Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

toddyjoe · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 107

After a few weeks of work, here is another handful of dotpups for audio/music/home-recording applications. These were created with Puppy 1.0.8rc1 so that ALSA is already installed but all should work fine with the newer Puppy2 series. Each of the dotpups were tested on three computers (including a 400 MHz/128MB laptop) but Rosegarden in particular needs a powerful computer to be of any use. These dotpups either require or improve in performance with JACK, so you may want to install the JACK-Qjackctl dotpup I posted a couple of months ago if you need JACK. All libraries and requirements besides JACK and ALSA are included in the dotpups.

(1) Rosegarden 4
There is already a dotpup for Rosegarden version 2, but even Rosegarden's developers admit that version is ancient and outdated. Welcome to Rosegarden 4, an impressive audio and MIDI editor, score editor and music composition and sequencing environment that makes version 2 look like a toy. This dotpup includes the Rosegarden Handbook help guide but you have to close the Handbook and start it a second time to get the Handbook pictures to load correctly (I have no idea why after much tinkering). This dotpup also includes the huge KDE libraries, which makes the dotpup quite big in size. I wanted to cut out the KDE libraries to make the Rosegarden dotpup smaller and allow for two downloads (Rosegarden dotpup and KDE dotpup), but Rosegarden was very finicky about which KDE and KDE Base libraries worked correctly and which did not. I included the necessary KDE packages to avoid any frustration and apologize in advance for the size of the dotpup. Of course, I believe Rosegarden 4 is well worth the download time. Rosegarden 4 requires JACK to be installed and running.

Binary version - 21.1MB (22.2MB):
http://www.savefile.com/files/1822827

(2) Gmorgan
Gmorgan is a rhythm station with modern organ accompaniment and includes a realtime pattern-based sequencer for your drum tracks. Not quite as impressive as Hydrogen for programming drum patterns but pretty good nonetheless. It reminds me of old-school 80's drum sequencers and would probably be great for that kind of vibe. It is certainly much smaller than Hydrogen in download size and seems to be less taxing on the computer, which makes it ideal for a lean, mean system. From what I recall, it does not require JACK but likely performs better with JACK.

Binary version - 992KB (1.02MB)
http://www.savefile.com/files/7282707

(3) Sineshaper
A wonderful graphical soft-synth similar to AmSynth but with different sounds. Unlike many other soft-synths, saving your favorite tweaked sound as a preset is as easy as hitting a button on the main screen. Sineshaper is an application I have been working on for quite some time and had hit a roadblock until MU came up with the new GTK dotpup. The new GTK files and libraries are included in this Sineshaper dotpup, so the same risks of download apply as if you were installing the new GTK dotpup. I personally have had no problems with the GTK dotpup or this dotpup so far. Sineshaper requires JACK to be installed and running.

Binary version - 2.18MB (2.30MB)
http://www.savefile.com/files/8217504

(4) Specimen
A tiny but deadly sample editor used in music distros like DeMuDi. You basically load a simple music sample and proceed to edit it as much as you like. You can do a whole bunch of things: make loops; change the envelope of volume, pitch, resonance, cut, etc.; use a low-pass filter with cutoff and resonance controls; add LFO and adjust LFO envelopes, speed and waveforms; change MIDI velocity and sensitivity; etc. For me, it is a tiny but great program for editing and mangling WAV samples before I put them together in Soundfont files. It does not technically require JACK but I found it easier to set up working audio with JACK installed and running compared to the stock Puppy ALSA. Did I mention the download size is tiny? Smile

Binary version - 352KB (361KB)
http://www.savefile.com/files/1557639

Have fun and please let me know if there are any issues or problems with any of these dotpups. Enjoy!