Buzztrax is a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

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 free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The authors of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high-quality di ...

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, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...

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 ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

distributions (such as Debian,

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

and

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

) 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, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

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-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 format, processes the ...

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+ for its GUI. It integrated with the GNOME 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 MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

devices and any input devices (such as joysticks or

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, also known colloquially 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 wi ...

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