFive-like app with a more compact UI. Maybe the LMMS devs can be compelled with enough users expressing desire for it.
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There are some audio development apps available in the repositories. They even exist on iPhone OS. But I don't take any of them serious.
You won't have VST available either since most of these are written for Windows/x86-32 hence won't work on Linux/ARM. Although, judging on your screenshots, you're not going to use synthesizers, require MIDI; you have your samples already. What you then need is a sequencer or tracker. A program to resample your samples. Preferably in the sequencer or tracker. Your last screenshot is just the same as the piano roll; just a difference interface, and allowing some resampling options not available in 'piano roll'. You're also going to need the stylus. Or some kind of zoom option. And the knobs which you turn around are not nice combined with a touchscreen. Hate to be a negative *** but you're just better off with a netbook running Windows XP and Fruity Loops provided the sound quality it delivers is good enough (read reviews for that). |
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This is an area where the accelerometer can SHINE.
In this case, the user interface is far to large to confortably fit on a tiny screen. Imagine, tilting the device to scroll around interface quickly and naturally, as you fiddle with all of those knobs/sliders. Thus the N900 screen only sees a portion of the full interface, and you slide around it to gain access to the whole thing. Before you write off the idea as lunacy, consider that Quake3 on the N900 has tilt-to-slide-about controls, and they're useful enough to play! I bet with a little practice this interaction method will become very natural! }:^)~ |
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The Linux alternative mentioned earlier would be perfect with an optimized UI, but good luck waiting on that. Too many hills to climb, as was pointed out about the ARM vs. x86 issue. Steinberg owns VST, so they'd have to support the VST port to ARM first. Quote:
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Accelerometer would shine how? How would it know how much tilt the user gives means how much interface should be changed?
The power of N900 lies in touch screen with keyboard IMO. That Apple monster has only 3 hardware buttons (power, volume_up, volume_down) and there is not much to control via that. I know what Fruity Loops is, but TS made screenshots of the features he needed. I don't see any screenshots of software synths. A sample player it is, and it can resample, but I'm not aware it has (software) instruments you can record, although it does have MIDI support. |
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This would be biggg, I make and sell hip hop instrumentals that I produce with FL Studio 9. Something like this would be BOOM. If we have some developers available, I offer to design the whole thing.
@christexaport, I'm glad your "chapelle/kanye" "soulsearching" is over dude, glad to see you back, did you hear the official portrait announcement? Looks like your lobbying paid off. |
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The tilt/reveal model: The idea: The N900 screen would show a portion of the app interface, and by tilting the device, it would pan the display over the interface in the direction of the tilt. The explination: Think of the app interface as a large window. Now think of a box over some portion of it. That box is the N900 screen which displays only the portion of the window that's inside the box. Now imagine that as you tilt the window, the box slides in the direction of tilt. The more you tilt, the faster it slides. Thus, as you tilt to the left, you pan to the left of the window, revealing a portion that you couldn't see before. The Benefit: This system is a novel way to view a large window on a small screen without having to use finger gestures to navigate. Simply use fingers to interact with the onscreen controls, and tilt the device to scroll vertically and horizontally! Moreover, this tilt/reveal model can be used for MANY linux ports that simply couldn't fit onto the N900 screen without having to modify them AT ALL. With the correct wrapper, it could provide a quick-port solution for window'd apps that are not yet maemoinized. Similarily, this would work well for VNC's, maps, and any app that has a displayable area that's larger than the physical screen. Combined with the zoom buttons, a user could quickly navigate a very large interface plane naturally, freeing the touch-screen for pure app interaction. }:^)~ |
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Might be better for the app to have "desktops" ? you can swipe between views?
i.e. Home screen with "links" to the other views view 1. playlist/multitrack view - arrange patterns - create song arrangement view 2. sequencer - load samples - pencil in steps - press for instrument settings (i.e. attack/hold/decay/echo/pitch/pan etc) - press & hold for piano roll view 3. mixer - compressor - multiband eq - couple other plug ins - 24 channel mixer? Let's do this, I am so down. Let's hunt for some developers and get this going. Whats the next step? |
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I understood what you meant, but perhaps the user is walking around to get a cup of coffee, or putting the machine down to drink a sip of coffee, or changes the angle she is sitting.
It is difficult to combine the accuracy of the accelerometer to be used for interaction with the screen. Especially for serious work like composing where you want top notch usability. The accelerometer precision may be useful in some games but not in this particular case. Seriously, this doesn't work. I can already imagine the desktop being drunk from a user who is quitting smoking hahaha :D. What may work is if you make it less accurate (sensitive), and only tilt to a full next screen after e.g. a 30 degrees tilt. After that, the device must be kept straight again in order to switch again to another direction. This way of interacting may be feasible in situations where you can really not use the touchscreen to navigate. If that is the case here I leave up for debate. BTW, one application for iPhone OS has the synthesizers above each other, you can browse up and down for different synthesizers but there are not many and they are connected in a static way. However you can navigate only '50%' so you get a different combination you are able to modify, and that is 1) pretty cool 2) not possible, or rather difficult, in my proposal. |
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Without that you have no idea which samples you're going to use. It may very well be the case you're gonna switch back and forth between composing with instruments and sequencing, while your sequencer doesn't speak MIDI. It is also best to do the mastering in the sequencer instead of in a WAV editor. Why burden yourself with such pain? Why not simply use a device meant for this usage? You can run Fruity Loops on a Windows XP netbook/laptop (probably with USB and some other hardware), and it'll run much better than what we imagine. Given the state of Linux audio development I won't hold my breath for this kind of application. There are not many people who will develop this open source. While touch screens can be used to audio development there are much, much cooler and useful aspects. Like this one: Reactable. However if you're determined I recommend to first take a look at the current applications and see if there are possibilities to port them over. It'll probably be easy to port them to Linux/ARM (Maemo), as they are already ported by the Debian project, but getting them to work well with the touchscreen interface with 800x480 in a usable manner will be a very difficult, daunting task because you're gonna give the whole interface a major face lift. |
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I'm a producer myself, joshua.maverick. I'm all about the backpacker sound, if that means anything to you. Maybe we can do some mashing together one day. I've been at this 9 years, but I do it for the love. Spent over $160k on gear during my thuggish hustling days, but now my needs are simpler. I think anything like this would need a more simple and compact UI, so maybe study MachFive as a model. It has access to all of the features of FL with a much better interface for at-a-glance usage. Its used for live setups sometimes. As for my "chappelle/Kanye" issues, I'm bipolar, and I've been struggling this month. Personal issues, family probs, etc. I'm back, though. Had to get my mental health back in order. I'm good, and thanks for noticing my return. ;) I knew ASR and portrait were gonna be needed. I'm actually pretty knowledgeable about mobiles. Just had a hard time communicating suffering from mania for a week straight. Sleep is something most take for granted. I'd had probably ten hours that entire week. Its hard sometimes. |
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What I'd like to see is something like Celemony Melodyne for audio stretching, which is my favorite tool of choice, and could be more useful on a mobile. Maybe the Syntrax guys will port to Maemo. It was pretty good. Here's their site. http://www.finished.nl/ |
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and allnameswereout, FL has its own synths, too. But I think a more simple app to edit waves and mp3, add effects, and sequence would be better than a ported step sequencer.
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http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31583 |
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I appreciate your input! }:^)~ |
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Some links I gathered recently...
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Catego...o_Applications http://ubuntustudio.org/ http://linuxmusicians.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...audio_software http://www.ardour.org/ http://www.jokosher.org/ http://www.hydrogen-music.org/ http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ |
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that would awesome to use flstudio on a maemo device
yesterday i installed debian beta3 onto my n810, and im trying to install lmms these days |
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OKay so whats the next step, I can start making some mock ups on an 800x480 res if that helps? Do we have any developers who could help out/are interested?
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I think you've found that thing you want for your device. Cool. Press on, Joshua.maverick. Its the only way to get 'er done.
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Let's call it maemo-studio. I'll start designing some mock ups, we need to solidify the requirements of the project though.
1. Pattern Step sequencer, where users can add channels, and load samples. 2. Playlist to arrange the patterns what else is integral in a basic sampler? |
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Here is some: there are Linux distributions, even live CDs/DVDs, which you can boot and get a full environment for creating artwork. Isn't limited to only audio. Once you used these applications and see which ones are good and which ones aren't you can check their dependencies and check if there is a Debian/ARM(EL) port available. If yes, chances are software will compile on sbox and run on Maemo. Meanwhile, if you found functionality good, you need to think of the following: will this application run OK on Maemo 5 with N900? Think of screen size, input methods, resources available. Sometimes the only way to know this is practice ie. run the program on N900. I listed a few quality GTK and Qt to give you an idea of how these programs are optimized for mouse usage while at the same time exciting you about Linux/x86-32 audio development. Same for list of Linux audio applications. Linuxmusicians might be a good platform. I don't know. You need mindshare, but take into account most Linux users do not run Maemo 5 on Nokia N900 while wanting to do audio development on the device. Nevermind finger touch UI for that purpose. Entire new reality! Although some may have seen some other platforms doing this. The OpenMoko list is a different beast: it shows us which applications are touch friendly right now. Good luck!! |
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all I can think of off my head. |
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Cut(off), Res(onance), LPF, BPF, HPF.
MIDI editor on device without MIDI interface... it still doesn't make much sense... |
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I think that the basic programs (besides games of course) that the community should try to provide to maemo 5 should be open office, a good video editor, a photo editor, a cad program and a music studio. Without these applications the all conversation of pocket computers doesn’t make much sense.
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MIDI editing will be useful. Many of us have midi files for drum breakbeats we may want to use with new samples, and you can also export the midi file into something else. If you have a MIDI editior, you can adjust velocity and other things in the environment most are used to. I'd use it, and I've done digital audio professionally for over 9 years now. I think you'll find the hip hop crowd will need it. |
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I'm with the Corrupt Captain on this.
As a musician myself I'm highly interested in including the Maemo devices into my creative process. I blabbered about it a bit during co-create sessions in the Community section, but to be honest I'm not sure I'd be able to offer concrete on ideas on where/how the N900 and its relatives could contribute. But I'm betting someone will eventually whip out some really cool app(s) and we'll all go "o crap, why didn't we see that coming???" ;) |
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something simple we could build off of could be a simple drum machine. Before adding the support to insert samples, just include a simple set of drums, a kick, snare, high hat, 4 toms, a ride cymbal, a crash cymbal, and a tamborine. Allow users to set a BPM, allow event quantization, sequencing and looping of 2, 4, 8, or 16 bars, sequence playlists, and exporting of an audio and MIDI file.
This would be something great for a songwriter like texrat, and would be good for the rapper that needs a little inspiration to pen a few bars. Once the beat sequence is created, the MIDI sequence can be exported to the desktop DAW, drum machine, or keyboard workstation, where it can be edited, and the standard sounds can be replaced with higher quality versions, bring the basic sequence to life. That could be a good start, and features can be added down the road, but this core feature could be something we could use immediately. And maybe the other features can be added later. |
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You're right chris but you still need a 3rd party which does support MIDI, and there is an additional step required. If you need to import and export a lot thats gonna piss you off eventually. But has its uses. Also for example on a live session while playing an instrument on a certain place of podium you could use the N900 to remotely control the laptop running some software. Maybe even with a simplified protocol, with the N900 having optimized touchscreen.
But all this is dreams and doesn't take into account the current state of Linux audio production which must be looked into. Not only available applications, also the infrastructure. I'm not sure how well supported PulseAudio is, or how well suited it is replacement for JACK (low latency sound server), but back around 2003 we used JACK. For example, instead of an all-in-one application, one can use a patchbay for JACK to connect several (KISS) applications. PulseAudio also has low latency support (comes with performance price either way!), and networking support, but I don't think the latter is an alternative for MIDI. You must also use -rt kernel. In fact, besides that allows you to learn applications and infrastructure running Ubuntu Studio on PC with a N900 remote connected, gives some idea of how the interface looks and works on N900 (but not performance). |
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I've been using Hydrogen (via EasyDebian) to create beats for about a year now on my N800. It is extremely powerful, runs smoothly, and I can load it without actually going into the EasyDeb environment. Would it be better to create something from scratch or to see if this could be easily packaged without EasyDebian?
Hydrogen has a superb GUI, and can hold its own against any other Drum Machine. I have created melodies, chords, and bass lines with it too. dcarter |
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I contacted the developer already. Been waiting a couple days, but no answer back yet.
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Soooo, the next step iss?
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I think we need a dev to at least start work on the rudimentary features I mentioned in post 34. How we find him/her/them is another story. Any clues, Maemo faithful?
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