Music-making Software (daws, Sequencers, Recorders Etc) For Pandora

[cobaltage]

cobaltage mentioned that the pandora has a mic-in ... I totally didn't realise, but that is awesome if true! Is it a general purpose port? in other words, can the amp be disabled to allow it to become a line-in style input for a mixing board input.
It'd be a dream come true to have this connected up as an backup recorder or even better, a shoutcast streamer

If the mic-in is incorporated into the headphone port as I think it is, it would be more like the headphone/headset jack on the iPhone and probably some other phones. There are four separate signals running through the iPhone jack: stereo out, mic in, and control signal-in. The signals can be split if you make the right cable for it. (The reason Im talking about the iPhone is that this issue has come up for multitrack recording apps on the iPhone.) The old video iPod runs a video-out signal in place of the mic-in signal on the iPhone, so if you pick up the video iPod to composite audio/video cable, the signal running through the composite video output is actually capable of running audio-in instead. I hope that makes sense.

However, I wouldnt necessarily think a microphone from a headset is going to perform better than a built in microphone. I have recorded myself playing guitar with both the iPhone internal mic and the mic on the Etymotic HF2 headphone/headset, and the Etymotic mic is too sensitive and not necessarily better than the built in mic. It would be possible to build a break-out box or to use a specially made cable to run into a mini-mic amp, maybe. But that is hardly going to be portable, unless you put in some time and do it right.

In the end, though, I think USB audio is kind of the way to go, for simplicity and also for XLR inputs with phantom power. A couple companies make single-mic XLR to USB adapters with headphone out for monitoring. (Like the one that you can buy with Indamixx, which is a Linux based touchscreen DAW.) Those are about as small as you can get for a single normal-sized microphone. I feel like there has to be some kind of USB audio interface that works with Linux already, since some people use desktop Linux for DAW work.

 

[Tom`]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/modplug/

Nice and easy tracker! (openMPT)

Unless something has changed recently, Modplug is Windows-based and will remain so, given the amount of win32-specific code. MilkyTracker is probably the best easily-portable tracker right now, and it already has a GP2X version: milkytracker.net

 

[renegadechic]

just had a play around with LMMS on my XP machine and i have to say i am pretty impressed. i'm from a cubase and logic background and this looks very much as versatile. will be interesting to see what the performance is like in comparison. my pc is a P4 1.7GHz with about 500MB RAM and a basic pc sound card, and it struggles a bit playing some of the demos. i wonder whether being a more efficient and modern system the pandora will match the performance, see what happens.

*sigh* i need a new pc (and a job to pay for it)

 

[Babrios]

... my pc is a P4 1.7GHz with about 500MB RAM and a basic pc sound card, and it struggles a bit playing some of the demos. i wonder whether being a more efficient and modern system the pandora will match the performance...

that's unlikely.

 

[socket]

I actually am not at all familiar with trackers. They dont really make sense to me, exactly. I played with the one for the Nintendo DS (Nitrotracker I think) but I couldnt get into the interface.

Actually Nitrotracker has a very slick interface, in comparison to some desktop trackers. So I would honestly imagine trackers just aren't your cup o' tea.

I have to agree. I'm a piano roll kinda guy. I just cannot visualize hex as being notes, and that's a killer in musical productivity for me.

Eep. I could never get into the piano roll thing. It doesn't make sense in my brain. I'd love to see milky optimized for the Pandora. I know it's a matter of taste, but I tried and tried to get into more modern music sequencing tools and just could never get it. I honestly love the raw programming feel of the hex numbers scrolling by one the screen. Always made me honestly more creative because you kind of had to be.

 

[PoisonedV]

i hate trackers because quantized stuff is so boring. whenever i try making something in them im stopped because i cant actually make it sound how i want

 

[teppic]

i hate trackers because quantized stuff is so boring. whenever i try making something in them im stopped because i cant actually make it sound how i want

Trackers don't have to mean quantized. You can have great control over timings in a tracker (and often more so than in traditional midi-software. I can agree that it has a slightly steeper learning curve though.

I can't imagine myself using a piano roll-based music app on the pandora, so for me it's about adapting to the console, and I really think trackers will beat anything else on the pandora when it comes to efficiency.

This is reminding me of the open office discussion. You have to remember that we're talking about a handheld, and some concepts just don't scale very well. And yes, I'm a bit biased because I already like trackers (using other kinds of music-software as well though), and perhaps trackers aren't suited for all kinds of musical styles either.

That said, I'd be happy to see all kinds of music-making software for pandora.

 

[PoisonedV]

I have no trouble 'learning' things, please don't be condescending to me. maybe I haven't gotten up to date on trackers in the last few years, but last time I tried some on the gameboy color and one on the gp2x, they were confined to being 'on beat'

 

[BaDToaD]

I have no trouble 'learning' things

You have great trouble learning how not to be an arsehole!

 

[teppic]

I have no trouble 'learning' things, please don't be condescending to me.

I haven't mentioned your learning abilities. If you read it that way that's entirely your interpretation. I don't even know wether you've spent five minutes or several years trying, so I can't possibly make that assumption.

I do mean that it may take some time to get the hang of it. If you don't have the motivation to learn it, fine, but don't say that trackers are incapable just because you don't know how to do it.

QUOTE
maybe I haven't gotten up to date on trackers in the last few years, but last time I tried some on the gameboy color and one on the gp2x, they were confined to being 'on beat'

Usually you have great control over tempo changes, delays, sample offsets and so on. I have never personally tried tracking on a gameboy though, so I can't say much about that.

 

[Loonie]

Well that settles it. We'll have to have both.

 

[cobaltage]

I have a feeling that the trackers on portable systems like the GameBoy are probably not representative of trackers in general. Anything complex is hard to figure out given such limited screen real estate and the complete absence of obvious control parameters. The same is true of Nanoloop for the GBA -- a great little program, but trying to do anything deliberate and even somewhat complex is hard. The lack of touchscreen input makes it twice as hard to get around, IMO.

Maybe we can convince Ableton to make a version of Live! for Pandora.

 

[cobaltage]

By the way, there is a line in (RCA) through the video port, according to the unofficial Pandora blog.