Using gAlan is much like setting up an effects-chain for, say, aguitar. You choose the effects units you wish to use, lay them out,and then connect them to each other, starting with the guitar,threading through the effects, and ending up at the amplifier (andultimately the speakers).
It's not just limited to acting as an effects-chain, though. You canalso configure it (using the same basic principles) to act as a mixer,a sample-sequencer or drum machine, or a synthesiser capable ofemulating various analogue systems. The examples page and the tutorial provide some descriptions ofsome of the ways gAlan can be used. The UserGuide has a section on common motifsin mesh design which may also give an impression of how gAlanworks.
What do I need to run gAlan?
You will need
- a working Linux, Windows 9x or Windows NT system
- GTK+ 1.2.x or newer (and the associated version of GLib, of course)
- Michael Pruett's audiofile library
- a soundcard which can manage 16-bit stereo at 44100 Hz (full duplex is nice, too)
- a reasonably fast Pentium processor (this is not enforced - but a P166 or better is recommended. DSP is heavy going!)
- some patience while development progresses
Currently gAlan is known to build and run on these systems:
- RedHat 6.0 (glibc 2.1.1) - Linux 2.2.10 - egcs 2.91.66 - ES1371 OSS sound driver
- Windows 95a - egcs 2.95 / mingw32 - ES1371 with Creative drivers
If you try compiling gAlan on a different system configuration, andit's not on the list, please let me know about it (see here for contact details) - including anyspecial action you had to take to get it running, any problems youcouldn't surmount, and (if everything compiled and ran OK for you),any problems you can see or areas where gAlan could be improved.
A RedHat Linux 6.0 systemshould have all the required libraries installed out-of-the-box. gAlanwas developed using RH6.
Note that gAlan currently uses floating-point internally, so aprocessor with an FPU is more-or-less mandated. Most 486s and allPentiums have an FPU.
The Win32 support is still very much alpha. Please see theREADME.w32 file in the source distribution and the news page for recent announcements regardingWin32 support.
gAlan currently only works with the OSS drivers on Linux - if ALSA worked on my soundcard(ES1371) properly, there'd be ALSA support too. Elliot Lee hascontributed basic ESounD (ESD) support - there are still a fewproblems with latency, but that's more ESD's problem than gAlan's.
NOTE: Once the GTK+ port to BeOS stabilises a little, I may do somework on porting gAlan to BeOS. Anyone interested?
(Yes, Jason, I know you're interested ;-) )
Show me the code!
You can download gAlan from thispage. Both full source-code and binary distributions areavailable.
gAlan is distributed under the GNU General Public License. As aspecial exception, the plugins are not required to belicensed under the GPL. The writer gets to choose a license for eachplugin he/she writes. So if any third party vendor wants to distributea plugin for gAlan with a different license, that's fine - and ifthey're a little touchy about their source-code, they're welcome todistribute the plugin as a binary only.
How do I use it?
First, you read the User Guide.
Seriously though, how does it work?
When you start the application, you are presented with a blanksheet. You right-click on the sheet and a menu pops up, from which youselect the class of component you want to instantiate. You can linkcomponents together by dragging from one connector-handle toanother. The handles on the top and bottom of each component areevent connectors, and the handles on the sides are audioconnectors, so events flow from the top of the screen to the bottom,and audio flows from the left to the right. (Have a look at the screenshots if you're confused.)
When you have the connections set up the way you want them, youinstruct some of the components you have placed on the sheet tomanifest their controls (by using the pop-up menu and choosing acontrol from the "New Control" menu). The controls appear in aseparate window - the control panel. (You make the controlpanel visible from the "Window" menu on the menu bar.) Drag thecontrols around until they're laid out the way you want them.
Feedback
If you'd like to contact me, you can find my contact detailshere.
I'd love to hear what people are doing with gAlan - if you use it, andproduce something interesting, I'd really enjoy hearing it! (I'd beespecially thrilled if people like, say, Jason Spaceman ofSpiritualized, or Massive Attack were to let me know they'd had a lookat gAlan... ;-) )
Any improvements you can think of, or problems you cansee, let me know. I'll need constructive feedback to shape thesoftware for the next major release. Please check the main websitebefore you email me, just to check that your idea is not already knownto me.
If you're building on a system not mentioned in the list ofknown-good systems above, I'd like to hear about any problems youhave, and whether you make it to a running system in the end.
If you develop a plugin for gAlan, I'd love to hear from you!I'd like to collect more plugins that I can either include with futurereleases or link to from these pages for gAlan users to download.
