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Please note that the condition of the software listed ranges from alpha-stage models to fully developed commercial packages. Some of it may not compile and/or run on your system without some determined hacking.

• *ster includes Pluckster, Hammster, Boxster, and other sample & IR generators from David Clark
• Blues Box a collection of blues and rock rhythm patterns for Hydrogen
• Bol Processor sources are now open, good news from Bernard Bel and Anthony Kozar
• Canorus a new music notation program from Reinhard Katzmann & Crew
• CLAM Music Annotator 0.3.1 visualise/check/modify music information extracted from audio, more cool software from the CLAM project
• Dino neat MIDI sequencer using the latest JACK (with MIDI capability), from Lars Luthman
• Frinika music workstation software for operating systems running Java 1.5
• Gnaural binaural-beat generator, from gnaural (who else?)
• Gsharp extensible Lisp-based music score editor from Christophe Rhodes and Robert Strandh
• HyperMammut software for processing sounds and images, something new from Paul Nasca
• Jesusonic "God's own effects processor", it must be good...
• Jokosher multi-track non-linear audio editor, requires Python
• Juce "cross-platform GUI + everything else library", from Julian Storer, developer of Tracktion
• Kaiku Juhana Sadeharju's as-yet-unfinished "GVerb + multitap" reverberator
• Khagan interface builder for OSC-based applications, from Loki Davison
• KarmaPod ultracool custom Linux audio workstation from David O'Toole
• Kontroll MIDI utility to generate controller messages from the mouse position, more software from Florian Schmidt
• LinuxMAO is "a French-speaking wiki for worldwide Linux audio users"
• LMMS it's the Linux MultiMedia Studio, "... a free alternative to popular programs like FruityLoops, Cubase and Logic"
• Modulor a "micro-utility" for the Cabel Csound instrument designer
• Mondrian music composition language from Peter Brinkmann
• Open Cubic Player popular module player now available for Linux
• Polish Linux Sound & Music excellent Web site (Polish only!)
• Rhythm Galaxy vol.1 percussion samples from sound designer Artemiy Pavlov
• Simple Sysexxer new MIDI sys-ex utility from Christoph Eckert
• Slag pattern-based audio sequencer/drum box from Alex Marandon
• Sonic Visualiser advanced waveform/spectrogram viewer and audio annotation editor, from Chris Cannam
• TwoLAME new MPEG-2 encoder from Nicholas Humfrey
• ace command-line MIDI splitter/processor, performance software from Atte André Jensen
• arcangel distortion effect, requires JACK, from James Shuttleworth
• b-tektracker MIDI step-sequencer based on TekTracker
• paulstretch high-quality time-stretching software from the industrious Paul Nasca
• rt-script finds and reorders audio process IRQs and IDs to increase priority, from Emanuel Rumpf
• sfubar-3 command-line SoundFont2/WAV/AIFF editor, from Ben Collver
• tkdnoise nice Tcl/Tk GUI for Csound's dnoise utility, from Hudson Lacerda
• Updated:
  • Aeolus version 0.6.6 is out at last
  • ALSA now at release level 1.0.11
  • AMB Plugins updated version available now
  • APODIO updated to version 4.2.23
  • Bristol version 0.9.4 now available for your listening pleasure
  • Csound version 5.01 has been released !
  • Ecmd version 0.82 now with JACK support
  • FreeCast release 20060515 is now on-line
  • Freecycle 0.6-alpha now on-line
  • Freewheeling motorvates to level 0.5.2
  • LASH release 0.5.1 now on-line
  • MMA (Musical MIDI Accompaniment) attains release level 0.21b
  • MusE climbs to version 0.8.1
  • Musix GNU+Linux new release 0.39 now available
  • NoteEdit beta-2.8.1 now available
  • OSS/Linux upgraded to version 3.99.4a, now available for free
  • QJackCtl version 0.2.20 released
  • QSynth reaches release level 0.2.5
  • Rivendell sails into release version 0.9.67
  • Shelljam ascends to level 0.0.4
  • Smack release version 0.3 is out and on-line
  • Snd moves to version 8.1
  • Snd-ls updated to v. 0.9.6.2 (really!)
  • WONDER sprints to version 2.1.0
  • aubio updated to version 0.3.0
  • dssi-vst version 0.4 now available
  • jackEQ updated to version 0.4.1
  • kluppe version 0.5.2 now available for download
  • liboggz races to release version 0.9.5
  • mjoo reaches level 0.0.5
  • netjack vaults to release 0.11
  • realtime_lsm advances to version 0.8.6

• General Synthesis Packages
  • *ster includes Pluckster, Hammster, Boxster, and other sample & IR generators from David Clark
  • Acouphenes small program to generate sounds from neural networks
  • Amber granular synthesis for Linux and MacOS
  • Audiality David Olofson's "audio engine... designed for playing music and sound effects..."
  • ChucK an audio programming language for realtime synthesis, composition, and performance, from Ge Wang and Perry Cook
  • CLAM is the C++ Library for Audio and Music from Xavier Serra and his talented crew at UPF (Note: This package effectively incorporates and replaces Prof. Serra's SMS)
  • Dissociated Studio takes an audio file, segments it, computes a segment similarity matrix, and plays the piece, skipping from segment to similar segment; very cool software from Aaron Lav
  • Fugue is by Roger Dannenberg at CMU
  • InSpect sound analysis/resynthesis/transformation from Sylvain Marchand
  • JASS the Java Audio Synthesis System, from Kees van den Doel
  • Loris sound modeling and morphing software from the CERL Sound Group
  • MARSYAS is the MusicAl Research SYstem for Analysis and Synthesis or the Manipulation Analysis and Retrieval SYstems for Audio and Signals, either way it's software from George Tzanetakis
  • The MusicKit is being ported from NeXTStep to Linux
  • OpenSoundWorld Amar Chaudhary's "...scalable, extensible programming environment that allows sound designers and musicians to process sound in response to expressive real-time control..."
  • SAOL
    • SAOL is the MPEG-4 Structured Audio Orchestra Language from Eric Scheirer
    • MPEG-4 Structured Audio: Developer Tools a page from John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek, includes the indispensable sfront
    • SAOLsound Paul Winkler's project "... to provide resources for Csound users interested in exploring SAOL"
    • Sounds in SA some SAOL-encoded music
  • Sapphire an audio synthesis language by Jim Finnis
  • Scripts: Sound for Csound, PowerPV, and TrikTraks, from Drew Krause
  • SMS comes from Xavier Serra; a very cool on-line GUI is located here
  • Sonic is a digital audio programming language from Don Cross
  • Spectroscopic Toolkit "64-bit phase oscillators for nanotonal synthesis", from Pieter Suurmond
  • Spiral Synthesis materials from Tracy Lind Petersen
  • Squeak a Smalltalk-80 environment with built-in support for realtime sound synthesis; a description of Linux sound support for Squeak can be found here
  • STK Perry Cook's excellent Synthesis ToolKit; Tim Stilson has also prepared StkLinux, a Linux port of Perry's STK 1.0
  • SuperCollider3 a Linux port of the realtime audio server and object-oriented sound synthesis language
  • Tao physical modelling synthesis language and GUI, from Mark Pearson
  • Theo Verelst Additive Synthesis Program an additive synthesis program, from Theo Verelst
  • Varese synthesis/composition environment from Peter Hanappe
  • Virtual Sound audio synthesis tools from Christos Dimitrakakis
  • WONDER "Wave-field synthesis Of New Dimensions of Electronic music in Realtime", software from Marije Baalman and Daniel Plewe
  • gAlan the very cool graphical audio language, originally from Tony Garnock-Jones and now maintained by Torben Hohn
  • rt_lpc real-time LPC analysis/synthesis/visualization from the Princeton Soundlab
  • wigwamjam "... grows sounds using your decisions to drive the evolution of genetically programmed synth functions", from Dave Griffiths

• General Music Composition/Analysis Packages
  • Amuc is the Amsterdam Music Composer, from Wouter Boeke
  • Common Music is maintained by Rick Taube at UIUC
    • Notes From The Metalevel Rick's excellent book on Common Music, a must-have for all students and users
    • Plotter Rick's handy tool for Common Music now available for Linux and GTK
    • Scripts: Music routines for Common Music, MIDI and music scripts in Perl, by Drew Krause
  • Haskore Computer Music System is a collection of Haskell modules designed for creating musical structures in a high-level style similar to functional programming languages
  • The Humdrum Toolkit software tools for music analysis and research
  • JFugue Dave Koelle's Java classes for music programming
  • JMSL the most excellent Java Music Specification Language, from Nick Didkovsky and Phil Burk
  • LMMS it's the Linux MultiMedia Studio, "... a free alternative to popular programs like FruityLoops, Cubase and Logic
  • LMUSeJ Lindenmayer fractal music software from David Sharp, requires JDK1.3
  • Metropro beat generator for "...the composition and interpretation of complex and non-linear tempo..."
  • Mondrian music composition language from Peter Brinkmann
  • Music Package various music-making tools (in Pascal) from Ulrich Bruchholz
  • Musica "... aims at the creation of a complete Mathematica package for the exploration of the interconnection between Mathematics and Music"
  • MusicScript "...an open-source music scripting language..."
  • OpenMusic the famous software from IRCAM now available in a version for Linux
  • ProteinMusic converts DNA sequences to music, requires Java
  • Radium unique graphic music-making environment with similarities to module trackers and MIDI sequencers
  • Randomposer an automatic-music composer from Stephan Beyer
  • Subvert Audio Niall Moody's "... music program designed to try and stimulate creativity in the user"
  • Turtle "... a tool/toy for experimenting with graphics and sound programming... hopefully useful as a vehicle for learning the Scheme programming language", from Michael W. Schaffer
  • XEMO is a "...vision of an integrated composition environment for the analysis, notation and composition of music"
  • compo is "a language allowing to describe in a natural way simple or complex musical structures"
  • mjoo Leonard "paniq" Ritter's "new kind of live composition software for the Linux operating system"
  • sieve makes music (?) from the Sieve of Eratosthenes
  • variations algorithmic composition system developed by Bruce Jacob
  • wx12Ton utility for composing and analysing 12-tone rows, requires wxWindows

• MAX-like Environments
  • Pd
    • Pd Pure Data, a language from Miller Puckette
    • GriPD a graphic interface builder for Pd, from Joseph A. Sarlo
    • Pd for Linux a version prepared by Günter Geiger
    • Pd-Page documentation, research, and patches from Thomas Grill and Marius Schebella
    • PDX7 an exploration of 6-operator FM synthesis via Pd, courtesy of Frank Barknecht
    • pure-data.info excellent resource site for Pd users
  • jMax
    • jMax MAX for Linux and Java, from François Déchelle's team at IRCAM
    • jMax-SDIF imports SDIF files into a track of matrices, exports a track to SDIF; from Diemo Schwartz
    • jMax Tutorial instructive documentation from Fabrice Medio
    • mamalala "...things related to electronic music and the famous jMax"
    • FFTease package of phase vocoder routines by Eric Lyon and Christopher Penrose, now available for jMax

• MusicV-based Languages
  • Cmix is from Paul Lansky and the Princeton Sound Kitchen
  • Common LISP Music comes from Bill Schottstaedt at CCRMA
    • ATS Juan C. Pampin's "library of Lisp functions for spectral Analysis, Transformation, and Synthesis", intended for use with CLM; ATSH is a graphic display/editing/resynthesis environment for analysis files created by ATS
  • Csound comes from Barry Vercoe at the MIT Media Lab
  • Music4C is from James Beauchamp at UIUC
  • Nyquist for Linux is a patch for the UNIX Nyquist source package by Roger Dannenberg
  • RTCmix is a version of Cmix maintained by Dave Topper, Luke DuBois, Brad Garton, and John Gibson; RTmix is Ivica Ico Bukvic's "performance tool geared towards persons interested in live and interactive electro-acoustic music", especially suited for use with RTCmix
  • cmusic is now available in Shahrokh Yadegari's port of the CARL software to Linux

  Please see the Csound & Cmix Helpers section for related software.

• Softsynths And Samplers Note: More softsynths can be found on the Audio Plugins page
  • 3MU a TB303 bassline emulator; tk3MU provides a useful GUI, thanks to Eric Brunel
  • Aeolus Fons Adriaensen's fabulous pipe organ synthesizer
  • ALSA Modular Synth outstanding softsynth fun from Dr. Matthias Nagorni
  • AUBE/Metadecks is "...a system for realtime sound generation and processing"
  • BEAST/BSE music composition and audio synthesis package with Gtk interface, from Tim Janik and Olaf Hoehmann
  • Beatrix excellent organ softsynth from Fredrik Kilander
  • Chionic Linux sampling software from Juan Linietsky
  • Cumulus real-time granular synthesis with MIDI control
  • Delfin a realtime software sampler
  • Didgeridoo "a voice controlled resonance instrument" from Stefan Nitschke, requires JACK and a microphone
  • Elara a very cool software synth from Steve Brookes
  • FluidSynth
    • FluidSynth an outstanding Soundfont synthesizer (formerly known as iiwusynth) from Peter Hanappe and many others
    • FluidGUI Ken Ellinwood adds a nice graphic interface to FluidSynth
    • QSynth Qt GUI Interface for FluidSynth
  • FMS is Daniel Gruen's Frequency Module Synthesizer
  • GENPO Stephen Merrony's neat "generic pipe organ"
  • Internet Synth Henry Lowengard's contribution to sound on the Web (source available by request)
  • Javasynth a "Java-based system for creating fully working modular audio systems, which are assembled with programmed functional components."
  • LegaSynth a new softsynth from Juan Linietsky
  • LinuxSampler
    • Linuxsampler it's *the* Linux sampler project, supports sample libraries in GIG, DLS, and Akai formats
    • JSampler a Java-based front-end for the Linuxsampler engine
    • Rui Nuno Capela's Qt-based GUI for LinuxSampler
  • LOS - Loop Offsetting Sequencer "a music sequencer specialized in offsetting sample positions within sound files"
  • Mathi's Music Magic real-time software synthesizer and audio processor; also available here (RPM only)
  • MFFM VectorBass a new software synthesizer from Matt Flax
  • Mono nice monophonic real-time synthesizer from Jarno Seppanen
  • MSS is Mats Olsson's very nice Modular Software Synth
  • Mx4 a new realtme software synthesizer from Jens M. Andreasen
  • Octavian software synthesizer pre-beta release now on-line
  • Om Dave Robillard's "... modular synthesizer that runs under JACK and uses LADSPA and/or DSSI plugins for processing"
  • PSIndustrializer neat physical modeling synth with OpenGL graphics
  • RTSynth an excellent realtime synthesizer for X
  • Slat "Sounds like a theremin", neat synth software from James Shuttlesworth
  • Specimen a MIDI-controllable audio sampler from Peter Bessman
  • SpiralSynth
    • Spiral Synth very cool realtime software synthesizer
    • Spiral Synth Modular modular software synth, roll your own synthesizer with its plugins
    • SpiralLoops a loop-based sampler with plugin support
  • Syncotron Bathysphere Sound Suite interesting sampler/sequencer
  • Ultramaster Juno-6 software emulation of the classic Roland analog synth
  • Xsynth MIDI-controlled analog-style realtime synthesizer from Steve Brookes
  • Zerius Synth software synthesizer with Java GUI
  • ZynAddSubFX an impressive new softsynth from Paul Nasca in Romania
  • amSynthe very cool analog synth modelling from Nick Dowell
  • aRts "simulates a complete modular analog synthesizer" but is also the well-known sound server for KDE
  • bristol synthesizer emulator new software from Nick Copeland, author of SLab
  • fastbreeder Dave Griffiths' neat "genetic progamming synth"
  • gsynth "...an extensible, modular synthesizer...the interface and current codebase present a simple Roland TB-303 emulator...programmed using fasttracker-style note entry"
  • horgand FM-synthesis organ, JACK-aware, with DSP effects and programmable accompaniment
  • jackMiniSynth a minimal subtractive synth (with Moog filter) for JACK
  • jackOrgan an ALSA sequencer/JACK client for David Bartold's LADSPA plugin
  • simsam Christian Henz's new "simple sampleplayer"
  • sloop.splitter "a realtime sound effect program...generates synthetic sounds from natural ones"
  • vOICe Sonification Applet Peter Meijer's very cool synthesizer, requires a Java-capable browser
  • wcnt the "WAV Composer Not Toilet" is a non-realtime modular synthesis program

• Sonic Environment Generators
  • Ambient Automat automatic ambience, synthesis, and more from Double Muffled Dolphin
  • Boodler Andrew Plotkin's "programmable soundscape tool"
  • Radio Hard Disk unique application from the MidiShare team
  • SoundGrid an interesting Java-based music application somewhat similar to Music Mouse
  • Soundweave cool looping mechanism to produce endlessly changing sound textures
  • jlooch drones courtesy Brad Garton and Java, requires Phil Burk's JSyn
  • phazor creates ambient textures by a very interesting use of the FFT
  • whitenoise utility to turn your computer into a random noise generator

• Waveform Generators
  • COW Cow Outputs Waves, "C++ classes handling graphs for amplitude and frequency and generating wavfiles out of these graphs"
  • TrikTraks/Wigout "two programs for composing waveforms", from Arun Chandra
  • makesound converts PNG graphics to WAV soundfiles
  • oa GUI for synthesizing and experimenting with waveforms, from Cedric Roux
  • soundmosaic "...constructs an approximation of one sound out of small pieces of other sounds", cool software from Steven Hazel

• Manuals And Other Documentation
  • CLMS Manuals useful on-line material for various SWSS languages, MIDI software and hardware, and synthesis methods
  • Digital Soundshapes: Einfuehrung in die Theorie und Praxis der Klangsynthese an excellent online introduction to the theory and practice of digital sound synthesis (mostly in German but with some sections in English)
  • The PLUM Page Tim Thompson's on-line list of programming languages used for music
  • Sound, Synthesis, and Audio Reproduction "an introduction to modern sound systems, human hearing, sound synthesis and processing and related topics" from Sampo Syreeni

• General Audio Editors
  • Audacity cross-platform soundfile editor with many nice features
  • AudioCutter Cinema "audio processing for the more sophisticated demandings"
  • DAP Richard Kent's digital audio editor/processor with XForms GUI
  • Eisenkraut audio editor with playback via SuperCollider3
  • GLAME audio processor and sound editor
  • GNoise a new soundfile editor, can handle very large files
  • GNUsound sound editor with support for multiple tracks and 8, 16, or 24/32-bit samples
  • JaWavedit WAV file editor written in Java
  • Jokosher multi-track non-linear audio editor, requires Python
  • KWave a very good soundfile editor for KDE by Martin Wilz
  • Lamp the Linux Audio Mangling Project soundfile editor
  • LAoE Olivier Gäumann's "Layer-based AudiO Editor", requires Java2
  • Marlin a sample editor for GNOME
  • MiXViews soundfile editor + analysis/synthesis engine
  • Nightingale a simple soundfile editor, especially useful for cutting up large WAV files
  • ReZound is a "... graphical audio file editor primarily for but not limited to the Linux operating system"
  • Snd
    • Snd one of the most powerful audio editors available for Linux
    • Snd Configuration Scheme code to customize Snd
    • Snd-ls a version of Snd for those of us who "don't know Scheme very well"
    • Snd-RT realtime audio extensions for Snd
  • SndBite is an "audio editor designed for breaking large recordings into smaller components"
  • Snuggles curses-based WAV/MP3 editor
  • Studio excellent editor, requires Tcl/Tk
  • Swami excellent new incarnation of the Smurf Soundfont editor
  • Sweep a new soundfile editor from Conrad Parker
  • TAON The Art Of Noise very nice soundfile editor
  • WaveMixer easy-to-use multitrack wave editor, from Raoul Hecky & Friends
  • WaveForge attempting a SoundForge clone for Linux
  • WaveSurfer a new soundfile editor, requires the Snack extensions
  • WaveTools a suite of small command-line programs for working with WAV-format soundfiles
  • Xforge a new soundfile editor project for X11 and Motif/LessTif
  • XS a soundfile editor using Tcl and the Snack extensions
  • XWave good basic editor, a patch to add looping can be found at the same site
  • aPcStudio soundfile editor/processor with FLTK GUI
  • ecawave soundfile editor from Kai Vehmanen, author of ecasound
  • mhWaveEdit soundfile editor from Magnus Hjorth
  • mpgedit MPEG audio file editor, processes constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) encoded files
  • quelcom command-line utilities for editing WAV/MP3 files
  • sfubar-3 command-line SoundFont2/WAV/AIFF editor, from Ben Collver
  • soniK soundfile editor/recorder for KDE
  • wavedit old, very basic and limited editor, console-mode only

• A/V Editors
  • Blender the premier open-source 3D animation renderer now supports audio tracks
  • Broadcast 2000 the only free non-linear realtime audio/video editing system for Linux; NB: Adam Williams has pulled this software from the SourceForge site, but it is still available from Eric Smith's Broadcast2000 Page
  • Cinelerra the impressive successor to Broadcast2000
  • Linux Audio/Video Tools a suite of programs to record/playback audio and video under Linux using the Iomega Buz
  • MainActor commercial non-linear video/multimedia editing suite
  • transcode very interesting audio/video stream processing utility, from Dr. Thomas Östreich

• Utilities
  • Beat Monkey calculates soundfile BPM and sample frames
  • Sample Calculators very useful on-line calculators for time-stretching, pitch-shifting, and transposing samples
  • Wavelength repairs erroneous data length entry in WAV file header
  • WavSplit a utility for (surprise!) splitting WAV files according to a list of time values
  • abrowse nice utility for reading and converting AKAI S1000/3000 sample CDs
  • basef utility for manipulating parameters found in AIFF soundfile header
  • jWave set of packages for Java to create and process RIFF (WAV) files
  • mirage-disk a utility for copying the samples from Ensoniq Mirage diskettes, from Jean Zundel
  • shntool multi-purpose WAV processing and reporting utility
  • wavbreaker/wavmerge GUI utilities to break or merge WAV file
  • wavcut is a "...short C program for cutting parts from WAV sound files", from Stefan Ondrejicka
  • Denoising
    • Gnome Wave Cleaner denoise, dehiss and amplify CD-quality WAV files
    • GramoFile a program to clean gramophone recordings for transfer to CD
    • GWC-lib the GNOME Wave Cleaner is now a library !
    • declick Joachim Schurig's "dynamic digital declicker for audio files"
    • dnr denoising utility from Matti Koskinen
    • tkdnoise nice Tcl/Tk GUI for the Csound dnoise utility, from Hudson Lacerda
  • Normalizing
    • Xpand nice Python/Glade GUI for dynamics compression/expansion, requires SoX and normalize
    • calcamp calculates what factor a sample needs for amplification to maximum volume (requires libsndfile)
    • normalize "a WAV file volume normalizer"
    • wavnorm utility to normalize 16-bit stereo WAV files

• ABC
  • ABC is "...a language designed to notate tunes in an ascii format" (This page is the main resource for abc-related packages)
  • ABC Plus Project many enhancements from Guido Gonzato, including his abcpp (abc preprocessor) and JedABC (abc file editor)
  • Jef's ABC page Jean-François Moine's wonderful extension software, includes abc2mps (abc files to Postscript) and tclabc (Tcl/Tk interface for abc files)
  • Skink nice front-end for abc, requires Java
  • abcMIDI renders abc score to MIDI file
• BoChord a chord typesetting utility
• Canorus a new music notation program from Reinhard Katzmann & Crew
• Common Music Notation creates and displays traditional Western music scores
• Gscore "a non-page-oriented notation program", from Sebastien Tricaud
• Gsharp extensible Lisp-based music score editor from Christophe Rhodes and Robert Strandh
• GUIDO a music notation formatting system and server
• LilyPond
  • LilyPond is the music typesetter for Linux, outputs TeX, PostScript, PDF, and MIDI files, with an awesome features set and beautiful notation
  • Denemo GTK front-end for Lilypond
  • Emacs MIDI Input an elisp mode for step-time entry from a MIDI keyboard, from Hans Lub
  • LilyComp a graphic note-entry utility for LilyPond, requires Python and Tkinter
  • LilyTool a plugin for jEdit, provides functions similar to Emacs modes
  • Rumor Vaclav Smilauer's Really Unintelligent Music transcriptOR, a "realtime monophonic (with chords) MIDI keyboard to Lilypond converter"
  • Tutorial de Lilypond A LilyPond tutorial in Spanish, from David Asorey Álvarez
  • LilyPond Guide For Beginners a set of introductory tutorials from Eugene Cormier
  • lyqi an Emacs major mode for quick insert of LilyPond score code
• Mup music publication shareware from Arkkra Enterprises
  • MUP Utilities more useful software from Bob van der Poel
• MuseScore the MusE WYSIWYG music typesetter, more great software from Werner Schweer
• MusicEdit music notation software with MIDI output, from Professor Herbert Walz
• MusicXML "... a universal translator for common Western musical notation... designed as an interchange format for notation, analysis, retrieval, and performance applications"
• MusiXTeX full-featured music typesetting via TeX (This page is also the main resource for other TeX-related notation packages)
• MuX2D graphic editor for MusiXTeX files, from Lukas Grützmacher
• NoteEdit an excellent Qt-based notation editor with output in LilyPond, MIDI, and MusicXML formats
• PMW Philip's Music Writer, an easy-to-use music typesetting program
• Rosegarden score creation from MIDI input and MIDI sequencer, also exports Csound score file
• TinyMOODS demo of a very interesting music notation medium
• XCircuit a drawing package for X which includes some very nice music typography and outputs Postscript files
• tab a lute tablature typesetting system, from Wayne Cripps

If you are looking for pro-audio interfaces that will work with Linux applications your choices are limited to certain cards from RME, M-Audio, and AudioScience. Common desktop sound & MIDI needs are well-served by the Audigy and SBLive! soundcards from Creative Labs. USB audio and MIDI interfaces known to work under Linux include devices from M-Audio, Edirol/Roland, and Tascam. Linux-compatible PCMCIA digital audio interfaces are available from CoreSound (also for some PDAs) and Digigram. If you need a serial port MIDI interface the MIDIator enjoys Linux support. Please consult the ALSA Supported Soundcards page for current information regarding drivers for specific devices. Readers are also well-advised to search the archives of the Linux Audio Users mail-list for reports and evaluations from the field.

• Continuum an interesting control surface from Hakenaudio
• Hartmann Neuron fascinating synthesizer running on a Linux core, from Stephen Bernsee and his team at Hartmann Music
• Iomega Buz
  • Iomega Buz making it work under Linux
  • Iomega Buz driver for DC10plus/LML33/Buz video capture boards
  • The Iomega Buz Under Linux information from Rainer Johanni
• KarmaPod ultracool custom Linux audio workstation from David O'Toole
• Mediastation the incredibly cool multimedia workstation from Domenico Colturato and his crew at Lionstracs
• OpenSynth eKo hardware synthesizer with Linux operating system (!)
• uCapps Thorsten Klose's great site dedicated to DIY MIDI hardware developed under Linux

• Freecycle Predrag Viceic's cool "beat slicer", very useful for defining and editing loops, also creates loop MIDI file
• FreeWheeling live looping instrument from JP Mercury
• SooperLooper excellent looping sampler from Jesse Chappell
• kluppe neat loop player for Linux, from d13b

• Sequencers
  • Anthem advanced MIDI sequencer from Pete Goodliffe
  • BINARS "an open-source sequencer for Linux, ALSA, and GNOME", from Michael Ashton
  • Brahms is "a fully-featured MIDI sequencer, notation system and music laboratory" from Jan Wuerthner
  • Dino neat MIDI sequencer using the latest JACK (development version with MIDI capability), from Lars Luthman
  • JAZZ++ old integrated MIDI/audio sequencer for Linux
  • KMidiTracker excellent tracker-style MIDI sequencer from David Moreno Montero
  • Melys MIDI sequencer for ALSA
  • MusE excellent Qt-based audio/MIDI sequencer from Werner Schweer
  • Rosegarden audio/MIDI sequencer, notation editor, Csound-score producer, and more...
  • Shake Tracker a MIDI sequencer with a tracker interface
  • SoftWerk a MIDI sequencer from Paul Davis, based on the design of the Doepfer Schaltwerk analog sequencer
  • TekTracker MIDI sequencer with tracker-style interface
  • TISM is the "Temporal Information Sequencing Machine", Samuel Dufour-Kowalski's realtime MIDI sequencer
  • Tutka a new MIDI tracker/sequencer from Vesa Halttunen
  • b-tektracker MIDI step-sequencer based on TekTracker
  • cantor MIDI sequencer/editor project
  • pystepseq a MIDI step-sequencer written in Python, from Aaron Johnson
  • seq24 excellent real-time MIDI sequencer with a simple interface for editing and playing MIDI loops

• Players
  • Musica MIDI player with GTK interface
  • TiMidity
    • TiMidity++ greatly extended and enhanced version of TiMidity from Masanao Izumo and many others
    • TiMidity++ (experimental version) excellent TiMidity resource page
  • Widi MIDI player for external MIDI devices only, from Isaku Yamahata
  • WildMidi MIDI player utilizing GUS-format patches
  • Xpmidi nice GUI for pmidi from Bob van der Poel, requires Python 2.2 and Tkinter
  • fmplay a program for playing a SoundBlaster16 with an external MIDI keyboard, from Antoine Lefebvre (It works with my PAS16 as well.)
  • playmidi
    • eplaymidi an enhanced version of playmidi from Satoshi Kuramochi
    • fXPlayMidi an Xforms front-end for playmidi
    • playmidi the original, a command-line MIDIfile player with optional X, Gtk, or ncurses interface
  • pmidi a MIDIfile player for ALSA
  • pymidiplay excellent command-line MIDI file player from Aaron Johnson
  • sparcOmatic renders a MIDIfile to /dev/audio
  • srgplay MIDI file player supporting a variety of formats, from K. Sakai

• Utilities
  • Alpha Juno editor/librarian for Roland Aplha Juno 1/2 and MKS50 synthesizers, from Chris Wareham
  • ALSA MIDI Kommander "a DCOP interface exposing many ALSA sequencer features for shell scripts, Kommander scripts, or KDE programs requiring MIDI sequencer services", from Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas
  • ALSA MIDI Patch Bay "a graphical patch bay for the ALSA sequencer API" (requires FLTK or GTKmm), from Bob Ham
  • AutoTrack is a "...tool for creating practizing and demo tracks from chord charts", creating MIDI files with bass and drum tracks
  • Div's MIDI Utilities for Unix excellent collection of command-line MIDI tools
  • FANR free audio note recognition (WAV to MIDI) software from Gilles Degottex
  • Folly a text-to-MIDI program written in Perl/Tk
  • GMidiMon a simple MIDI monitor, requires GTK
  • IMG is a MIDI music composition system with pre-defined "styles"
  • Impro generates a random MIDI melody from a group of chords
  • JSynthLib universal synth editor/librarian project, requires Java
  • KCompact/K25Strip Linux utilities for the Kurzweil K2x00 samplers
  • KMidimon MIDI data monitor from Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas
  • Kontroll MIDI utility to generate controller messages from the mouse position, more software from Florian Schmidt
  • MC303 Bulk Dump a new utility from Olivier Delhaye
  • Midge is a text-to-MIDI program from David Riley
  • MIDI Backup Utility Java-based system-exclusive send/receive utility
  • MIDI Controller GUI to connect sliders and spinbuttons to MIDI continuous controllers (CCs), from Lars Luthman
  • MIDI Plug-in for Netscape a control panel for AWE32/64 soundcards
  • MIDI Splitter neat Perl script to split MIDI files into separate tracks/channels
  • MidiChat send/receive MIDI in realtime over the Internet
  • MidiComp reads and writes Type 0/1 MIDI files in SMF and plain text format
  • MIDICreator on-line MIDIfile creation utility from Andre Muis
  • MidiMutator performs various cross-mutations on a pair of MIDI files
  • Midingsolo Gille Degottex's realtime audio-to-pitch recognition software for monophonic signals, with MIDI output
  • MidiShare is a "... real-time operating system for musical applications" from the great crew at GRAME
  • OplEdit interactive editor for Yamaha OPL2/3 soundchips, from John Meacham
  • QMidiArp very cool MIDI arpeggiator from Dr. Matthias Nagorni
  • QMidiControl very useful virtual MIDI controller box
  • QMidiRoute MIDI event filter/router from Matthias Nagorni
  • Random Phase Generator Reichian fun from Tak-Shing Chan
  • Ratón "... translates mouse movements into MIDI controller messages", thanks to programmer Doug Garmon
  • RawMIDI2SMF Ken Ellinwood's command-line utility for converting ALSA'a amidi to a standard MIDI file (requires Java)
  • Shelljam play softsynths and other MIDI instruments from the command shell
  • Simple Sysexxer new MIDI sys-ex utility from Christoph Eckert
  • Sinuso generates MIDI files with random pitch and rhythm
  • SMDITools a set of command-line utilities for exchanging samples with an SMDI-compatible sampler, from Olivier Doaré
  • SoundPanel "an application for the organization and playout of audio cuts...for use in busy broadcast and live performance environments"
  • SynthEd new project for creating a universal patch editor/librarian for MIDI synthesizers
  • SysExxer utility for receiving, saving, and sending raw sys-ex messages, from Christian Nitschkowski
  • UMP UNIX MIDI plug-in for Netscape
  • WaoN is a WAV-to-MID converter from Kengo Ichiki
  • X MIDI software a suite of programs utilizing the Direct MIDI interface of the 4Front commercial OSS driver
  • ace command-line MIDI splitter/processor, performance software from Atte André Jensen
  • aconnectgui Maarten de Boer's FLTK-based GUI for ALSA's aconnect utility
  • amidmap reads, processes, and transmits MIDI events
  • aseqjoy Alexander König's cool joystick-to-MIDI converter
  • clavier from Simon Kågedal, a software MIDI keyboard for controlling external synths (requires GTK)
  • dx7bag "a collection of utilities for the Yamaha DX7 and... the DX1, DX5, DX7s, DX7II, DX7IIFD, TX7, TX802 and TX816"
  • glib generic editor/librarian for synthesizer patches
  • icube an editor/controller for the ICubeX sensor/digitizer, from Paul Davis
  • mcontrol is an ALSA sequencer client that can assign up to twelve MIDI control messages for the controllers on your MIDI keyboard
  • midi-qnd prepares MIDI files for importing to Rosegarden
  • midi2gmn "...converts gmn (GUIDO Music Notation) files into MIDI files..."
  • midikb uses QWERTY keyboard for testing Csound instruments or for output to /dev/midi
  • midirgui simple MIDI router/channelizer with FLTK GUI, more fine software from Josep Andreu a.k.a. Holborn
  • multimidicast MIDI over a network, cool software from Dirk Jagdmann
  • sc88sysex command-line utility to send/receive data to & from the Roland SC88 sound module
  • sxpress Sampo Savolainen's software "... for controlling MMC compatible software & hardware with USB DAW controllers"
  • wave2mid audio to MIDI conversion from Pablo Busto
  • xphat user-configurable software MIDI fader box from Paul Davis

• Environments
  • Bol Processor sources are now open, good news from Bernard Bel and Anthony Kozar
  • CMT Carnegie-Mellon MIDI Toolkit (includes the adagio language)
  • Elody "...a music composition environment based on a visual functional language, a direct manipulation user interface and Internet facilities", requires Java and MidiShare
  • FrAid a fractal image generator with MIDI output
  • Grammidity "...uses a kind of genetic algorithm based on user feedback to generate 'music'...in the form of a MIDI file", requires Java
  • Improv "...a C++ environment for writing programs that enable musician/computer interaction using MIDI instruments", from Craig Stuart Sapp
  • KeyKit
    • KeyKit excellent experimental MIDI composition environment
    • GeoMaestro very cool extension to KeyKit
    • pmc is Steve Falco's polyrhythmic music compiler, which creates arbitrarily complex scores in Standard MIDI File and KeyKit formats, and Steve's pmc_music is a collection of scores for the compiler.
  • STed2 MIDI music composition environment from Daisuke Nagano
  • Super Groove Master a unique MIDI composition program for AWE32/64, OPL3 FM synth, or external devices
  • UltiMusE-LX music composition via standard notation and MIDI
  • gmc Guenther Sohler's GNU MIDI compiler translates text to a MIDIfile
  • tkmidichaos neat Tcl/Tk application for exploring "...chaotic dynamical properties mapped to music", from Aaron Johnson; be sure to look at Aaron's tkmidinum too
  • xgmc more than just a front-end for gmc, it's a "...simple hierarchical MIDI sequencer player and editor..." that can create MIDI files from MP3s

• MIDI Programming Resources
  • IEEE P1639 Phil Kerr's "... Ethernet based protocol wrapper allowing the transmission and reception of MIDI data within a LAN environment" (this project was formerly known as DMIDI)
  • Input Maps "... provides user-customizeable mappings for controlling realtime objects with event streams"
  • MIDI Eiffel Library from Mike Durian, a rewrite of his tclmidi library, for the Eiffel language
  • MIDI Modules for the Python programming language
  • MIDI Utilities C++ code for UNIX and DOS/Windows from Guenter Nagler
  • MIDI Wire Packetization Protocol brought to you by SAOL guru John Lazzaro
  • MIDI-Perl "...a suite of Perl modules that allows you to read, compose, modify, and write MIDI files"
  • MIDI::Music is "a PERL interface to /dev/music"
  • MidiIO more excellent C++ MIDI code from Craig Stuart Sapp
  • MidiShare
    • MidiShare now has an open-source initiative with CVS resources here
    • mAlsaSeq an ALSA driver for the Linux version of MidiShare, from Dr. Albert Graef
  • Midithing MIDI library in Python for an eventual sequencer from Tim Goetze
  • MMidi describes tools for MIDI over the MBONE multicast network
  • NetMIDI an interesting proposal from David Slomin for using TCP/IP as a basis for a MIDI network protocol
  • OpenSMDI a library for receiving and sending sound samples from/to an SMDI-compliant sampler
  • Q-Midi a MidiShare interface for the Q programming language
  • Tclmidi adds MIDI extensions to Tcl/Tk
  • TSE3 Library open-source MIDI sequencer engine in C++
  • UNIX MIDI libraries useful code from John Stone
  • jMusic is a Java class of functions for generating and manipulating MIDI musical data
  • mid2syx.py Python script to retrieve system-exclusive information from standard MIDI files

• Ardour professional-grade multitrack/multichannel hard-disk recording for Linux and OSX, from Paul Davis & Crew
• Cue Station software for programming the LCS Matrix3 series of modular digital mixers
• Frinika music workstation software for operating systems running Java 1.5
• GSMP the General Stream Manipulation Program from René Rebe and Valentin Ziegler
• Gungirl Sequencer nice simple soundfile sequencer from Richard Spindler
• KHdRecord Peter Jodda's handy direct-to-disk audio recorder
• MixMagic audio mixing program for GNOME, handles large soundfiles
• ProTux hard-disk recording and audio processing suite
• Rt
  • QRT Doug Scott's QT port of Paul Lansky's Rt realtime soundfile mixer
  • Rt Michael Peterson's ports of Paul Lansky's mixer for Motif or QT
• Simple Multitrack "a minimalistic command line audio recorder", from Kurt Rosenfeld
• SLab
  • SLab full-featured hard-disk recorder, will record up to 64 tracks
  • SLab Page an unofficial information page about SLab
  • SLabio "slabin and slabout are paired programs that provide command-line access to SLab data files", from Toby Shepard
• Wired audio/MIDI music production system, from Colin Laplace and crew
• XO Wave Java-based hard-disk recording/editing system
• ecasound
  • ecasound hard-disk recording and audio processing from the Linux console or X
  • EcaEnveloptor GUI to create envelopes for anything in ecasound, requires PyGTK
  • Ecmd Joel Roth's Perl/Tk-based front-end for ecasound
  • EMi the ecasound mastering interface, a Python-based GUI front-end from Felix Le Blanc
  • GAS Luke Tindall's GUI front-end for ecasound
  • TkEca Luis Gasparotto's handy Tcl/Tk interface for ecasound
  • Visecas a GTK-based front-end for ecasound, from Jan Weil
• mixbas "...a small realtime mixer program..." for the Linux console, from Reine Jonsson

• CVoiceControl speech recognition system for KDE and X from Daniel Kiecza (replaces his KVoiceControl)
• Emacspeak a speech output system for Emacs
• Emu "...a collection of software for the creation, manipulation and analysis of speech databases"
• Festival
  • Festival speech synthesis system
  • Festvox a suite of tools for building synthesized voices for Festival
  • Flinger a MIDI-to-speech synthesis system based on the Festival package
  • Flite a light-weight alternative to Festival for voices built using FestVoxi
  • TkFestival nice Tk GUI for Festival
• FreeTTS Java-based text to speech synthesis
• GVoice adds voice control to Gtk/GNOME applications
• IMPSKE GUI for Klatt formant synthesis algorithms
• ISIP Speech Recognition Toolkit lists many other interesting speech-to-text tools
• Kalman Filtering and Speech Enhancement software and a diploma thesis by Jan Kybic
• KPE80 Klatt speech synthesis GUI
• KTTS the excellent KDE text-to-speech synthesis system
• LiarLiar voice stress detection software
• MBROLA
  • MBROLA easy-to-use CLI speech synthesis project
  • MBRDICO talking dictionary using MBROLA for speech synthesizer
• Open Mind Speech speech recognition for Linux, formerly known as FreeSpeech
• Open-Source Speech Recognition Initiative (OSSRI) a new project that intends to "... develop continuous-speech recognition software with command-and-control functionality that runs on Open Source platforms such as Linux"
• Praat "...a comprehensive speech analysis, synthesis, and manipulation package" for phoneticians and other sound researchers
• Puh Editor "... a tool for collaborative annotation of multimodal spoken language resources", requires the SNACK audio toolkit
• Screader a software/hardware screen-reader for the visually impaired
• SFS Speech Filing System, excellent set of X-based and command-line tools (see FTP archive for UNIX/Linux versions)
• Speakup allows a blind user to hear all output directed to the console, currently supports only the Double Talk internal synthesizer
• Speech Links a formidable collection of speech-related WWW, ftp, and newsgroup links
• Speex patent-free codec designed especially for speech
• Sphinx open-source speech recognition from CMU
• Sprachsynthese unter Linux speech synthesis with Linux, an excellent article by Michael Renner (text in German)
• Transcriber "...a free tool for segmenting, labeling and transcribing speech", requires the Snack package
• VoiceApp "program to visualize sound waves via FFT"
• Voxpak is "a GUI for playing, editing, renaming etc. voice and fax messages"
• XVoice "..enables continuous speech to text dictation for many X applications"
• comp.speech very informative Web page with FAQ
• rsynth
  • rsynth the venerable speech synthesizer, required by many TTS readers
  • rsynth on SourceForge provides sources under the Artistic License and the GPL
• speechd-el Emacs speech output interface from Milan Zamazal
• spwave "a speech file editor supporting several sound formats"

• General Analysis/Processing
  • Aglaophone "...a system of interconnectable modules for the recording, processing, and playback of real-time audio"
  • ATSH very cool analysis/resynthesis program from Prof. Oscar Pablo Di Liscia
  • CLAM Music Annotator 0.3.1 visualise/check/modify music information extracted from audio, more cool software from the CLAM project
  • ComParser "computer software that recognizes realtime audio fragments", developed by The Schreck Ensemble
  • Dataplore "a software tool designed for the analysis of signals and time series data of any kind"
  • FScape "audio rendering software for time domain and spectral signal processing...similar to SoundHack", requires Java
  • Guimauve "...is a graphical user interface to compute matching pursuit decomposition on a signal", from Fabien Brachere
  • HASAS is the HydroAcoustic Signal Analysis System from Jussi Laako
  • InSpect sound analysis/resynthesis/transformation from Sylvain Marchand
  • JAAA the JACK & ALSA Audio Analyser, an audio signal generator and spectrum analyser from Fons Adriaensen
  • KSFX is "... a kernel module that filters the outgoing audio stream and adds sound effects like low-pass, high-pass, echos...", from Anthony Lenton
  • LastWave wavelet DSP software from Emmanuel Bacry
  • Maaate an analysis toolkit for MPEG audio files; Bewdy is a visualization GUI for Maaate
  • Mustajuuri audio signal processing software with GUI and support for plug-ins
  • ObjectProDSP an X11 GUI for DSP design and implementation
  • Overflow interesting visual "data-flow" environment for building audio and signal processing applications
  • PipeWave DSP and "auditory modelling" programs using UNIX pipes
  • Ptolemy homepage for the Ptolemy Project of the DSP Design Group at UCB
  • Scilab a large package of mathematics & signal processing functions with excellent graphic displays
  • Signal Applications To Audio Networks (SATAN) "a program that is used for various audio related signal processing tasks"
  • SNDAN signal analysis, graphics, modification, and synthesis
  • Sonic Flow designs/simulates audio signal processing networks
  • Sonic Visualiser advanced waveform/spectrogram viewer and audio annotation editor, from Chris Cannam
  • Sound Ruler acoustic analysis software from Marcos Gridi Papp
  • SSPLab AudioAnalyser (SAA) is "... a tool for analyzing audio signals in terms of its content"
  • Yorick another mathematics package with signal processing and data visualization tools
  • dsplab XForms-based DSP visualization and manipulation software
  • jein a Java version of Ein, DSP learning software from Paul Lansky and Ken Steiglitz

• Beat-tracking
  • BeatRoot "an interactive beat tracking and visualisation system", from Simon Dixon

• Binaural/Brainwave
  • AutoZen brainwave modification software
  • Gnaural binaural-beat generator, from gnaural (who else?)
  • SBaGen a "BinAural Brain Wave Experimenter's Lab" from Jim Peters

• Channel Vocoder
  • Vocoder a channel vocoder from Achim Settelmeier
  • XVOX realtime vocoder using LPC synthesis
  • Zerius Vocoder C and Java source code for software channel vocoder

• Convolution
  • Almus VCU "... makes a computer equipped with a multi-channel sound card into a real-time versatile convolver unit"
  • JACE JACK-based convolution engine from Fons Adriaensen

• FFT/Phase Vocoder
  • Enveloper draw FFT components and amplitude waveforms with this Java-based software from Abram Hindle
  • FreqTweak Jesse Chappell's very neat "tool for FFT-based realtime audio spectral manipulation and display"
  • GWave Analyzer visualizes/analyzes WAV files via FFT, also extracts melody to MIDI file
  • Kiss FFT very small FFT library, can use either fixed or floating point data types
  • NoTAM FFT/phase vocoder packages with X11 GUI now available for Linux:
    • Ceres
      • Ceres a greatly updated version from Kjetil S. Matheussen
      • Ceres3 a superb version from Stanko Juzbasic
    • NoTAMProgs the famous Institute has prepared its own sources for Linux
  • POWERpv spectral manipulation package
  • PVC an extensive set of phase vocoder tools and utilities from Paul Koonce, with a Linux version from John Gibson
  • PVNation Christopher Penrose's phase vocoder apotheosis
  • pV older phase vocoder processors from Christopher Penrose
  • Sculptor a very nice suite of realtime FFT tools
  • SculptTool is a "utility which can import, modify, convert, export and synthesize audio analysis files saved in text format", from Stanko Juzbasic; available for Linux and LinuxPPC
  • XMANA a data display program with FFT and other transforms, uses XMAD data acquisition files
  • pvoc "... a collection of LADSPA units and a command line tool for time compression/expansion of sound data making use of the phase-vocoding technique", from Tim Goetze

• Filters
  • BruteFIR "...software for applying long FIR filters to multi-channel digital audio...offline or in realtime"
  • DRC "generates digital room correction FIR filers to be used within HiFi systems in conjunction with real-time convolution engines like BruteFIR"
  • Fiview Jim Peters' software for filter design and viewing
  • Poles and Zeros a demonstration applet, requires a Java-enabled browser
  • libfilth digital/analog filter design library from Anders Johansson
  • nwfiir audio tools software equalizer and other tools for high resolution digital audio

• Graphic I/O
  • Quickplot is an interactive 2D plotter with support for libsndfile
  • Spectromatic generates PNG spectrograms from audio files
  • Waveform draws and exports function graphs for use with audio programs and exports WAV files
  • rmsps analyzes sound files and creates Encapsulated Postscript graphics of the rms (loudness) curve

• Hardware-specific Packages

  • Analog Devices
    • AD g21xx Compiler another compiler
    • GNU C Compiler for Analog Devices DSPs version 3.3.1 from Egil Kvaleberg
    • Whygee's SHARCPAGE "The purpose of this page is to host or point to FREE SHARC resources, like assemblers, useful information, project descriptions or applications and their sources."
  • Hunt Engineering
    • Kernel Driver for Hunt DSP HEPC3, HEPC4 and HECPCI1 TIM-40 motherboards
  • Motorola
    • 56K Algorithm Development a DSP software development kit for the Turtle Beach Fiji/Pinnacle cards, from Robert Bristow-Johnson
    • Linux For 680x0-based VME Boards supports Motorola MVME162, 166, and 167 boards
    • Macroassembler AS "a portable macro cross assembler for a variety of microprocessors and controllers", supports DSP processors from Motorola and Texas Instruments
    • Motorola DSP56301ADM Linux Kernel Module development tools for the Motorola DSP board, includes XForms interface
    • Multisound DSP Programming all about getting into the 56001...
  • Texas Instruments
    • DSP simulator for the TMS320C50 digital signal processor
    • DSP/Veclib commercial DSP libraries for the TMS320C3/4x, available for Linux
    • GNU Assembler for TI TMS320C30 a port of GNU Binutils 2.8.1 for the popular Texas Instruments DSP
    • Macroassembler AS "a portable macro cross assembler for a variety of microprocessors and controllers", supports DSP processors from Motorola and Texas Instruments
    • TI C3x DSK for Linux/FreeBSD and TMS320ASM useful code from Rafael Peregrino de Silva
    • TMS320C30 Assembler from Ted Rossin
    • TMS320C30 Compiler a C compiler from Dave Walker and Ivo Oesch
    • TMS320C30 Compiler a port of GCC (and the binary utilities gas, ar, ld, nm, size, objdump, etc.) for the Texas Instrument TMS320C[34]x DSP family (This material is being relocated here.)
    • TMS320C3x DSK kernel driver from Jesus Arias

• Image To Sound
  • HyperMammut software for processing sounds and images, something new from Paul Nasca

• Libraries And Other Sources
  • AFsp audio-file signal processing from TSP Labs, includes LPC analysis/synthesis package
  • AIFF_DSP a framework for user-defined DSP plugins to process AIFF soundfiles
  • FFTW C subroutine library for the "Fastest Fourier Transform in the West"
  • LADSPA Plugins a set from Steve Harris
  • LibDSP Jussi Laako's library of common DSP functions
  • Music-DSP Source Code Archive code for synthesis, filters, analysis, effects, and other DSP functions
  • Sig++ "music signal processing in C++", from Craig Stuart Sapp
  • Signalgo Vadim Schetinkin's DSP library for Java
  • Sound Processing Kit C++ class library for audio signal processing
  • TSP Lab general DSP and filtering packages
  • Utility Functions For DSP a collection at GA Tech

• Psychoacoustics
  • Guinea Pig psychoacoustics research software

• Reverb Code
  • Freeverb source code for Jezar's famous digital reverb
  • Kaiku Juhana Sadeharju's as-yet-unfinished "GVerb + multitap" reverberator
  • lprev low-pass reverberator from the cmusic package
  • sverb Cedric Roux's "simple order-15 CFDN reverb"

• Sample-rate Conversion
  • RATECONV high-quality sample rate converter
  • resample console application for sample rate conversion and soundfile playback

• Signal Generators
  • GtkSigGen signal generator with Gtk interface
  • Tempest for Eliza "...uses your computer monitor to send out AM radio signals...[to] hear computer generated music in your radio"
  • siggen signal generation package for generating accurate waveforms via /dev/dsp
  • sinus program to generate/play/write sinus tones
  • tonegen produces tones on /dev/dsp or stdout

• Spatialization
  • 2D Spatialization: A Linux Implementation "Linux/X11 port of the 3D spatializer library from the CRC"
  • 2-Dimensional Spatialization Of Sound takes monaural sound signal and processes it to create a binaural signal
  • Ambidec an Ambisonic decoder from Richard W. E. Furse
  • Space spatializes soundfiles
  • Surround Utilities tools from Greg Lee for working with 6-channel soundfiles, requires libsndfile
  • VSpace spatial sound processing tools from Richard Furse

• Speaker Design
  • GSpeakers "... a Gnome-based loudspeaker design program", from Daniel Sundberg
  • KFilter neat GUI for designing speakers

• Web Pages About DSP
  • An Analysis of Sample Rate Conversion in SoX digging into SoX internals
  • Audio Codecs Compared David Weekly's comparison report on MP3, RealAudio, and Micro$oft's MSA4
  • Audio DSP Pages excellent tutorial material from Stephan Sprenger
  • A Cellular Approach for Modeling Room Acoustics a paper from Navdeep S. Dhillon
  • Computer Sound Transformation musings on the history and use of the phase vocoder, from composer Trevor Wishart
  • DAFx99 Papers various interesting articles on digital audio effects
  • Dave Clark's Linux Audio User Files papers and projects on 3D sound, Green's functions, and more
  • Digital Waveguide Modeling of Musical Instruments excellent material from Julius O. Smith III
  • DSP Genereation of Pink Noise an on-line paper from Robin Whittle
  • Efficient Audio Signal Processing in ANSI C a paper from Adrian Freed
  • Encoder Analysis and Visualization good informative pages from Chris Johnson
  • FFT Tutorial exposition and code by Don Cross
  • Filters, Delays, Modulations and Demodulations a tutorial by Pierre Dutilleux at ZKM
  • FIR Digital Filtering a lesson from Billy Donahue
  • Formant Correction In Pitch Shifting from Stephan Sprenger at Prosoniq
  • Introduction to DSP an on-line tutorial from BORES Signal Processing
  • Life, Lansky, and LPC a fascinating essay on the use of linear predictive coding in the work of Paul Lansky
  • LPC Tutorial from Will Howitt at Otolith
  • Performance Hints for Signal Processing Applications helpful information from Doug Scott for programming MIPS processors
  • Room Acoustics Modeling a paper from Philip Edelbrock
  • SBC Tutorial an on-line tutorial on sub-band coding (MPEG), also from Otolith
  • Time/Pitch Scaling FAQ also from Prosoniq
  • Yehar's DSP Tutorial For The Braindead excellent introductory text
  • dspGuru excellent site for anything related to music and DSP

• Alsa-Nyser cool scope from Raphael Francois
• Bomb an interactive a-life "visual-musical" instrument
• Cthugha "an oscilloscope on acid..."
• DireShow frequency analyzer with a nice SVGA interface
• Freq51 realtime spectrum analyzer, and a patch which indicates frequencies as musical note-names
• JAAA the JACK & ALSA Audio Analyser, an audio signal generator and spectrum analyser from Fons Adriaensen
• JXSpectrum and XSpectrum two more frequency analyzers
• Oscilloscope a DSSI plugin from Lars Luthman
• QoscC QT-based software oscilloscope
• RS421 audio spectrogram software that "takes the audio data from a SIGINT/COMINT receiver and performs a real time FFT", from NetworkFab
• ScopeShapes oscilloscope that uses soundcard output to produce 2D/3D vector graphics
• SonaSound realtime music/sound visualization program from Niklas Werner
• Sonogram very nice audio visualization package from Christoph Lauer, requires Java2
• SoundMan another excellent audio visualization app
• Spectrogram samples data from soundcard, displays FFT spectrogram in realtime
• Synaesthesia is a lightshow calculated from FFT and stereo positioning information
• Waterfall realtime spectrum analyzer for XMMS
• WMscope audio display applet for Window Maker or Afterstep
• XPortShot RT a Gtk-based oscilloscope simulator for Linux
• baudline excellent realtime frequency analyzer with varied displays
• eXtace a much-improved version of this scope/visualizer
• fluxus is "... a small realtime render engine for Linux that generates animation from sound", from Dave Griffiths of SpiralSynth fame
• kanalyzer KDE applet to display the spectrum or the time-domain signal from a soundcard
• sndpeek "... performs feature extraction on audio files or live audio input with real-time display of waveform, spectrum, and features", from the crew at the Princeton Soundlab
• xanalyser realtime frequency spectrum analyser for X, from Arvin Schnell
• xsr oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer, output to root window

• *2raw C code for Ben Collver's utilities to convert PAT-format soundfiles, IT samples, and XI instruments to RAW-format soundfiles
• AudioMove is a "... GUI-based batch audio file copy-and-conversion program" from Jeremy Friesner
• SoX Chris Bagwell's home page for the soundfile format converter
  • Xsox Xforms front-end
  • An Analysis of Sample Rate Conversion in Sox on-line technical paper
• aifc2wav converts AIFC (IMA4 or SOWT) files to WAV
• audio convert neat script for script that converts WAV, Ogg, MP3, MPC, FLAC, APE, AAC, and WMA file formats

• Abram's Table Editor graphic table editing for Csound
• ACCCI John Gather's Amsterdam Catalog of Csound Computer Instruments
• Ambisonics an implementation for Csound
• AthenaCL "...an object-oriented, Python-scriptable algorithmic front-end to Csound"
• Bol Processor sources are now open, good news from Bernard Bel and Anthony Kozar
• Cabel a Python-based GUI for creating Csound processing networks; see also Modulor a "micro-utility" for the Cabel Csound instrument designer
• Cecilia
  • Cecilia powerful GUI and composition environment
  • Cecilia Tutorials great stuff from UC Davis (not to be confused with Ossie Davis)
  • Module Building In Cecilia Bill Beck reveals the secrets in Electronic Musician
• Ceres will create a Csound score from granulation of soundfile
• CSFE a Tcl/Tk Csound front-end from Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu
• Csound Syntax for Vi very cool set of definitions for Vi/Vim, from Luis Jure
• Drumachine a score generator for percussion tracks
• FJenie graphic editor for Csound function tables, requires Java
• Houdini/Csound Mark Story makes the connection...
• JCself generates orc/sco files for Csound
• Meloncillo Java-based GUI front-end for audio synthesis server software with spatialization controls (SuperCollider3 or Csound)
• MU.SE.S software for transforming musical series, requires Csound and FLTK
• NetCsound an on-line rendering service for Csound CSD files
• Perlscore "an infant translation of the Cscore library to Perl", from Toby Shepard
• Pmask an implementation of Cmask in Python from Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu
• PVTool manipulates Csound phase vocoder files
• Rytmo rhythm pattern generator for Csound
• Scala a powerful software tool for experimentation with musical tunings, can save data in Csound score format
• Scheme Score preprocessor for Csound scores
• Score11 a Csound score file preprocessor from Allan Schindler and the Eastman Computer Music Center
• SoundSpace a Java GUI for Richard Karpen's space Csound opcode
• Tk-score a graphic utility for combining soundfiles and/or Csound scores into a single mega-score
• TooSkini Minc for Perry Cook's SKINI protocol for Cmix
• blue the composition environment for Csound and Java, from Steven Yi
• csound-x.el Csound-mode package for GNU Emacs
• hYdraJ Malte Steiner's editor for hetro analysis files, now available in a Java version
• jcsound a JACK wrapper for Csound, from Gerard van Dongen
• nGen Mikel Kuehn's generator for Csound scoes and Standard MIDI files
• rain is a Tcl/Tk script to convert GIF images to sound or to a Csound score
• tkdnoise nice Tcl/Tk GUI for the Csound dnoise utility, from Hudson Lacerda
• vu a very useful command-line VU-meter from Toby Shepard
• Some Csound Documentation:
  • Csound Front Page a new version from Richard Boulanger and Jacob Joaquin, updates and replaces the Leeds Csound Front Page
  • Csound Magazine Hans Mikelson's excellent ezine
  • Csound Manual in ASCII, HTML, and PDF formats, from David Boothe
  • Csound Manual an alternative reference version from Kevin Conder

Free Sounds

• Various & Sundry
  • Borealis a set of themed sounds for the Linux desktop, from composer Ivica Ico Bukvic
  • FindSounds "...a free site where you can search the Web for sound effects and musical instrument samples"
  • FreeSamples free sounds from Northeastern University and House Of Samples
  • Freesound "a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds", hosted by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra
  • Hollow Sun free samples of vintage synths, in Akai sample disc format
  • Live Music Archive freely available non-commercial live recordings
  • Musical Instrument Samples free high-quality set from The University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios
  • NS_Kit a high-quality free drum kit from the Natural Studio
  • Oneshot Samples reader Philippe says it's "... an engine dedicated to share short copyright-free sound samples amongst independent music composers"
• Soundfonts
  • HammerSound a terrific source for soundfonts
  • Steinway Piano Font free font, recorded from a Steinway Model-C grand piano
  • Analoguesque Freebies synths, drums, and some strange things

  All Things JACK...

  • JACK Paul Davis's professional-quality low-latency audio server and transport control interface
  • ClockLoop Steve Harris's "primitive commandline loop player"
  • Demeter from Steve Harris, "... a thing for showing distortion in JACK systems, AD/DA converters or whatever"
  • Hearnet listen to your network traffic with Hans Fugal's "toy" for JACK
  • JAAA the JACK & ALSA Audio Analyser, an audio signal generator and spectrum analyser from Fons Adriaensen
  • JACE JACK-based convolution engine from Fons Adriaensen
  • JACK Bitscope a diagnostic utility for JACK, from Nick Lamb
  • JACK Rack another fine utility from Bob Ham
  • Jackbeat audio sequencing from Olivier Guilyardi
  • JackMiniMix Nicholas Humfrey's "simple mixer for the Jack Audio Connection Kit with an OSC based control interface"
  • JackMix a master mixer for connected JACK apps, from Arnold Krille
  • JAMin JACK Audio Mastering, "... a tool for producing audio masters from a mixed-down multitrack source"
  • JJack JACK for Java, thanks to Jens Gulden
  • LADCCA introducing the Linux Audio Developer's Configuration and Connection API, "... a session management system for JACK and ALSA audio applications on GNU/Linux."
  • MadJACK is an "... MPEG Audio Deck for the Jack Audio Connection Kit with an OSC based control interface"
  • Meterbridge more cool software from Steve Harris
  • Patchage Dave Robillard's modular patch bay for JACK and ALSA
  • PyJack Python module to provide an interface to the JACK server
  • QJackConnect a QT-based patchbay for JACK, from Dr. Matthias Nagorni
  • QJackCtrl excellent Qt-based application to control JACK and more...
  • RD JACK Apps useful JACK applications from Rohan Drape
  • SilentJack a silence/dead-air detector for JACK
  • Time Machine Steve Harris's "simple program to record sounds that would otherwise have been lost"
  • ac3jack realtime AC3 encoding for JACK audio
  • jackEQ Patrick Shirkey's new project for metering and equalizing JACK audio streams
  • jack.osc/midi.osc daemons for publishing JACK transport control and MIDI packets over a UDP network connection, from Rohan Drapes
  • jack.plumbing a JACK connection daemon, also from Rohan Drapes
  • jack_capture Kjetil Matheussen's "small simple program to capture whatever sound is going out to your speakers"
  • jack_convolve "... a simple convolution engine for jackd", from Florian Schmidt
  • jack_snapshot a command-line based utility to store/restore JACK connection states, from Florian Schmidt
  • jacko a nice wxPython GUI for controlling JACK
  • jcsound a JACK wrapper for Csound, from Gerard van Dongen
  • jdelay tests soundcard latency, requires JACK
  • k_jack adds JACK capability to Pd, more cool software from Kjetil Matheussen
  • kluppe "... a JACK-ified GTK-based loop player for files and live-input", from d13b
  • libjackasyn Günter Geiger's "... library that converts programs written for the OSS system into JACK-aware applications (sort of)"
  • netjack networked JACK, from Torben Hohn
  • qjackLaM Qt-based latency meter for JACK
  • quickwav Michael Moritz's uncomplicated sample browser and loop player; requires JACK
  • sauditor a JACK-based "simple sample auditor" from James Shuttleworth
  • xjadeo limited but interesting video player that displays the video frame corresponding to the JACK timebase

  Audio Plugin Systems For Linux

  • LADSPA The central site for information regarding the Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin API, maintained by Richard W. E. Furse; also home to the CMT computer musician's toolkit collection of plugins.
    • BLOP band-limited oscillator LADSPA plugins from Mike Rawes
    • CAPS the C* Audio Plugin Suite from Tim Goetze, a collection of LADSPA plugins for amplifier emulation, effects processing, reverb, EQ and many other functions
    • Demolition is "a destruction testing tool for LADSPA plugins"
    • DLADSPA "distributed LADSPA", groups several in a chain to create a single meta-plugin, from Nelson Posse Lago
    • FIL Plugins more excellent LADSPA plugins from Fons Adriaensen
    • Jezabel "a collection of LADSPA plugins designed to be used as building blocks for GUI or text-based audio applications under Linux"
    • LCP Perl from David Riley, scripts for controlling LADSPA plugins via text-mode or graphic interfaces
    • LADSPA Plugins Moog filter, chorus, reverb, and more from Fons Adriaensen
    • NJL Plugins LADSPA goodness from Nick Lamb
    • SooperLooper excellent looping sampler LADSPA plugin from Jesse Chappell
    • Soundtank Jacob Robbins' LADSPA host designed for making and playing softsynths
    • SWH Plugins the must-have set from Steve Harris
    • TAP Tom's Audio Plugins, a set of LADSPA plugins from Tom Szilagyi
    • VLevel a "look-ahead" dynamics compressor, available as a command-line app and a LADSPA plugin
    • WASP the WAve Sculpting Plugins from Artemiy I. Pavlov
    • XMMS-LADSPA a plugin to host plugins, from Nick Lamb
    • ladspapluginmaker GUI for creating LADSPA-compatible audio plug-ins, from the makers of GDAM
    • ladspar "a Ruby module for using LADSPA plugins", from Hans Fugal
    • liblrdf Steve Harris's "...library for handling RDF descriptions of LADSPA (and potentially other format) plugins"
    • q2ladspa partial implementation of a set of plugins based on Quasimodo
  • DSSI The Disposable SoftSynth Interface, a "LADSPA for instruments" API from Chris Cannam, Sean Bolton, and Steve Harris.
    • Oscilloscope scope plugin with two channels, controllable trigger, time resolution, separate amplification and DC offset for both channels
    • Sineshaper a monophonic DSSI synthesizer from Lars Luthman
    • WhySynth more DSSI synth plugin excellence from Sean Bolton
    • dssi_convolve a handy convolution plugin from Florian Schmidt
    • hexter is a "... software synthesizer that models the sound generation of a Yamaha DX7", DSSI plugin goodness from Sean Bolton
  • MESS Werner Schweer's MusE Experimental SoftSynth API, designed for easily building custom softsynths. Note that MESS also enables VST support within MusE.
    • From release 0.7 onwards the MusE package includes two MESS softsynths, Nil Geisweiller's DeicsOnze, a 4-operator FM synth emulator, and Mathias Lundgren's Simpledrums, a basic drum sampler plugin.
  • VST/VSTi Yes, they can be run under Linux, but only under specific conditions. See the Linux VST/VSTi Tutorial for more detailed information.
    • VSTserver Kjetil Matheussen's remarkable server for running VST plugins under Linux, FreeBSD, i386 Solaris, and others (requires WINE); this site also serves up Kjetil's vsti dedicated VSTi server, the LADSPA/VST host, and his k_vst~ object for Pd
    • VST/VSTi Plugins For Linux Database a community service project from Tim Orford
    • dssi-vst a bridge for running VST plugins with the DSSI
    • FST in-process VST/VSTi support from Torben Hohn and Paul Davis
    • libfst in-process VST/VSTi support from Torben Hohn and Paul Davis
    • jack_fst a JACK client for running VST/VSTi plugins
    • kvraudio good site for locating VST/VSTi plugins