The QRt Home Page



Forgive me for not taking the time to create a glossy page for this site, but I have software yet to write.

What is QRt?

QRt is a real-time soundfile mixing application modeled vaguely along the same lines as ProTools, at least in terms of visual editing of sound placement.  It is also a scripted system, with variable-argument-count text commands representing each soundfile mixing event or other changes to the mix.  These scripts are read and written by QRt to save and restore the detailed specifications of the mix.  In addition to mixing, a growing subset of simple sound processing algorithms are also available, such as gain and pitch curves.

QRt is a port of Paul Lansky's Rt, which he created early 1990's as a NeXTStep application, then ported to the SGI platform in the mid to late 1990's.  Rt's last incarnation was as a Linux application based upon a no-longer-public Linux port of SGI's Motify X library, ViewKit.  I was actively involved in this port, and eventually abandoned it due to possible difficulties with ViewKit, most especially the lack of a port to the MacOSX platform.  QRt is based upon the GPL QT GUI library from TrollTech, hence the name: QT + Rt == QRt.  QRt runs under X86 Linux as an X application and under MacOSX as a native app.

What's the news?

04/11/2007:
QRt version 1.2 is now available as source and OSX app, and soon as a Linux binary. This will be the last version that uses QT 3.3.
04/11/2007:
QRt version 1.06 is now available as an OSX app.
10/28/2006:
QRt version 1.06 source is now available, as is X86 Linux binary. OSX Soon.
10/24/2005:
QRt version 1.05 source is now available, as are the OSX and X86 Linux binaries.
09/01/2005:
I have now released QRt version 1.04 for X86 Linux and OSX.  I will release the 1.04 source in the near future.

Where can I get a binary?

The newest X86 Linux binary is available as a tar.bz2 file HERE.
The newest MacOSX binary is available as a tar.bz2 file HERE.

The OSX version is statically linked against both QT and all other non-standard libraries.  The Linux version assumes that you have the dynamic QT dirs installed on your machine.  If there are still some distributions which do not have this, let me know (they are usually someplace like /usr/lib/qt3).  The bztars include the COPYRIGHT, GNU.GPL, LICENSE.QPL, the help page qrthelp.html, a sample resource file, and (in the Linux case) a qrt binary or (in the MacOSX case) a qrt.app directory which contains the binary.

Is there a .rpm (or other installer package)?

Not at this time, there isn't.  QRt has no dynamic dependencies that are not installed by default on most Linux boxes, so at this point it did not seem worth the trouble.

How can I compile it myself?

Not terribly complicated, but shouldn't be necessary for most users.  Here is what to do:
  1. Make sure that you have a complete QT 3.3.X development environment installed on your machine.
    Unfortunately, the software has evolved in such a way that earlier versions are not forward compatible.  To download the latest for your platform, start HERE.  
  2. Get and install libaudiofile from Michael Pruett's site HERE.
  3. Get the latest distribution of the QRt source.
  4. Set up your QT environment, configure QRt, and compile it.

How do I use it?

Read through the help page HERE.

Who do I contact if I have problems or find bugs?

Contact me via email at the address at the bottom of the help page (after you have read through it!).

-Douglas Scott
October 2006