Non-Mixer 

The journey continues! I've been testing and working with a new mixer on the linux audio block, called Non-Mixer, written by Jonathan Moore Liles, which he built as part of the Non suite of applications. This programme has been much anticipated here at the Open Octave Project, as it fills an important niche in the Linux Audio armoury, being a standalone, dedicated mixer, entirely intended for use with JACK........  

The Non-Mixer is unique in its construction. Most linux based mixers not built into daws like ardour are built around a single jack client framework, and rely on this to present to the user, a single "set" of ports. The Non-Mixer is different, as it creates a single jack client for each channel strip. Set up in a patchbay, with a lot of ports, this construction works well, and provides the user with a "single entity" view of each channel strip. It took all of 5 minutes to see where John was coming from when he designed Non-Mixer, and the unique client per channel strip takes strong advantage of the power of JACK, with no limitations. You can add as few or many channel strips as you want, but the important bit is, each channel strip can do anything you want, and you can route it anywhere. Need a MASTER? Then add a strip. Want a BUSS? Do the same. Want an AUX, or require a set of strips to route to a particular plugin, then you can do that too. Non-Mixer takes the "pre-defined" strip paradigm, and throws it out the window. (No pun intended. Well, maybe just a little...)

A Non-Mixer channel strip can be anything you want it to be, and that's great for workflow, imho. Simply add it, route it, and name it. Now you have a jack client, which you can route into, and out of, anywhere you want.

The picture above shows different views for each channel strip, as each strip is self contained as a jack client. (Cool, yes?) the user can choose, at anytime, which view he wants for any strip. Importantly, the function of each view is easy to figure out. Fader is just that, Signal is the chain of data, passing through the strip, with modules the user can insert, into the chain.

In our OpenOctave orchestral madness, we need a lot of strips, and this is the bread and butter of Non-Mixer. With the ability to view a single row, or multiple rows of strips (2,3,4) as you require, all with keybindings (thanks John for the common sense workflow additions), it's ideal for those who have too many strips for one workspace, but at the time reduces the amount of scrolling you need to do. (A royal pain in the posterior at any time.) John has carefully thought this through from the user's perspective, and worked to define a smooth unbroken flow from one task or element to the next, without the "clunk" moments moving between qwerty and mouse which is the most frustrating part of working with lots of strips, ports, etc..  Whether you use 10 channel strips, or 210, you get the same workflow benefit, which is close to a first in a GUI based Linux Audio app, as so many are designed with the "up to 30 strips" user in mind, and mouse use as the only option for simple tasks, and navigation.

On top of this, John has written Non-Mixer, like the other Non apps, using FLTK, an extremely light and fast GUI toolkit, that doesn't chew cycles running stuff you might, or might not, need. In other words, you don't need a army of dependencies, or a battalion of toolkit widgets, wodgets, pictures, xml files, etc, to run it. I like this approach, as the less processes running, while i'm writing music, the better, and having a hairdryer widget, "just in case", doesn't appeal to my determination to work as lean and fast as possible. 

Non-Mixer is being enthusiastically tested here at OOP, and that continues, but it's also being used on a daily basis, in a big multi app orchestral based setup. I have to say, from my experiences so far, Non-Mixer does what it says on the tin, and will work day in day out, without complaint, on a properly setup DAW box.  The template i built, and yes you can make changes and save as you go, is large and complex in routing. I start it from a terminal with the session i saved, and it's up and running, ready to fire. Add to this the highly useful jack_snapshot app, and you have all your patched ports saved, and reconnected, any time you want.

Non-Mixer is off to a great start, in a near complete edition, for users. There is, imho, much enjoyment to be had using this programme, and many thanks to John for sharing.

For more info on the Non suite of apps, and a more detailed description of Non-Mixer's features and capabilities, including a compact, but easy to follow, on-line manual, visit:

 http://non.tuxfamily.org/

More to come....

Alex.