Free stereo software for linux

Gnome/Mono application to copy mp3 files to mp3 player

Stereo is a GTK/mono application for copying MP3 files (either from a 3mu type playlist or database search onto an MP3 player than can be seen by Linux as a USB hard drive.

This is the initial alpha release - 0.0.1.

Spectromatic is a program for generating spectrograms from audio files. Spectrograms are a form of simple time-frequency analysis which lets you see how the distribution of energy at different frequencies in an audio stream change over time. For example, if you play a scale on a musical instrument, you will see a climbing and/or descending pattern of blobs as you move from left to right.

Spectromatic reads its input as mono or stereo 16-bit wave files, and writes the output image to an elongated PNG image (colour for stereo, grayscale for mono audio).

Its very easy. First make sure you have the GNU scientific library (GSL) version 1.0 installed (http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/), and the PNG library version 2 or later (version 3 is untested, but should work - version 1.x may also work) plus the development versions of these libraries (i.e. the header files etc. - Debian calls these packages libgsl0-dev and
libpng2-dev). If you wish to change the default installation directory, edit the Makefile. Then type "make" followed by "make install". Easy!

To using it may be a bit harder. Refer to the man page for detailed instructions, but basically:

1. get a 16-bit mono or stereo wave file
2. spectromatic file.wav
3. this generates file.png which is the spectrogram. There are lots of options to change the way it generates the image (I recommend spectromatic --inverse --logarithmic --combine LXR file.wav).

Trommler is an X-based drum machine with the following features: use of 16 bit 44100kHz mono drum samples, realtime audio output using the /dev/dsp device on Linux machines (or audio output to file), a variable number of beats per pattern, volume adjustment of drum samples, stereo panning of (mono) drum samples, and more.
The distribution comes with a binary "trommler". Just starting this binary should work in most cases. Because of space problems the binary is compiled dynamically and you will need a recent version of gtk (see next section).
If you have downloaded the Trommler tar file and the binary provided there does not work for you or you want to modify Trommler you need to recompile it.
Before you type make, say "make dep". You will need the gimp toolkit header files and
libraries to compile and link Trommler. If the compiler complains about the functions
`gtk_entry_set_max_length and `gtk_entry_set_editable being undefined you need to get a newer version of the gimp toolkit. If gtk_scrolled_window_add_with_viewport is undefined you can try to use gtk_container_add instead.
Main features:
- Distributed under the GPL.
- Works under Linux and BSD.
- Graphical user interface based on gtk 2.0.
- Supporty complex rhythms (variable number of beats per pattern)
- Virtual drum "@ACCENT" to emphasize certain beats.
- 16 bit 44100kHz mono drum samples (individual stereo panning and volume
- adjustment)
- Realtime (stereo) audio output using the OSS API.
- Alternatively, audio output to file.

gtuner is a GTK+/GNOME radio controller.
Main features:
- Nice X windows gui using gtk
- Gui configurable via a scripting language which enables any combination of windows and widgets to be created.
- The program aims to be fully gui configurable, which means no editing of config files. Just point and click. (Not complete)
- Each device is actually a plugin that can be run time loaded and unloaded. You can therefore switch between cards without restarting.
- A control plugin interface with which you can write plugins to control gtuner.
- An almost unlimited number of channel presets are supported. (only first 999 can be used in the alarm though :-)
- A 7 day configurable alarm that can turn on any station you like on any day at any time.
- A sleep timer which turns off the radio after a specfied time.
- Support for kernel video for linux drivers via plugin.
- Full stereo support (if the driver can do it)
- Can be compiled with or without GNOME support.
- With gnome support is an optional mode that lets gtuner use the panel.
- The panel applet has various modes: Off, None, Text, Skined.
- The skined applet style is themeable and has support for XShape extensions.

SQMixer is an audio mixer for OSS-compatible drivers that uses QT.
Some systems require unusual options for compilation or linking that the `configure script does not know about. You can give `configure initial values for variables by setting them in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell, you can do that on the command line like
this:
CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
Or on systems that have the `env program, you can do it in this way:
env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
Main features:
- GUI in QT
- 1 fader on mono channel / 2 faders on stereo channel
- muting on each channel
- each channel can be hidden
Enhancements:
- all important parameters can be saved in a configfile
- channels can be labeled individually

pyTrommler is a cross platform drum machine that is loosely based on the now defunct Trommler project. pyTrommler supports WAV files as samples and features real-time audio playback.
Main features:
- Distributed under the GPL.
- Works under Linux, BSD, Windows.
- Graphical user interface based on GTK.
- Supporty complex rhythms (variable number of beats per pattern)
- Virtual drum "@ACCENT" to emphasize certain beats.
- 16 bit 44100kHz mono or stereo drum samples (individual stereo panning and volume adjustment)
- Realtime (stereo) audio output using SDL library.
- Alternatively, audio output to a wav file.
Enhancements:
- This release cleans up a lot of minor bugs and adds real time pattern/beat tracking.

QMetronome is a skinnable metronome for Qt licenced under the GPL.
The qualitiy of the prepackaged skins are questionable but it is easy to make your own. I made this metronome when I was learning the rythms of Flamenco on the guitar.
Therefore, it has up to twelve beats per "bar" and clicks with accents.
Main features:
- Three click sounds: one, accent and ordinary. Configurable.
- Four to twelve beats per round.
- Timing precision only limited by your soundcard and drivers.
Version restrictions:
- All three click sounds must be in the same format (bits, hz, mono/stereo),
- otherwise strange things will happen. Will be fixed in the next version.

SDL_mixer is a sample multi-channel audio mixer library. SDL_mixer supports any number of simultaneously playing channels of 16 bit stereo audio, plus a single channel of music, mixed by the popular MikMod MOD, Timidity MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, and SMPEG MP3 libraries.

Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer. It is used by MPEG playback software, emulators, and many popular games, including the award winning Linux port of "Civilization: Call To Power."

Simple DirectMedia Layer supports Linux, Windows, BeOS, MacOS Classic, MacOS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, IRIX, and QNX. There is also code, but no official support, for Windows CE, AmigaOS, Dreamcast, Atari, NetBSD, AIX, OSF/Tru64, RISC OS, and SymbianOS.

SDL is written in C, but works with C++ natively, and has bindings to several other languages, including Ada, Eiffel, Java, Lua, ML, Perl, PHP, Pike, Python, and Ruby.