Buzztrax is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

project designed to create a clone of the Buzz music composer. Its functionality is to preserve the playability of the compositions made with Buzz. Songs are made by adding virtual sound generators and effects, connecting them, recording short musical phrases and arranging them in the sequencer. For distribution, songs can be exported to common audio formats such as

OGG Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...

and many others.

History

In the middle of 2002, the main developer, Stefan Kost, lost a song during a Buzz session because of a software error. As the sources of Buzz were known to be lost, they started a new project called Buzztard, and they registered on SourceForge. The name was chosen "for two reasons: the Buzztard.org domain was available, and we liked the mix of Buzz and bastard (it's not a tracker, and it's not a classical sequencer)." A first version was released in October 2006. A demo was presented at Linux Audio Conference (LAC) 2007.Buzztard Music Production Environment
- Presentation at Linux Audio Conference 2007 Several releases have followed since. Starting with version 0.5

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

distributions (such as

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

and

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

) have picked up the project and provide ready to install packages. In 2013 the project was renamed to Buzztrax after

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

rejected the project for its Summer of Code program due to the name.#gsoc on 20130419
irc log for the "rejected orgs" meeting

Features

The software is based on the

GStreamer GStreamer is a Pipeline (computing), pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one f ...

media framework. As it is the only music composer built on GStreamer it serves as a test-bed for related features.Gnome Journal Article
- Fun with GStreamer Audio Effects The graphical editor uses

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprietary s ...

for its GUI. It integrated with the

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

desktop, but does not require it. The editor extensively supports copy and paste and unlimited undo and redo. A notable feature of version 0.6 is the editing journal that helps to prevent loss of data in the case of a crash. Buzz users and the Linux press like the modernized look, but familiar layout.Buzzchurch user forum
- Buzz related user discussion forumLinux Journal
- The Buzztard Project, Part 1 The component architecture supports song import modules. Buzztrax can open songs both in its native and Buzz's format. A wrapper component allows using the existing Buzz-machine binaries under x86 Linux and open-source Buzz-machines on all platforms. A GStreamer bridge plugin makes them available to all GStreamer applications. Another GStreamer plugin enables the playback of buzztrax songs in each GStreamer based media-player. An interaction controller framework allows the use of

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

devices and any input devices (such as

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

s or

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, colloquially known as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with an ...

s) to be used to control parameters of sounds in real-time.

References

External links

Project wiki page

Sourceforge project resources

Activity and news
{{GTK Audio trackers Free music software Audio editing software that uses GTK Software that uses Clutter (software) Software that uses GStreamer Music software for Linux

History

Features

See also

References

External links