[ardour-dev] Hello Mailing Lists and a couple questions

[Benjamin Racher]

Hello,

I thought I'd sign up for the list considering i've been a very proud
ardour user for some time now and am looking to get up to my neck in
audio software development.

First, let me tell you about my current activities. I'm a student at
IUPUI, where I'm starting a student radio station. However, we have an
extremely tight budget for our baby steps, which is one of the reasons
I'm exploring all the linux software (aside from its incredible
flexibility).

So... starting a radio station, also trying to start a record label, and
zine for my friends bands, record albums, etc... Also trying to do
Computer Science so I can learn about recursive functions and all the
math jibber jabber. Would love to pursue software radio some day.

Blah blah blah...

Secondly, thank you developers for writing ardour. It has been
incredibly useful. We've recorded a total of 2 albums using ardour,
nothing magnificent, but its a start. It feels great to be taking steps
away from commercial software.

Now that I've overly introduced myself, I have a couple questions. For
the radio station, we need an on-air console. However, just today I
discovered a cheaper solution to the typical $10,000 audio consoles:
control surfaces. I see from the site that ardour plans to work with the
mackie control surface, is there any existing functionality with any
control surfaces? If so, I could purchase a control surface for the
station, use it with ardour and solve the mixing console problem? Would
cueing be a possibility this way? Can ardour be expanded and used for
broadcast applications in addition to its already outstanding production
capabilities? I'd be happy to test this stuff out.

Amazingly, almost all the stations technical requirements can be
satisfied using linux software. Been experimenting with
http://livesupport.campware.org for our automation software. Using
ardour and audacity for production. JAMIN as our compressor for
mastering and as final element in our signal path before it hits the
tower. JACK as the all purpose audio routing mechanism. Darkice and
icecast for streaming. Go Linux!

Finally, I noticed that the future for ardour's license looks like it
might be closed-source. Is this true? I understand that we all have to
make money, I just wondered if somebody could clarify this.

Thanks! Apologies for rambling and the flurry of questions, hope to hear
back from you.

- Ben