So I’ve been checking out LMMS, and it pretty much delivers as promised: “easy music production for everyone.”
Imagine something with capabilities somewhere between a classic “soundtracker” application and something like GarageBand, but super easy to use, and preinstalled with a big pile of useful samples.
It’s quite awesome.
It took me a bit to figure out how to use it because there’s basically zero documentation, but the complexity is miles less than that of comparable programs designed for high end/professional type users.
I threw together a silly little beat demo song in no time. (Warning: it’s a tuneless little electrobeat thingy.)
It can’t do everything in the world but what it can do is easy and fun and accessible.
Kudos!
I would like to insert here an “I hate linux sound” rant — I wanted to use a LMMS beat and record a ukulele tune with it, with Audacity, say — but I couldn’t figure out how to record anything in Audacity on Linux without adding an ugly, nasty burbling effect, presumably because Audacity on Linux isn’t yet hip to ALSA, the advanced linux sound architecture, “advanced” in this context meaning “not horribly sucky and broken.”
Guess I’ll be doing all my recording on OS X.
I’m a musician and Linux fan.
Interesting. Is it possible to get LMMS to work with pro-level sound interfaces like, say, the Presonus Firebox?
I am guessing that there are no drivers for exotic hardware like this and that I’m probably better off going with the Mac.
What’s your favorite commercial tracking software? Cubase? Logic? Sonar?
I very much doubt LMMS has those kinda chops, as you say. It seems to be aimed at people with far lower expectations than that. I’m not really much of an electronic musician, having mostly just recorded things using Audacity (OS X) and dinked around with the OS X ports of Ardour and Hydrogen (JACK-based linux applications). I’ve never used Cubase, Logic, or Sonar, not to mention Presonus Firebox. :)