The Linux Audio Conference 2004

For the second time, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe (Germany) has hosted the annual Linux Audio Conference, which took place from April 28th to May 2nd 2004.
Organized by members of the Linux Audio Developers' mailing list, the conference aims at bringing together the various Linux Audio communities: hobbyists, professional audio users, software developers, and increasingly composers and scientists in academic institutions worldwide.

Topics ranged from install parties and beginners' tutorials to cutting-edge talks on psychoacoustics research, advanced synthesis techniques and of course audio software development, which were presented in two parallel tracks.
Users and developers from more than a dozen countries took the rare opportunity to map faces to email handles, and to exchange ideas in a direct and immediate (or in the evenings, beer-and-pizza-mediated) fashion.
Almost all key developers of the central projects (ALSA, JACK, LADSPA) were present at the conference and laid the groundwork for many interesting future developments, for example a JACK MIDI extension, the ongoing JACK OS X port, sample-synchronous transport control, and session management for complex setups of multiple applications.
Discussions which had been very slow and controversial on the net, such as the extension of the LADSPA plugin API, quickly gained new momentum in the many spontaneous BOF sessions. Even the opposing parties in one of the fiercest ever flamewars on the L-A-D mailing list discovered after a face-to-face meeting that their "enemies" weren't so evil after all.

During the preparatory stage of the conference, many projects took huge leaps in their development, just in time for yet another cool feature or a new release to be presented. Notable examples are Fons Adriaensen's very promising AEOLUS organ synthesizer, which had its initial release at the conference, or ardour and gAlan, both now featuring in-process VST plugin support thanks to a joint development effort by their authors Paul Davis and Torben Hohn. Paul presented a number of Windows VST plugins running natively within Linux audio applications using their new libfst, code from the Mono project and current version of WINE.

This year, evening concerts provided a welcome counterpoint to the demanding and tightly scheduled technical sessions. The participants enjoyed many beautiful tape and live electronic compositions in the unique listening environment of the ZKM Kubus, an excellent sounding concert hall and recording studio equipped with state-of-the-art multi-channel speaker systems and a very friendly and enthusiastic crew of technicians. On Saturday evening, a DJ and several live performers rounded off the menu with noise and more beat-oriented electronica stuff at the Linux Sound Night.

Another novelty were presentations by commercial vendors: Lionstracs showed the Mediastation and Hartmann demonstrated their Linux-based Neuron synthesizer. Both companies also sponsored the event, as did SuSE. The Neuron presentation was met with some criticism, since Hartmann do not openly advertise their usage of Linux and have chosen to keep the underlying synthesis technology secret. But their commitment to the conference indicates they are beginning to acculturate and see more than just a potential market in the Linux audio community. In any case, their product certainly is very exciting.

For those who could not make it to Karlsruhe, there were live audio streams of the entire event. Chat rooms were used as feedback channels for the virtual participants on the net. IRC ops in the lecture rooms relayed questions and remarks to the live audience at the ZKM. This was heartily welcomed by folks from all over the world, who despite major time zone incompatibilities followed many of the talks in real-time and took part in the q & a sessions. The effort has certainly helped to bring the community further together and include those who lacked time and money to travel or simply live on an inconvenient continent. As a nice side-effect, it generated lots of documentation: recordings and slides of the presentations, as well as many more photos, are available on the L-A-D website. The program and other information can be found on the the ZKM conference page.

During the closing panel discussion on Sunday, Ludger Brümmer, head of the Institute for Music and Acoustics at ZKM and the conference host, extended his invitation to the community for the next year: the third Linux Audio Conference will be held in Karlsruhe again, this time from April 21st to 24th 2005. Mark your calendar, and watch the linux-audio-announce list for calls for papers and music. For people on the other hemisphere, there is the Linux Audio Mini-Conf, around the same time but in Canberra, Australia.

Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings_AT_folkwang-hochschule_DOT_de>

The photos are high-resolution and have been squished.
All photographers have agreed to have their pictures re-published and used freely by anyone.