Re: [fluid-dev] New development

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

Josh Green wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-01-29 at 00:12 +0100, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
> > > Seems to me like it is definitely worth improving the existing
> > > PortAudio driver.  Any idea what this would entail?
> > >   Josh
> >
> > Briefly:
> > * Detect and define PORTAUDIO_* in the build system. I've done that using
> > pkg-config portaudio-2.0 >= 19. Allow to disable compilation of this
> > driver, maybe disable it by default?
>
> I think if portaudio is found, it just be included as a driver.  If its
> installed, chances are the user wants to use it.
>
> > * Implement new2() and call new2() from new() as it is usual in most
> > other audio drivers. Or leave that for a later version/never?
>
> The new2 drivers are used by QSynth and perhaps some other applications
> to intercept the audio.
>
> > * Register the setting "audio.portaudio.device" to list/select detected
> > devices and backends as reported by Pa_GetDeviceCount() and
> > Pa_GetDeviceInfo().
> > * Maybe more settings? Some backends would require special ones?
> > * PortAudio API functions changed: Pa_OpenStream(), PaStreamCallback, ...
> > * Testing: ASIO in Windows, but it should also work for other
> > platforms/backends...
> >
> > Regards,
> > Pedro
>
> After looking at the fluid_portaudio.c and seeing how small it was, I
> decided to take a crack at it.  Checked in is the new PortAudio driver
> using PortAudio API 19.  I added device enumeration, but it still needs
> some improvement.  It is using the device names for the setting
> audio.portaudio.device, but these look like they can be rather long and
> I'm not sure if there is any guarantee that they will be unique.  I also
> am using the string "default" to try and select the default device,
> which I was assuming would be device 0, but I'm not sure about that and
> this would also conflict with the ALSA "default" device name.
>
> PortAudio selects its devices based on index.  Perhaps specifying the
> device numerically would be better, though it would be nice to be able
> to see the names in a drop down list in applications as well.
>
> Other improvements would be the addition of a new2 driver.
>
> Anyone willing to try this with ASIO on Windows?
>
> Best regards,
>       Josh

Thanks, Josh!

I will try to find some time this week end to play in Windows. I've already  
succesfully tested it on Linux.

I have a problem with ASIO, though. First, I don't like the license terms from 
Steinberg: they don't allow to redistribute their sources (that are available 
free of charge for registered developers). Second, they ask for an unfair 
amount of personal data before allowing you to download the SDKs. 

I've created binary setup packages for Windows bundling QSynth and FluidSynth 
in the past (available in SourceForge). I fear that I'm not going to include 
ASIO support in the future ones.

Regards,
Pedro