On my personal Plone setup I am using chroots to separate services. In such configuration starting Plone trough the daemontools is pretty eaasy:

root@idoru /etc/service # cat /etc/service/dev.bluszcz.net/run
#!/bin/sh
exec chroot /chroots/personal/ sudo -u bluszcz /home/bluszcz/dev.bluszcz.net/zinstance/bin/instance console

Some time ago I have been asked to make one minute audio track for video, which will be submitted for some contest - I don't know too details at all :)

However, I delivered clip on time and few days later video had been recorded / finished, Hypothetical Future, enjoy!

hypothetical future from creactivesisters on Vimeo.

Da dam, new track :)

Vocals & lyrics:::

• anam cara

Used software:::

• Ubuntu 10.10 extended to KXStudio
• jack2
• recorded and mixed in Renoise 2.6.1 along with mass of native filters and tools (great duplex)
• audacity,  jamin (post mastering)
• TAL-NoiseMaker Linux VST
  
• Tal Dub 3 Linux VST
• LADSPA am pitchshifer
• CreakBox VST
• Loomer Sequent Linux VST
• Mr Alias 2 Linux VST

hardware:::

• Laptop Dell XPS

• novation launchpad
• Korg nanoKontrol
• Alesis MultiMix4

• studio monitors Krk 5

samples of water:::

* http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=43760

* http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=98335

It took around one week from first record / first drum track to final master and release. Enjoy!

Today I wanted to check mixcloud service - as an alternative to SoundCloud. I got a bit suspicious when they offered me create account using my Facebook profile (which I don't have). Fortunately they provided also possibility to use your email ;)

Ok, I created the account and... then I saw what below:

Mixcloud is sponsored by stripping girl? Let's make than affiliation with Red Tube, straight ahead :)

energyXT is a multiplatform DAW - digital audio workstation which runs under Linux, MacOSX and Windows. Along with Renoise and Ardour it is for sure one of the most mature Linux application for creating / mixing audio.

Korg nanoKontrol is a simply MIDI controller and belongs to nanoSERIES.  Works perfectly as 8 channels controller (volume of every channel + mute / solo buttons).

Unfortunately, they don't work together out of the box - unfortunately Linux version is a bit cut off when comparing to Windows one (there is still no proper Jack support, MIDI support still needs improvment and no VST version of application). However it is possible :).

First of all, for today (13th of February, 2011) latest stable (2.5.4) version has broken support of MIDI. If you want to play with MIDI controllers, you have to download beta version, which has this bug fixed: http://www.energy-xt.com/beta/.

You can find description of this problem here:

http://getsatisfaction.com/energyxt/topics/midi_control_not_working_in_2_5_4

Next, you need an alternative Jack driver for energyXT with extended MIDI support: http://sourceforge.net/projects/libaam-jack/files/1.0/.

After download unpack archive and execute make command inside created directory. Created file libaam.so copy to your energyXT directory (yes, you will overwrite default one).

Another necessary utility is a2jmidid, it allows you to expose ALSA based MIDI interfaces in Jack environment:

$ a2jmidid
JACK MIDI <-> ALSA sequencer MIDI bridge, version 6 () built on Thu Jan  1 01:00:00 1970
Copyright 2006,2007 Dmitry S. Baikov
Copyright 2007,2008,2009 Nedko Arnaudov
Bridge starting...
Using JACK server 'default'
Hardware ports will not be exported.
Bridge started
Press ctrl-c to stop the bridge
port created: Midi Through [14] (capture): Midi Through Port-0
port created: Midi Through [14] (playback): Midi Through Port-0

After it you can route your Korg controller into energyXT, first route it into MIDI Trough IN:

and next route MIDI Trough into energyXT (you need alternative Jack driver, described above to make it working):

With this setup you can finally run energyXT and use below energyXT tutorial to play with your controller:

Introduction

Behringer BCD3000 is a simply and cheap Dj Deck console.

Under Linux it is detected as USB audio interface with MIDI interface. It works prettly well with Linux and is supported (presets are included by default) by Mixxx, free cross-platform digital DJ mixing software. Besides of main function (DJ mixing) it can be used effectively as MIDI controller with DAW (like Renoise) or mixer with possibility to records external instruments (along with Ardour).

Connecting DJ Console

Behringer BCD3000 should be directly connected to USB socket in your computer, without any external hub  - in this way we can provide maximum bandwidth for device. In case of problems with running jackd - you can try connect BCD3000 to another socket.

Starting jackd

We are going to start BCD3000 in duplex mode, as device with 4 output and 4 input channels:

jackd -d alsa -d -P hw:1 -C hw:1 -D

Assuming, that you configured properly your jackd realtime feature.

Configuration of audio connections

Run qjackctl and set proper connection with your application.

if you would like later to reuse your configuration, use patchbay functionality.

Ubuntu is pretty well equipped in terms of amount packages with music oriented software. Unfortunately some of them are in old (even buggy versions).

KXStudio is for now (due to my knowledge) best Multimedia fork of Ubuntu. You can check it here:

Setting proper limits

Depends on your distribution, edit one of following files:

/etc/security/limits.conf

or

/etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf

to make sure that they include:

@audio - rtprio 95
@audio - memlock 1024000
@audio - nice -19 

Value for memlock should be around 80% of your memory. Of course you have to have audio group in your system.

To create it type:

adduser --group audio

Add your user to the audio group:

adduser bluszcz audio

And make sure, that your window manager is using pam. If you are using slim along with Ubuntu, than you have to create manually file:

/etc/pam.d/slim

with following content:

session required pam_limits.so