:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Sunday, April 22, 2007 ::

F.O.S.S.

Thanks to hard.off for putting me in contact with Andy Farnell, who he knows via the Pd list.

On his recommendation I popped along to a lunchtime talk by Jake Rayson on Free Free Software at The Cube last week. I was hoping to find out something about getting started with Pd (as I still haven't really got anywhere despite blogging about my intention to for a couple of years now). Although the talk was primarily about getting people who don't use any Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) to consider it I did find some very interesting stuff.

First off, heres some of Jake's recommended FOSS projects. They are all GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac compatible.

Apart form obvious stuff like The Open CD Project, Open Office, Firefox, GIMP (and a skinned version for PhotoShop users, which is of course named GIMPShop) there were also some more complex graphics packages I wasn't aware of. These were Illustrator clones Scribus and Inkscape.
Stunning animation from Blender (The Elephants Dream)
Basic web authoring with N-Vu
VLC Media Player
And audio editor & recorder Audacity

Audacity was demonstrated by playing an MP3 file that he had recently got his hands on from a DJ friend, of Mark E. Smith's new project with Mouse on Mars, The Flenderm Will Get It. It sounds great. Nice to see The Fall working with electronics again, as the material they recorded with Coldcut years ago was excellent (even though I'm not a big Coldcut fan) and this is in much the same vein.

I also found out from Ben at Bristol Wireless that an Open Source version of Buzz Tracker is in development.It goes by the fantastic name of Buzztard.

Most importantly, I found out that Andy and Jake are running a PureData beginners workshop in June, details as follows:

The Pure Data workshop has been booked for Saturday 9th and Sunday
10th June, 10am-4pm.
It will be over at the St Werburghs Community Centre
The workshop leader is Andy Farnell
Andy has some tutorials here
And here is the Pd site
and the download section
Cost will be £80, concessions will be £40.
Let me know how definite you are. Also, spread the word :)
cheers, Jake
--
Jake Rayson
[*] firebox.nu FOSS training
[e] jake[at]firebox[dot]nu

Labels: FOSS, Pd

:: Dan 22.4.07 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Comments:

Been using for years, but still feels like I've barely scratched the surface with Gimp - might have a look at that inkscape though - thanks...

Got a project in mind for audacity too...

# posted by  doppelganger : 22/4/07 9:16 PM

 

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

<\$BlogBacklinkControl\$> <\$BlogBacklinkTitle\$> <\$BlogBacklinkDeleteIcon\$>

<\$BlogBacklinkSnippet\$>
posted by <\$BlogBacklinkAuthor\$> \@ <\$BlogBacklinkDateTime\$>

<\$BlogItemBacklinkCreate\$>