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I’ve dreamed about an Ableton Live-like open source for a long time. This is a start.
This first revision is wrote in the processing.org language. This allows a quick way to develop for multiple platforms (Linux, Mac and PC). The early versions will concentrate mainly on developing data-scructures, etc. However an important goal is to ensure that each version is usable for some level of music creation.
I hope that by the fourth revision we have moved on to good cross platform development environment to allow native (non-java) binaries for each of Linux, Mac and PC. I am very open to suggestions on the best way to achieve this.
Here’s what the current revision – .10 – can do:
8 tracks of midi
track mutes
track randomize
and… that’s it. You can not actually record or edit the notes – only randomize until you find something you like. However the goal of this revision is primarily to just start – get something going that produces sound. I hope you enjoy. Please do contact if you would like to contribute.
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[...] it’s still a bit basic at the moment, but hey, it’s a start [...]
OMFG the gods came down from heaven and showered me with golden kisses!
i love live and an opensource fersion for my linux too cool. i managed to get life running on linux with a few minor problems but this this is a project worth sticking to
can i be of help with the design aspect.
You sir, are the man! If we can couple this with Mixxx, then it can give Traktor+Ableton a run for its money. You have just made my day.
Tally Ho! I’m in!
Whatever I can do to help dudes…
go go go!
i want to try it
If you want something that will perform well everywhere, write it in C or C++. There are lots of libraries which you’ll be able to access directly. Lots of people know these languages. They are the defacto standard for open source software. Use these to write the core of the system and you will be guaranteed the largest possible set of contributing developers.
Beyond that, I would suggest following the lead of the gaming industry and building most of the application logic in an embedded scripting language like Lua. This will speed the development and refinement of the application and its components (plugins, filters, etc.). If integrated correctly, the whole system can be scriptable by end-users at runtime. I kick myself for spending so much money on Live, which doesn’t have such fundamentally important functionality. (And indeed, I may have to pay out the wazoo to get it with their new ‘Max For Live’ upgrade.)
I recommend Lua because its future in high-performance applications looks very bright. LuaJIT, while still lacking a 64-bit implementation, is astoundingly fast at numerical computations and might even prove suitable for composing effects and sound manipulation. It is drop-in compatible with Lua.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and will be happy to help! I hope these suggestions are salient