Hi Mixxx-devel, My name is RJ Ryan. I'm a junior at MIT, amateur DJ, and user of Mixxx. I was glad to see your name on the list of mentoring organizations for GSOC. I'd really like to help out this summer and beyond, and I feel like GSOC would be a good place to get started. Over the past week I've been going over the code, and it's gotten me thinking about various projects and features I would love to see built in to Mixxx (apart from the ones on the ideas page)
I'd like some feedback as to which of these ideas are ones you would consider valuable, and which are ones that aren't too important. (Some are big and some are small) I think you'll find as the list goes on they get more and more far-fetched. :) That will help me decide which one (or ones) I'll focus on in my application. - One main thing I see that's missing when compared with other dj'ing apps is an effects panel (per channel). A simple pluggable effects tool would really bring Mixxx up to speed with proprietary apps and also if designed well would blaze a trail for later improvements and possibly user-contributed effects (I'm thinking a DSL or scripted plugin setup here). (the GSOC project I'd propose would be effects units for either channel (or the main mix) with some basic effects you find on mid-level mixers like flange, phase, filter, wah, tape-echo, 2xecho, etc. Also possibly jet/zip like on the CDJ200.) - A loop toolbox -- fine-grained control over looping, loop-in, loop-cut, loop-jump, loop-exit, re-loop, etc. It would include visual cues in the waveform output. I'd really love to see these features in Mixxx. - Tempo-bend.. you already have pitch bend, but resampling so that the pitch stays the same while tempo increases is something I'd like to see. - For usability and new user orientation, a setup wizard that helps with MIDI configuration and option choices. (this is similar to the one suggested under 'MIDI' on the ideas page) - Mix recording feature -- I'm a bedroom dj for the most part, and I like recording my mixes from time to time. The way I've done it with Mixxx is routing jack into an audio recorder, but I think it'd be a nice touch if you could choose to record from within Mixxx. I also notice that you cannot route audio to an external mixer. Since that's also an audio routing problem I imagine that sort of fix would fall under this project. - Support for more than 2 virtual decks. -- This probably isn't key whatsoever, but it might be nice if Mixxx supported an arbitrary number of songs/audio sources for mixing. This would help the 'live PA' type DJ's more than the conventional ones. - 'hands-free' mode -- While this might be a little off the mark when considering this is a mixing app, many people (a couple even asked on IRC the past couple days) asked for a feature where they could setup a playlist and have Mixxx play songs serially, doing a basic-effort job of mixing them together. While not a feature a DJ would use, it could help improve Mixxx's visibility / reputation if more people use it. - (oh boy) Support for control of a video system as well as a music system. cue/loop video clips and so on to be output on a projector as you're mixing. This probably isn't a GSOC task, but it's an interesting feature from a performance point of view. Some minor tweaks I would probably approach on my own outside of GSOC - fullscreen mode has always been slightly quirky on my debian box - AFAIK there isn't support for Torq timecoded vinyl or cd. Now that I've listed off a bunch of lofty goals, here's what I can use to help contribute: I have experience with C/C++ (over 10 years), multithreaded programming, OpenGL, Qt, and scons. As for real-time performance, I write 3d-game engines as a hobby, so I'm familiar with that problem space :) . Essentially, looking over your codebase I felt right at home. I don't have experience with PortAudio, but I'm a fast learner. In short, please let me know if the ideas are useful. I've been hanging out in your IRC channel (rryan) but I'm keeping somewhat odd hours right now and always seem to miss people. Thanks, RJ Ryan rustyryan.net http://www.rustyryan.net/docs/rryanresume.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It's the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;164216239;13503038;w?http://sf.net/marketplace _______________________________________________ Mixxx-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel
