Multichannel Audio Devices and Linux (not a love story)

Something has been bothering me for some time since moving to PipeWire on my Linux boxes, and that is the way multichannel audio devices are handled. As we all know (and loath), Linux audio is complicated and terrible, but the upshot is that it gives us a lot of control and the possibility of extremely low latency — critical to realtime audio recording, processing, programming, etc.

Read More

A Flawless Linux Audio Experience…

I’m not just an emissary for Linux Audio, like everyone else who relies on it and extols its (few) virtues, I’m also its biggest detractor. So when you read “a flawless linux audio experience” you might think I’m trolling you, and in the distant past (say several months ago) you would definitely be correct. But…

Read More

Pipewire and JACK on Arch Linux

This is a quick post to talk about my recent experience configuring Pipewire and JACK on Arch Linux. Now, I’m not an Arch adherent and maybe you aren’t either. That’s fine because I’ll talk about the minimal install and the packages that are required to get Pipewire and JACK working. This will not cover moving…

Read More

State Inter State

Recorded improvisation: 19’23 Hardware Components: Scott Petersen/Ethan Bernard: Custom HEF4046BP audio feedback circuit Koma Elektronik: Field Kit FX Korg: Delay Monotron Technical description: This performance was accomplished through the slow rotation of a single potentiometer (one of six) that changed the internal feedback relationship between the three oscillators of the custom circuit. The knob was…

Read More

New Synth Jam

There’s a new OMI Synth Jam recording up here. Thanks to Mark for recording the sessions and uploading them! If you are interested in finding out about Synth Jams *before* they happen, hit the Subscribe tab and drop your email. You will only be alerted when new content is created or when a new event…

Read More

Fun with the Wien Bridge Oscillator

To the fledgling electronics enthusiast who has just enough knowledge of electronic music theory to be dangerous, it makes sense that the simplest tone, the sine tone, should be the simplest/easiest to construct in the analog electronics domain.  Of course, this is not the case.  While geometrically simple to describe, the sine tone is not…

Read More

DIY Workshop Madness

I am really excited to be teaching a series of open source software and hardware workshops this year at Yale as part of a new initiative we started called the Open Music Initiative.  The aim of the initiative is to indoctrinat… er, expose faculty and students to the merits of FLOSS and open source hardware via workshops wherein…

Read More