Jokosher: a Garage Band Replacement for Linux

One of the least-populated categories of software for Linux has been consumer-level audio and video editing software. There are plenty of audio and video players, but as far as editors - especially multi-track recorders and mixers - that has been a relatively uncrowded area. Sure, there is the high-end professional-level program for Linux - Ardour - but that is a massively complicated program (a screen shot can be seen here), and isn't all that welcoming to new users.

So where is the Linux equivalent to a program such as Apple's Garage Band? It just may be Jokosher, a young program written for the Gnome desktop.

Jokosher, according to the developers, is "a simple and poweful multi-track studio. Jokosher provides a complete application for recording, editing, mixing and exporting audio, and has been specifically designed with usability in mind. The developers behind Jokosher have re-thought audio production at every level, and created something devilishly simple to use."

It really is an easy-to-use program. Simply start it up, and you are faced with a dialog asking you what you want to do. You can open a previously-started project, or choose to start a new one. Starting a new program shows a relatively blank window, with only audio play controls at the top, metronome, tempo and time signature buttons, and - most importantly - a button labeled "Add Instrument." Clicking this brings up a dialog with a series of instruments you can add to your recording. Simply click a button and then click the "Add" button, or else double-click the instrument and it will be added to the project.

Once an instrument has been added, you may record something into Jokosher (instructions for setting up a good recording system is outside the scope of this program review, but a quick Google search will turn up a mountain of information). After a recording is made, any number of effects can be added to it. To add these effects to your system (something installing Jokosher does not do automatically, at least in Ubuntu), simply type the following into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install blop caps cmt fil-plugins mcp-plugins omins swh-plugins tap-plugins vcf-plugins

Once that is done, a myriad of options, such as sound filters, echo, delay and more can be added, via the plugins dialog.

Repeat this process until you have all the instruments you want recorded. As a side note, Jokosher, should you already have an audio file recorded, is able to import such formats as Ogg, MP3, FLAC or WAV, assuming the correct GStreamer libraries are installed. Once the audio is in Jokosher, it can be edited on the timeline simply by double-clicking to add split points. An area of music between two split points can then be copied, moved around, or simply deleted. Likewise, effects can be added to small chunks of music as well.

Once the audio is the way you like it, it's time to begin mixing. There is a heading near the top-right corner of the Jokosher window labeled "Workspaces." During the recording process, the "Recording" button is highlighted. To begin mixing, logically enough, click the "Mixing" button and the display will change. During mixing, the volume of an audio channel may be raised or lowered. A particular audio clip can be made to only appear in the left or right channel (or spread over both, to varying degrees of emphasis), and the master volume of the recording can also be set.

As with importing, when it is time to export the project to a format which music players can understand, Jokosher is able to export to such formats as Ogg, MP3, FLAC or WAV... pretty much everything GStreamer is capable of reading/writing.

Jokosher is young, currently at version 0.2, although a bump to version 0.9 is planned in the near future. For true audio professionals, Jokosher is not the way to go, but for home enthusiasts (the program was started because the author was embarrassed that he had to record his audio podcast about Linux using a Windows program), Jokosher may be, if not now then in the near future, the audio recording/mixing program of choice, and is certainly one to keep an eye on.