Nama
Easy multitrack recording with Ecasound
This should give you some idea what to do and what to expect. Tab completion and command shortcuts are available to reduce typing.
Formatting guide:
$ shell commands, typed at the terminal command prompt
nama> nama commands, typed at the Nama prompt
nama Untitled bass> The prompt includes project name and selected track
| a response from Nama
Steps
- start nama
- create a new project
- add a track
- set it to record from soundcard channel 3
- record a take
- listen to the newly recorded take
record another take
$ nama
After the initial setup is complete, running Nama opens the default project, "Untitled". The command prompt shows the project and selected track.
nama Untitled Main>
We'll create a separate project called 'mysong' and record a track 'bass'.
nama Untitled Main> create mysong
nama mysong Main> add-track bass
nama mysong bass>
You can see from the prompt that 'bass' is now the currently selected track. The fader commands 'vol' and 'pan', record-setting commands rec/play/mon/off and other track-related commands will operate on 'bass' until another track is chosen.
For simplicity, from here on I'll elide the project name from the prompts.
nama bass>
Now we set the source:
nama bass> source 3
| Track bass: source set to soundcard channel 3
nama bass> show-tracks
| No. Name Status Source Destination Vol Pan
| =========================================================================
| 1 Main MON Main bus CH 1/2 0 50
| 2 Mixdown OFF -- -- -- --
| 3 bass REC v1 3 Main bus 0 50
Track 'bass' is set to record version 1 (take 1) from soundcard channel 3.
We can see there is also a signal path from bass to Main, the mixer output track, to the soundcard.
Suppose we don't need any audio monitoring, or we're working with a soundcard that isn't capable of simultaneous capture and playback. For this, we remove the soundcard output from the signal path.
nama bass > Main off
The command is applied to 'Main' which is track 1, so you could also write it as:
nama bass > 1 off
Prepending a track name or index to a command selects that track.
The engine is reconfigured to reflect this change and the updated track listing printed.
| No. Name Status Source Destination Vol Pan
| =========================================================================
| 1 Main OFF Main bus -- -- --
| 2 Mixdown OFF -- -- -- --
| 3 bass REC v1 3 Main bus 0 50
To indicate that the engine is fully configured, Nama prints the following:
| Now at: 0:00
| Engine is ready.
| Press SPACE to start or stop engine
It looks like we're ready to go. To be sure we're getting what we want, let's check the Ecasound audio network definition. This is optional, but worth a glimpse to see what's under the hood.
nama> chains
| # ecasound chainsetup file
|
| # general
|
| -z:mixmode,sum -b 256 -z:db,100000 -z:nointbuf
|
| # audio inputs
|
| -a:R3 -i:alsa,default
|
| # post-input processing
|
| -a:R3 -chmove:3,1
|
| # audio outputs
|
| -a:R3 -f:s16_le,1,44100,i -o:/home/jroth/nama/mysong/.wav/bass_1.wav
Even without knowing the Ecasound command syntax, you can see from the last line that a file is going to be written.
The directory path and the sample frequency come from the config file ~/.namarc.
Now we can press SPACE to start the engine, lay down our bass part, and press SPACE again to stop it. This creates ~/nama/mysong/.wav/bass_1.wav.
After recording, Nama selects the just-recorded audio stream, sets the bass track to PLAY, and sets Main to MON, enabling soundcard output. The track display is reprinted.
| No. Name Status Source Destination Vol Pan
| =========================================================================
| 1 Main MON Main bus CH 1/2 100 50
| 2 Mixdown OFF -- -- -- --
| 3 bass PLAY v1 -- Main bus 100 50
Nama also tells us the engine has been successfully configured.
| Now at: 0:00
| Engine is ready.
| Press SPACE to start or stop engine
We are ready to review our first take.
To record a second take, we need to set 'bass' to REC, and set 'Main' to OFF. Since toggling back to the previous record configuration for another take is common, we provide a convenience command 'rerecord'.
nama Main> rerecord
| No. Name Status Source Destination Vol Pan
| =========================================================================
| 1 Main OFF Main bus -- -- --
| 2 Mixdown OFF -- -- -- --
| 3 bass REC v2 3 Main bus 0 50
|
| Now at: 0:00
| Engine is ready.
| Press SPACE to start or stop engine
You can see Nama is configured to record version 2.