PenguinSong.org is the software-development organization behind PenguinSong.net.

Projects

Our active projects at the moment are:

• Combo -- the software that actually runs our websites. Combo is a versatile, configurable package for running community websites. As the name suggests, Combo has several components, among which are:
  • AMP -- an Active Markup Processor, expanding templates and web ``macros'' to simplify web development.
  • file.cgi -- a web-based file-management tool.
  • FilkWiki -- a collaborative web-based authoring environment that preserves attribution, retains version history, and encourages branching.
• SHAWM -- the SetTop Home Audio Workstation for Musicians. Our proposal -- now a finalist! -- for the Embedded Linux Journal's Third Contest.

Proposed or planned projects include:

• An open album format that can put a CD's worth of music, compressed, on a minidisk-sized CD-ROM along with graphics, liner notes, and links. There's no mystery about the format, really: it will be HTML, pure and simple, plus standard, license-free audio and graphics formats. The main components of the project will be the specification, the tools and templates needed to create and manage albums and corresponding CD's, and the free software (in Java) that goes on the album to ensure that it can be played on any platform.
• The PenguinSong listener's kit, including everything you need to download and play songs and albums, keep track of what you have (including music you get somewhere else), manage your personal homepage, and upload music.
• The PenguinSong web kit, including the page templates, upload manager, and so on. Everything a member needs for managing their PenguinSong pages.
• PenguinSong pro audio -- every byte of open-source software we can find that might possibly benefit a musician. (Most of this can already be found on links from Dave Phillips' Sound & Midi Software for Linux website, but it's not all in one place. Go there anyway, right now.)

We will, eventually, feature several prepackaged Linux distributions. All will be easy to install, and most will be useable without installation by booting from the distribution CD.

• Player. Turn a junk PC or single-board computer into the audiophile's dream machine: play audio in virtually any format either right off the CD or off the net. This distribution will be small enough to burn onto a CD along with the music, the idea being to distribute the player with the album. (This may end up being Movix or something like it.)
• Audio recorder/workstation. Turn a PC and professional-quality soundcard into a multitrack audio recorder, mixer, and effects processor. Record direct to hard disk or (for absolutely silent operation) to a networked machine in another room. Supports digital mixers and MIDI control surfaces. Can be controlled over the network, so it does not require a monitor (though a touchscreen would make a dandy control surface, don't you think?).
• The Hacker's Axe. Everything a hacker/songwriter needs. Your basic full-featured Linux distribution tuned and tweaked for music. (Actually, we may just point at AGNULA (seems to have vanished) or DeMuDi, the DEbian MUltimedia Distribution, for this one. It's still alpha, but that's further along than PenguinSong at the moment.)

In the meantime, you can easily upgrade a RedHat (7 or 8) distro to an audio and music workstation: see Planet CCRMA at Home, which walks you through the steps. It takes about an hour (depending on your connection speed), and starts by installing the RPM version of Debian's excellent apt-get package manager. It then adds the latest kernel with low-latency patches (for glitch-free sound), and turns you loose on a selection of 80-some-odd music and audio applications.

If you have Mandrake 9.0 it's even easier: Turn-Key Linux Audio from the Eastman Computer Music Center at the University of Rochester. Not having Mandrake 9.0 handy, I haven't tried it, but it's a single script: just run it and go.

It's important to realize that we don't intend to actually develop a whole lot of software ourselves [presently, myself] -- the idea is to pull together as much already-existing software as possible. In other words, this is not intended to be a ``Yet Another Audio Editor'' project. It wouldn't even be ``Yet Another Linux Distribution'' if there were a suitable one already out there. The player and recorder appliances bear a family resemblance to things like the various router/firewall and X-terminal distros, but of course the mix of application software will have to be totally different.

There is some small but interesting glue software to be written in the embedded space and in support of the website.