What's next

You have your ups and downs I guess. Right now I'm on the up side, planning my next steps. I've started using this repository for fresh versions of music apps: https://launchpad.net/~philip5/+archive/extra - which among other things means that Qtractor and Traverso works.

Here is some of the things I'm planning to do as soon as I get more time:

• Check out Traverso and Qtractor and see if they would make a good replacement for Ardour, or if I should stick with Ardour when sequencing audio
  
• Compare Sweep, ReZound and Audacity and see which audio editor I prefer
  
• Try to get my MIDI foot controller to work with SooperLooper or Kluppe for live audio looping
  
• Try out the Rakarrack guitar rack
  
• See if the organ/synth emulator Bristol can be made any more stable than last time I tried it
  

Also, I've ran into an "audio loop slicer" called Smasher. It looks promising!

I'm still very impressed by the number and diversity of music applications for Linux and I would like to contribute more to this community. However, am still frustrated that it's not easier to set it all up than it is...

Using a MIDI controller - the Nobels MF-2

I have recently purchased an old MIDI foot controller, a Nobels MF-2 (pictured here). Part 3 of Dave Phillips' "Brief survey" of Linux MIDI applications (from 2004!) directed me towards kmidimon (for monitoring MIDI events) and QMidiRoute (for routing MIDI commands). I still haven't figured out how to hook things up, but the signals from the pedal show up in kmidimon, which is a good sign.

I have yet to read the MF-2 owner's manual (thankfully downloadable from Nobels) and figure out how the pedal itself works. Then I will make an effort to understand this MIDI routing business.

My intention is to control start/stop/overdub in SooperLooper and start/stop active loops in seq24. Any helpful hints are appreciated.