Ask Slashdot: An Open Source PC Music Studio?

Paging Dr. Editorial Standards by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 15:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Someone's paired the wrong headline and summary.

Ask Slashdot: An Open Source PC Music Studio?

I have no preference between open- and closed-source software as an end-user; I just care about the quality of the product

Re:Paging Dr. Editorial Standards by enharmonix · 2014-01-28 06:08 · Score: 2

That was me. Both are poorly worded. The title I tried to keep short, but should have been more like "Is FOSS music software as good as closed-source for my particular needs?" As for the summary, given two applications with the features I need, I usually always pick FOSS over closed-source, even if the closed-source alternative. I use or have used Firefox over IE, OpenOffice over MS Office, Gimp over PhotoShop, Ubuntu over Windows, etc. I like FOSS. A lot, actually. The issue here is that I like music even more and do not want to sacrifice quality. But my summary was long enough as it was, so I tried (unsuccessfully) to get that point across in as few words as possible.

what do others use? by D1G1T · 2014-01-27 15:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Since music is a collaborative art, and you are going to want to share music, aren't you better off using what people in your "scene" are using, whether that's your school program or online forum or in the performance venues you frequent? I'd expect that would trump whatever software might look "best" if you were working alone.

Re:what do others use? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 15:43 · Score: 5, Informative

The Reaper is not open source, but comes in a free flavor. I'd recommend an x64 os, as lots of ram is a very good thing for projects as they grow.
http://www.reaper.fm/
Re:what do others use? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 15:49 · Score: 3, Informative

Ableton Live is by far the most widely used nowadays for production. For recording bands, it's Pro Tools.
Re:what do others use? by TwobyTwo · 2014-01-27 16:30 · Score: 3, Informative

I agree: REAPER may or may not be quite what you're looking for, and it's not open source, but it's got a free distribution for experimental use and the fee for purchasing it for anything other than larger-scale use will be a small fraction of what you pay for that PC anyway. Surprisingly capable for the price.
Re:what do others use? by frank_adrian314159 · 2014-01-28 04:29 · Score: 2

This guy hits the nail on the head.
That being said, the other nail you need to hit is what you'll be doing with the software. From the emphasis on Finale in your post, it sounds as if you're doing composition. If your doing simple stuff and mainly want a nice playback of a score you might be able to cobble together an open source solution. However, you'd have many fewer headaches if you put together a Win7 box and put stuff that's not in perpetual beta on it.
Similarly, if you're wanting to produce the music you're writing, you'll want a DAW - but which one will vary based on what you're doing... Performing live? You'll need something like Ableton. Just recording and mixing? Sonar, Reaper, Cubase, and ProTools are all good choices (except Reaper is cheaper). Doing mastering? You'll probably want something like Samplitude and a really good I/O system for pushing the audio through external boxes. And, again, even though the open source world has lookalikes for many of these things, you'll get a much more simple and polished experience from a commercial OS. Especially since audio I/O on Linux has been even more FU'ed than Windows' audio I/O (I know... a concept even I have a hard time wrapping my head around) for the past twenty years.
So the real answer is "It depends." And I won't troll more by trying to recommend a Macintosh where the stuff is mainly plug-and-play and just works. Although Logic is its own can of hell, from what a friend I know tells me.
In any case, don't get too mired in the tools. They aren't where the music comes from, anyway.

--
That is all.

Getting a tool or making a religious statement? by DavidinAla · 2014-01-27 15:20 · Score: 4, Informative

If you're making a statement of your religious faith OR if you're just tinkering, going to the trouble of finding something to run an open source package makes sense. If you're actually interested in the right tool for the job, then buy a real music studio with a Mac or a Windows PC instead. There's a reason that real musicians generally use real tools that suit professional needs.

Re:GarageBand by stillpixel · 2014-01-27 15:20 · Score: 2

A Mac is a viable option, why don't you re-read the original post.. try line 1.

Re:GarageBand by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 15:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

And guaranteed to blow your entire budget on something completely ill-suited to music composition/recording before you can buy any other decent equipment.

CCRMA and Fedora by bucketoftruth · 2014-01-27 15:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

Our music studio only records live sound (no MIDI). We use CCRMA on Fedora20. It has a ton of stuff you might find useful. We use it for the RT prempt capabilities so musicians can auto-punch-in/out during recording without have to go back and time-shift tracks later. Our "sound card" is a pair of Echo Audiofire 12's for the 24 mics around the studio.

As both a sound guy and a salesperson by aitikin · 2014-01-27 15:30 · Score: 4, Informative

I have tried just about EVERY option I can find in FOSS and they do not quite hold up to the current commercial offerings. Frankly, both as an end user and as a pro audio salesperson, I've only ever had mediocre luck with Make Music/Finale. At the very least, with Avid's Sibelius, I've been able to get decent tech support. I haven't had as much luck with Ardour as I'd like, and Audacity doesn't cut it. Getting into a decent Sequencer without dropping a fortune, I'd get into Studio One personally.

If you want more details and/or want to know more about my opinions on the matter, please feel free to PM me.

--
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve

Linuxmusicians.com, linuxaudio.org, Traktion, Ardo by raymorris · 2014-01-27 15:40 · Score: 4, Informative

As a DJ, I've come across some tools and some complete distributions that will likely fit your needs, but I don't know quite enough to make specific recommendations. I do know that there are alot of Linux music production tools that are way above my head, pro quality stuff. The folks at Linuxmusician.com and Linuxaudio.org would know exactly what you're talking about and be able to make specific recommendations. I looked at a couple distributions that are complete audio workstations on boot. They included a lot of fancy tools that were way more than I needed.

As you may know, music production on Linux uses JACK to hook together any software components you want. That means any editor tool can work with any midi source, for example, because they are plugged together using jack.

Two popular software packages are Ardour and Traktion, but really the Linux music community at sites focused on music production under Linux will have much better answers for you.

Use Reaper on a Hackintosh by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 15:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm a gigging musician who's been doing digital audio for 20 years, and followed open source audio very closely for ages. Sadly, a purely FOSS solution will just hamper you. I tried for years, ( I played shows with 100% FOSS software) but honestly, I think a DAW is too feature rich for anything but a dedicated team to do properly. Now I use Reaper, which is as close to open source as you're going to get in a kick ass DAW. (Ardour will do for tracking and mixing, but not scoring or midi editing). It's got an unlimited un-crippled demo, cheap individual license ($40), cool company, and to be honest, it's so good I'd use it over Logic or Protools or Live even if it cost $500. It's incredibly well designed, and extendable in two scripting languages so there are loads of open source extensions and plugins for it. You can find tons of great FOSS environments to use *in addition* to your DAW ( PureData, SuperCollider, CSound, scads of open source plugins), but for your main DAW, the sweet spot IMHO is Reaper on a hackintosh.

If you *need* it to be 100% open source, Linux + Ardour + PureData or SuperCollider is a good option, but I wouldn't recommend it over doing the same thing with Os X and Reaper instead.

Ya pretty much by Sycraft-fu · 2014-01-27 15:46 · Score: 5, Informative

There is just not much in the free software world, particularly for Linux, that is good for music composition. Just the way it is. If you want to do it well, you need commercial tools, generally for Windows or Mac.

For what the original poster is looking for, I'd say have a look at Cakewalk Sonar X3. Sonar is real, real good at MIDI, knows how to deal with SoundFonts, has some built in synths that aren't too bad, and only runs $100 for the basic version. It's notation is not the best, but anything I can think of that is a reasonable step up is also quite a bit more money (like Cubase).

However depending on what the ultimate goal is, the DAW can end up being the cheap part of things. High quality samples cost a lot, and there are few freebies. Reason is to make good samples you need to hire good musicians, a good recording studio/hall, good engineers, and then spend a lot of time on it. Gotta make that money back somehow. So if you want realistic sounds, you can easily spend far more on samples than the DAW/sequencer. I own Sonar X3 Producer, which is $500, but I've spent more than that on a single sample set, and I have multiple sample sets.

Also if he thinks that programming a synthesizer is easy, he's got another thing coming. Making a competent synthesis engine that sounds good, is usable, etc, etc is not an easy task. Particularly since there are all sort of different kinds of synthesis one might wish to use, and each is implemented and controlled differently.

So, like the parent said: religious statement or actual work? If you just wanna play around in Linux with free solutions, then go to it. No need to ask on Slashdot, just try stuff out. Wikipedia has a list of OSS music software, to name just one place. If you are asking because you want something that doesn't suck and can do some real work, then you'll need to stick with Window or Mac and drop some money.

Like I said, I'd go for Sonar. There's a free trial, and the base version isn't that much and has good features and capabilities (it isn't crippled with regards to tracks and so on). You can always upgrade later.

Other reasonably priced options to look at are Reaper and FL Studio Fruity Edition.

Re:Ya pretty much by Razordude · 2014-01-27 17:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sure. But when your principles are so restrictive as to prevent you from using the majority of useful modern technology and software, it's worth considering whether such principles are really sensible and whether your priorities are suitable for what you're trying to accomplish.
Some people have completely unrealistic principles. They can't be helped, not unless they realize that the world requires compromise if you want to get things done sometimes. It's just how life is.
Re:Ya pretty much by serviscope_minor · 2014-01-27 20:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you drop principles because they're inconvenient, then they're not principles, they're fond notions and little else. Principles are what keep/stop you doing something when it is difficult/expensive or otherwise problematic to not do otherwise.

--
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Ya pretty much by llamabot · 2014-01-27 21:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

I would argue that audio production is the one area that Open Source truly excels in. I was very pleasantly surprised to find so many different tools available for audio production on Linux and the quality of the software.
Of particular interest is the JACK (JACK Audio Connection Kit) which allows multiple software products to communicate seamlessly with each other. You don't need to hope that your primary production tool supports your plugin or tool, only that it supports JACK. The rest is transparent and you'll find that because JACK has been around for so long that all the production tools you use will support it.
There is a very high quality open source multitrack recorder that is consequently used as a platform for a highly regarded commercial platform (Ardour/Harrison Mixbus). There are very capable MIDI sequencers with full feature sets and a veritable ocean of MIDI compatible synthesisers and effects generators. There are also a number of solid sequencers and loopers available as well.
Hardware wise, support is a mixed bag. On one hand, many sound interfaces do not have open drivers - but if you are selective then you can find very high quality interfaces with very good support. My experience with real-time kernels and PCI based sound cards (MAudio Delta 66's in this instance) allowed me to record at error free sub 3ms latencies with 24bit/96khz on much older hardware - something I couldn't even hope to achieve on other platforms.
The primary weakness in open source audio production is also a strength. The sheer diversity of production tools available makes developing an effective workflow a time consuming business and commercial offerings do have a much shallower learning curve. This isn't an issue if you are willing to invest a little time during the initial setup stages.
If you want to do open source audio production then there's absolutely nothing stopping you. Some might want to do this for ideological reasons (political or technical - they might want to extend the software), but others might not have any other option. Somebody from a poor community or in a third world nation might not have much trouble sourcing hardware capable of performing the job (donations etc.), but affording the software with the same level of features the open source solutions offer could be prohibitively expensive or it may be unavailable for other reasons (geo-blocking, donated commercial software is a very problematic area, etc.).
Re:Ya pretty much by Eskarel · 2014-01-27 21:53 · Score: 2

Then FOSS offers a solution, code it yourself or pay someone else to code it for you. It'll probably cost you 5- 10 years of full time development or close to a million bucks to accomplish, but you have that option.
For whatever reason there simply aren't enough developers who have a professional music editing itch to scratch or perhaps there aren't enough with the same itch to scratch for anything much to get off the ground. Realistically it's not all that surprising that people who make their money out of content creation and copyright might not be the biggest proponents of FOSS and so not necessarily the most willing to sink huge amounts of time into it.
Re:Ya pretty much by Razordude · 2014-01-27 22:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sounds more like you're conflicting being principled with being stubborn/inflexible. Sometimes compromise has to be made in order for anything to happen. Two principled individuals who disagree with each other are not as helpful as those who try to work within the boundaries of what they consider reasonable.
In the end it's just software, there to do a job.
Re:Ya pretty much by Pav · 2014-01-28 00:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

...ahh yes... people with more time than money ie. the people where much of the new music and ideas actually come from.
Re:Ya pretty much by rockmuelle · 2014-01-28 04:01 · Score: 2

More to the point, as a professional programmer and musician, as much as I'd love to write music software, I use my free time writing music. The commercial tools are really good and the parent is correct in saying that it will take a lot of effort to catch up.
Fwiw, I use Ableton for recording and production and hardware synths for sounds. Of you love hacking and music, check out the latest generation of affordable analog synths (Korg volca/monotribe, Artutia microbrute, etc). Desiging sounds from scratch is highly satisfying.

I do this for a living by Ralph+Spoilsport · 2014-01-27 15:46 · Score: 5, Informative

1. It's the SOFTWARE FIRST ,the OS is (mostly) irrelevant.
2. figure out WHAT you want to do in music and select the software that fits your needs from there.
3. Buy the hardware that supports your software the best.

Frankly, in terms of just "getting shit done" Windows (7) is basically as good as Mac. Linux isn't so friendly, but if the software you need to get shit done is only on Linux, then, you're on Linux.

Now, there is a caveat with the software first thing, which is, your interface. If the audio in/out device you're using is Mac only, then you're using a Mac. Etc for the rest. So, for example for my home studio, I have a MOTU Ultralite MkIII hybrid running on windows 7 HP laptop. It's a bit quirky, but the sound quality is excellent and the preamps are smooth - for the price, it's hard to beat. There is better, but it costs more. Luckily, the MOTU is Mac/Win, and I happened to have this HP laptop not doing anything, so bingo: instant home music set up.

For software I run Ableton Live Suite - the fullblown monster. Why? Because what I do is more performance /composition based. If I was in a band and I was recording through some big multichannel interface, I would go with ProTools, because that's what I learnt in school, and it's pretty much the "MS Office" of the audio world (in more ways than one...) I also use Audacity, which is the swiss army knife of audio editing (i.e., small, crude, but effective)

For monitors at home I have a pair of EVENT PS8 monitors. They're a little bass heavy, but over all, very good sounding at a very reasonable price.

I don't use a mixing desk, I have an AKAI control surface and a Yamaha (XS6) synthesizer. Between them, I have plenty of ways of making things happen.

At work, things are very different - I have a ProTools C24 console and an SSL mixing desk with Bryston amps and Dynaudio 5.1 monitors and a Mac Tower running Protools, AVID, Audacity, Melodyne, Autotune, and a pile of other gear (compressors, processors, etc.) But that's almost half million bucks right there. So, "let's not go there" and let's focus on what you're trying to do.

So, get yourself an audio interface and some kick ass speakers, FIRST. Then figure out what software you need, and that will guide you to the hardware. When all is said and done, what computer you use is trivial, both in terms of effectiveness and expense. I bought my HP laptop (an old i5 running win 7) for $300 used. It works FINE. Ableton Live Suite literally costs THREE times as much. My laptop is one of the cheapest pieces of gear I own (my speakers were $650). So, don't sweat the hardware. Figure out the kind of music you want to make and proceed from there.

Here are some general suggestions
1. Rock Music: ProTools / Logic / Whatever - Focus on microphones and a good compressor.
2. Electronica: Ableton Live. Get a good control surface (I don't recommend Akai - mine sucks...) and a good keyboard
3. Dance Music: I would suggest a combo of FL Studio and Ableton Live
4. Composition: Finale and (whatever: Logic / Ableton / ProTools / Reaper / whatever) Your main point is to generate good composition - the software is just there to make it do something, so it will be more a question of what softsynths you use...)
5. Experimental: Cycling 74 Max/MSP or Processing. You'll need to get a Mac for that.
6. Jazz: See Rock.

That should get you started. DON'T TALK TO SALESMEN. They will try to sell you things. Things you probably don't need. Focus on what your interests and skills are, and then build your studio around that.

--
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.

Re:I do this for a living by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-01-27 16:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Currently using musescore and audacity. Musescore makes me want to punch it, Finale was more usable 15 years ago. Audacity just has oddities, like track being milliseconds apart and had to resync.
If I used them frequently, I'd pay money to not use them.
Re:I do this for a living by clockwise_music · 2014-01-27 17:27 · Score: 3, Informative

>That should get you started. DON'T TALK TO SALESMEN. They will try to sell you things.
>Things you probably don't need. Focus on what your interests and skills are, and then build your studio around that.

Very helpful advice. Check out gearslutz.com for some other (hopefully) useful answers. The forum is very good.

Wait, what? Is this question from 2004? by Phil+Urich · 2014-01-27 15:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

These days, that an app is developed "for" KDE or GNOME or whatnot doesn't at all preclude running it elsewhere. I use many GTK and GNOME apps myself (in fact, the browser I'm typing this from at the moment---Chromium---is GTK) but run KDE since it's flexible and doesn't seem to want to remove features every release (sorry, sorry, not trying to start a flamewar), so I can't see why you wouldn't be able to run Rosegarden in a GNOME environment. The worst thing that can happen is the widgits and iconography might look a bit out of place, but who cares? And there are compatible themes that take care of even that. I'm honestly really confused by your statements, it's like saying you can't wear a striped tie because you have polkadot underwear on.

But of course, since Ubuntu doesn't even use GNOME anymore as the default environment, I suppose it's possible you're simply asking a question from 2004, and I do remember back then apps looked kindof bad in the wrong DEs, and computers often didn't have enough disk space and RAM to want to bring in so many additional dependencies. Yeah, your question starts to make a bit more sense if we assume you're lost in time, although it still doesn't make a ton of sense. But anyways, considering it's 2014, who the fuck cares if you end up using an extra 100MB of RAM because you need to open the Qt libraries as well?

--
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!

Second KXStudio by MaslowsHammer · 2014-01-27 15:50 · Score: 2

KXStudio is really the best choice if you want to give it a go on Linux. You can run whatever DE you want, gnome, kde, etc. Rosegarden will run just fine, even with a GTK DE (Gnome/Unity). So will QT based apps for that matter, just not as tight integration. I cant speak to transcription software, but Ardour is pro-quality multitrack audio, with decent and improving Midi capabilities. If you do opt for a Mac, I would highly recommend Reaper - for a $70 piece of software, it is quite amazing as a multitrack audio and midi studio.

Ubuntu Studio by capt_mulch · 2014-01-27 16:01 · Score: 2

Vote 1 Ubuntu Studio. Works great. Rosegarden works fine with it too (not loaded by default, post-install it).

Topic is fanboi trollbait... by jddeluxe · 2014-01-27 16:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

BUT, that being said, I'm a musician in real life that prostitutes myself as an engineer during the day to pay the bills, for several decades now...

I tried for years using various software packages on Windows and Linux, you name it, I've tried it... Bottom line is, I finally broke down and bought a MBP in 2011 ( cheap ass $1199 entry level one, maxed out the memory and shitcanned the HD and installed a 512 Gb SSD) I'll never look back and wish I'd done it a lot sooner.
Everyone can spew whatever fanboi shit they want to, but Apple owns the music market. Even software that works in multiple OS environments like ProTools work better on a Mac and you don't run into hardware/latency/drivers/other issues common on other HW/OS platforms. Just go ahead and buy an Apple iMac or MBP as suits your environment; if you don't you can spend a lot of time/money/aggravation over a period of years, trust me, been there, done that, have the T-shirt and barbed wire ankle tattoo...

no, real time since about 2008 by raymorris · 2014-01-27 16:25 · Score: 2

No, the real time kernel was available by 2008 and soon after the drivers and other important elements for real time were adapted.

You DO want to use a kernel compiled for real time, last I checked. You certainly CAN introduce latency if you're also using it as a typical desktop, but if you either start with a studio distribution or build it as a studio machine you should be fine.

The move to Linux by mdwstmusik · 2014-01-27 16:34 · Score: 5, Informative

I've been writing and recording since the early 80s. I own several computers and tonnes midi/audio recording software, (e.g. Protools, Cubase, Garage Band, Sonar, Sibelius...). I've also been using Linux on my desktop since Mandrake 7. Recently, I set up a computer with Ubuntu Studio, and I love it. I've barely touched any of the other systems since....mostly just to export tracks. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I'm finding that once I got the hang of using Jack, there was no turning back.

Primarily, I'm using Ardour (http://ardour.org/features.html) for multi-track audio recordings (LV2, VST and LADSPA plugins are all supported), MuseScore (http://musescore.org/) for scoring, Timidity/Qsyth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiMidity%2B%2B) for MIDI tone generation.

Also, I've never had any issues sharing tracks with users of other programs, nor have I had any issues exporting from other programs/platforms into those in Ubuntu Studio.

--
"Oh, what sad times these are when passing ruffians can say 'ni' to helpless old ladies."

for open source, add, don't create. Mac != iOS by raymorris · 2014-01-27 16:35 · Score: 2

You mentioned programming your own synth, which would be open source. I'd bet there is an open source synth that is 98% what you want. Since it's open source, you can just do the 2% that it's missing - no need to write your own 100%.

Several people mentioned Mac. I'm a hardcore FOSS guy. I used FOSS exclusively for 15 years. Mac devices like the iPhone reminded me why proprietary stuff can be so annoying. Then I was presented with a Mac Pro. Actually using the Mac changed my view. It's good, and it's what professional creatives use - for a reason. Don't let any negative experiences with iOS portable devices put you off of Mac computers. It's as if OSX and iOS are made by two different companies. Additionally, Mac OSX is Unix, so it'll run most any Linux programs.

Re:MuseScore? by BenFranske · 2014-01-27 16:44 · Score: 2

Parent is correct. Clearly, a lot of slashdotters don't know the difference between notation and DAW software. No, Reaper, Ardour, and Audacity are not notation programs. If notation is what you want the best F/OSS solution I've seen is MuseScore. I have completely replace Finale/Sibelius with this for my notation needs. Note that my needs are strictly for notation for printing though. I am not doing any MIDI creation from it so I can't speak to that. I don't believe it supports playing back with soundfonts (it includes the nasty MIDI patches mentioned in the OP). As an aside if you're really serious about making printed music look nice you should take a look at LilyPond though it doesn't have an editing GUI so it's more for your magnum opus rather than the quick and dirty song development more typical.

Never gonna happen, because of how OSS works. by goruka · 2014-01-27 16:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've been following this for more than a decade, even wrote a lot of audio software for Linux, and all my music is made under it, with my own apps. Yet I recognize the situation will never improve. Here's why:

1) While the Linux kernel is perfectly capable of low latency, even on the shittiest of hardware, it does not provide the concept of primary and secondary buffers. If you want to use pro audio, you want to be able to mix the low latency, high sampling rate stream together with the regular OS/Desktop audio. Windows and OSX do this by setting the hardware for the realtime client, then also mixing the secondary audio over it, which comes from userland (or already mixed in userland). As a result, when using realtime audio in Linux, desktop audio dies or is hacked to route pulseaudio to jack and other stuff that does not really work well.

2) It's impossible to write plugins similar to VST, because of the different way tookits connect to X11 (they won't share the connection). You can't mix and match toolkits so a host DAW will use different plugns. The only way is to use separate processes, but that makes programming complexity much higher and very few people bothered. Wayland seemed like it could fix this in the future, but other distros such as Ubuntu refuse to use it, so it doesn't seem good.

3) Good programmers are not necesarily good composers. This is something that is much more important than it seems. Commercial companies are forced to listen to their users, but OSS developers mostly care about doing something good enough for themselves. Given the chance that a good programmer is a good producer/composer is super slim for the practical world, most audio software kind of sucks and feels incomplete. Ardour took more than a decade to implement MIDI and it still is horrible, because the main developers care more about live session recording. If they really had to use it everyday to make professional music, it wouldn't be as bare bones as it is now. At the same time, stuff that looks like a good idea (jack daemon) are terrible in practice because making music with a bunch of applications open is akin or worse to a live set of devices with cables connected.

4) Finally, the biggest problem of Linux is that, unlike other software such as 3D or imaging, there is plenty of cheap and good Windows/OSX audio alternatives, so even if OSS software were to run properly on Windows/Mac, the incentive is still slow. It's not like Blender or Gimp, that it's commercial counterparts are in the thousands $.

Re:GarageBand by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 16:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you aren't familiar with the capabilities of GarageBand, or any other music software, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU COMMENTING ON THIS PARTICULAR STORY?

Re:It's like telling a Photoshop user: Try Paint! by log0n · 2014-01-27 17:12 · Score: 5, Informative

Garageband is (at least up to 2010ish - not sure if recent? versions have robbed anything) a surprisingly powerful music program. Logic (& other daws) add a lot of editing specific features that really enable you to get extremely anal with your work, but all of the underlying 'record/punch/trim/level/etcetc' concepts are there and do what you expect them to do. Garageband does notation along with midi / wave substitution and add in the JamPacks (all included free with MainStage on app store iirc) to replace stock GM sounds and everything the topic poster wants is there.

A better analogy would be telling a Photoshop user to try GetPaint.net / Paint.NET. Not the same as Photoshop, but all of the essentials and editing concepts are nearly identical. You can easily accomplish whatever it is your trying to do.

$.02 As much as I love and try to solely OSS, there are no options for this specific case. Ardour and Rosegarden are nice enough, but in much the same way Gimp isn't Photoshop, neither are those suitable alternatives. (primarily, asio-ish low latency audio/hardware isn't reliable ime, and there are no real options for upgraded GM soundbanks short of creating them yourself (which will end up consuming easily 88x more time and energy than the music being written in the first place))

No, sorry, but it is the opposite by Sycraft-fu · 2014-01-27 17:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Most of the cross platform stuff works better in Windows. You can sniff around online for various tests, DAWBench has some good ones: http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v.... You also don't get away from driver issues if you are talking pro audio, since all the pro cards have their own drivers and many of them are... suboptimal to put it nicely.

If you like using a Mac, that's fine, but don't try and sell it as "better" because objectively, you can get more polyphony, lower latency, etc on a Windows system using the same software. Not really a big deal these days as an i7 + SSD generally means your system has more power than you need for anything, but the data is what it is.

Why not LMMS? by MindPrison · 2014-01-27 17:36 · Score: 2

I'm kind of surprised no one in this long thread have mentioned Linux MultiMedia Studio yet, that software is actually very capable. http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ Enjoy.

--
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.

Re:Must use MacOS by The+Grim+Reefer · 2014-01-27 17:44 · Score: 2

For serious music production use MacOS, its the right tool for the job. Get Logic Pro or Pro Tools for audio/midi recording, and Sibelius or Finale for score editing. If you want pain & suffering welcome to use open source alternatives.

You say that like pain and suffering in the creation of music is a bad thing.

That's all well and good for writing it. But not so much for recording it.

Re:Must use MacOS by qpqp · 2014-01-27 18:00 · Score: 4, Informative

That's all well and good for writing it. But not so much for recording it.

Huh?! You serious? Logic/ProTools is like the default setup for recording, mixing, composing, and editing. We're not talking about avant-gardists, mind you, so no PD, Max, Audiosculpt (and other IRCAM stuff), etc.
Yes, there's Live, Reason, Sonar, DP, and a couple of other packages, but standard is Logic and/or ProTools. Period.

Re:Linux Audio by Miamicanes · 2014-01-27 18:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

Linux, Windows, and OSX all have problems with low-latency audio. The sad irony is that 15 years ago, you actually COULD connect a MIDI keyboard to a SB Pro AWE/32's MIDI port, run your sequencer app, and have it do a halfway decent job of both capture and playback. Then, host-based audio happened, and everything went to shit... accelerated by architectural changes to all three platforms that made matters even worse.

Forget about trying to do realtime CPU-based audio on any computer that needs to still be usable as a normal computer. It's impossible. You CAN hand-tweak Linux, Windows, and OS X in various ways to get the latency down (as others have noted, Linux has had realtime kernel audio available as an option for a while), but the tweaks you have to make will render it dysfunctional as a general-purpose computer.

It doesn't matter how fast your i7 or Xeon is, it doesn't matter how much RAM you have, and it doesn't matter if you have a terabyte RAID 0 SSD array... nothing you do will ever make it fast enough to do low-latency host-based audio without ever glitching. You might reduce the glitches to something that happens every 5-10 minutes, instead of every 5-10 seconds, but you'll never eliminate them completely. It's just the nature of how Windows, Linux, and OS X now handle multitasking.

The solution? Re-discover dedicated synth modules. Or set up a second PC whose only reason for existence is to be a VST/soft synth host -- aggressively tweaked for low-latency audio in ways the main DAW PC can't be.

The problem isn't MIDI (that was solved YEARS ago by just using USB to give every physical MIDI port its own dedicated full-bandwidth MIDI cable), and the problem isn't raw data being shoveled around. The problem is that even with a multi-core CPU and abundant RAM, Windows/Linux/OS X will all starve the soft synth for CPU cycles for 3-7ms at a time (usually, more like 12-20ms) while the audio buffer drains. If it empties before the CPU calculates the next 5-10ms chunk of waveform data, you get a loud audio glitch. Audio-generation is a "realtime" activity, and Windows/Linux/OS X in their roles as desktop operating systems all fall flat on their faces when realtime becomes a necessity.

So... the moral of the story: forget about trying to use a single computer as both DAW and VST/softsynth host. If you can avoid live performances involving a softsynth (or pre-record the softsynth and fake the keyboard playing during the performance, you'll save a LOT of money. Audio glitches while jamming or capturing keyboard input suck, but at least they won't affect your real recordings. Use your DAW as a DAW, and give the soft synth host its own hardware that can be properly tweaked for realtime audio.

Re:MuseScore? by lasinge · 2014-01-27 20:58 · Score: 2

I've been using lilypond for years and find it actually very nice for quick and dirty ... once you figure it out and have set up an initial format for whatever you want. The learning curve is steep - it is essentially a scripting language for music, somehow related to LaTex. It took about 50 hours to do my first 3 lead sheets, now I can crank one out in about 15 minutes. Frescobaldi is a nice way of dealing with lilypond, it is sort of an IDE for lilypond with a panel for viewing your pdf while you work on the code. On the other hand, I just checked out musescore and I like being able to play the notes on a midi keyboard with one hand and adjusting note values with the left... it will export to lilypond format as well (but not back).

--
you are in a twisty maze of different passages.

Here's the stuff I know/use by RoboJ1M · 2014-01-27 21:58 · Score: 2

I wrote a longer post but I lost it, so here's the links:

LMMS ("Compatible with many standards such as SoundFont2, VST(i), LADSPA, GUS Patches, and MIDI")
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

Ardour (A DAW, but maybe useful)
http://ardour.org/

Rosegarden (Best sequencer, with Lilypad notation support, has actual printed literature you can buy)
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com...

Audacity (PCM swiss army knife ;)
http://audacity.sourceforge.ne...

The Cloudsto MK802IV LE, £80 ARM PC-onna-stick for doing music production on (Toys!!! *8D)
http://www.sonicstate.com/news...

Who needs a Mac or a PC when you can run it all on the CPU your phone uses?
Not tried it myself but for £80, I need to get one and have a go.

Re:Must use MacOS by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 22:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Or you can buy a modern PC that is 4 times more powerful and have cash left over for beer.

An oddball solution by Tapewolf · 2014-01-27 22:24 · Score: 2

I do a lot of MIDI composition. Cakewalk was the first piece of MIDI software which I was really able to get to grips with, originally in Windows 3.1. I run an old version of SONAR now, under WINE. I use that for composing, but then export it into Rosegarden for recording. I did most of this in Windows until 7 came along and broke the 4x4 USB MIDI interface I was using - it was easier just to stay in Linux from that point on.

For sound generation, I use hardware, mostly rackmount syntheszers. You can find these second hand on ebay quite a lot - the Roland JV series are pretty good general-purpose sound sources for starting out. They have the advantage that they are completely OS-agnostic, and apart from some weirdos like the Creamware ASB or the Receptor, they don't require online activation and they also won't die the year after the maker goes bust because OSX or Windows broke some API it uses. If you must use VSTs, Rosegarden and a couple of other packages will act as a VST host, probably using bits of WINE to do so. The MUSE Receptor does this as a hardware device (again, using a modified version of WINE) but although a Linux device, it is up to the hilt in DRM and remarkably expensive for what it is.

Where it gets unusual is recording and tracking. I record quick demos of the piece using Audacity, but for the real thing I track it onto tape, using a timecode track to control the sequencer. This isn't a legacy system, it was a deliberate decision because I wanted to get some idea of how things were done before Protools became widespread.

If I didn't do it that way, I'd either be looking at using a standalone DAW such as an Alesis HD24, or Ardour. I few years ago I scored a TASCAM 1" 24-track machine, and before that I was using a pair of synchronized 8-track machines, but to be honest that was a royal pain. I mix the 24-track tape down to a 1/4" stereo machine, and digitize the stereo master from that. I also have a 24-channel JoeCo recorder which I use to take digital safety masters of the multitracks.

I am well aware that this is a weird thing to do in this day and age, but I figured I may as well throw it into the pot. In any case, there are people like Slugbug and Freelove Fenner who do the whole thing completely in the analogue domain, but that's not really what the question was.

Just get a cheap netbook with a browser ... by Qbertino · 2014-01-27 22:55 · Score: 2

Just get a cheap netbook with a browser and use audiotool. ... No matter the OS, as long as it has Flash (Chrome has Flash built in).
Honestly, I'm only joking a little here. The stuff these people did with audiotool is amazing right up to flat out insane. You really should check it out. I wouldn't be suprised if it fits *all* your needs.

That aside, you get tons of tools in the closed and FOSS space. I'd go with what fits best. It may be that the available midi/audio to usb interfaces are most sophisticated for the mac vs. windows or x86 Linux.

You also want to consider the hardware. The new Mac Pro (the round pipe-thing) has gotten raving reviews from audio professionals for its silent operation (1 fan only) in relation to its power and speed. Some even use it directly in the studio. If your on a budget, a linux laptop with supported audio hardware (supported seperate USB audio interface strongly recommended!!) will do just fine. Supercollider is one of the many FOSS audiotools (it's a synth) that are really great. There are ready-made Linux music+audio distros out there, even a specialized ubuntu variante, IIRC.

Then again, do check out audiotool. Some musicians use it exclusively. A webapp. No shit. A friggin webapp. ... As I said: Quite amazing.

My 2 cents.

--
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca

Here is an example of what opensource can do by mendred · 2014-01-27 23:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

This is an example of the music I produce. It is produced using KXStudio and ardour with linuxsampler/hydrogen (running as an LV2 plugin via composite sampler)/linuxdsp/calf plugins. It shows that it is definitely possible to use opensource software to create songs. Of course i have also mixed in LinuxDSP (which is commercial) along with the calf plugins - they plays a big part in my sound.

https://soundcloud.com/shadowo...

Most of the money I have spent is on the equipment I use to record (my guitars/ tube condenser mic/X-Station/headphones etc). But I have also spent a lot of time and energy accumulating free samples from different sources and kitting them together(the drum kit is an example - it is a hydrogen based Drumkit using the Colombo Acoustic Drumkit with other samples (e.g. the snare) from different sources - all free). I also use the excellent composite sampler to directly plugin the hydrogen drumkits as a lv2 plugin into Ardour's midi tracks, so I don't use anything over ardour really. I use a cheap BCF2000 in Mackie emulation mode with Ardour.

I have also bought the linuxdsp plugins - I can honestly say that they are on par and sometimes better than commercial offerings (listen to the Linuxdsp Pultech EQ in action and compare that to the real thing - very close!) - the best part is that they are not restricted to linux - so you can use them where-ever. Also use the excellent calf plugins especially the saturator.

It works for the kind of music I do - (a mix of classical/classical rock/blues/jazz) and the fact that I compose/record/produce/sing my music myself, but I have felt the pain in the past and it has often taken me a lot of time to produce the things the way i wanted it to sound (You can see some of my older pieces as well on soundcloud - you can see that the sound does gets progressively better - it was part of a learning process of learning to use the tools and learning music production! I am currently working on a new track which uses the sonatina orchestra which is a free orchestral sample released under creative commons and i think that definitely sounds a lot better than my previous ones. Also Ardour allows for midi editing on screen - i.e.. i can see all my tracks side by side with midi at the same track resolution- its very useful when i need to line up notes across tracks. Other DAWs tend to have a separate window come up when you need to have midi editing (or they used to..not sure if that's the case anymore!)

If you go with a mac - chances are you will be doing what other people have already done and use the tools that they do - it does wind up costing more though- but if you are going to be producing music for other folks, time will be critical. Also there are probably more tools/options out there for the mac - e.g. I still can't find an auto tune equivalent for linux - however it is possible to run windows VSTs under emulation in wine as well - you can find videos in youtube.

The key thing with the mac is that if you run into problems..chances are someone would be able to help you solve them - I know a friend who absolutely swears by his macbook for music production and he says that the support is amazing. Linux based DAWs have also grown in that sense - the Ardour community is large but I just get the feeling that the mac might be a bit more mature - although this could be a case of the grass being greener on the other side. It will now be a bit of a learning curve, I am way too used to the way Ardour/jack and how my tools work now that I have invested the time and energy in getting to know them.

Also these tools have matured (i have been using them for over 5 years now). So a lot of the problems I faced in 2008 have been minimized. Suggest that if you do have the time, try giving them a spin with a simple project or something- spend a few weeks playing with it - if you like it use it. If you don't then you can always switch to commercial. The only thing you would have lost is time. That's what I did originally and didn't really look back after that.

An actual answer to the question! by danboid · 2014-01-27 23:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Long standing member of the Linux audio community here, with almost 20 years experience of recording under all 3 major platforms.

Please end the Mac fanboism and answer this poor guys question!

He's asking about LINUX BASED notation software and synths! I'm sure he's well aware of Macs, REAPER and ProTools etc - not that they do what he's after anyway!

Musescore and Rosegarden have already been mentioned for Linux notation software but there is also http://laborejo.org/ , http://denemo.org/ and http://www.frescobaldi.org/ . Laborejo seems to be the most popular in the Linux world these days. I'm not sure which is the best as I don't do notation very often and I've not tried them all. The last few are basically lilypond GUIs.

As for synths, the best (and most powerful) commercial synths for Linux is Loomer's Aspect. Its unbelievably CPU efficient too. As for open source, there is TAL Noizemaker (my fave), zynaddsubfx/Yoshimi, Amsynth and Triceratops are all worth checking out.

Another good free synth (but not open source yet) for Linux is Tunefish - thats my 3rd fave after Noizemaker and Aspect.

The best Linux Audio distros are KXStudio and AVLinux. As for DAWs (which he wasn't asking about, but just for my 2p) Ardour has lots of fans and many people use REAPER under Linux as its officially supported running under wine but my fave Linux DAW is qtractor. Its the fastest and most lightweight modern DAW. It lacks some whizz bang features of the popular commercial DAWs but you may find it does everything you need it to.

Re: Must use MacOS by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-27 23:51 · Score: 2, Informative

no, it's for idiots who can't take the time to learn engineering, because they are professional musicians, not engineers. and that's why mac is the standard in audio production and if you ever want to work in audio other than being a one man band marching to your own beat, you need to work with protools, logic and the likes.

besides, if mac is for idiots, i don't want to know your word for windows users.

Re:It's like telling a Photoshop user: Try Paint! by f3rret · 2014-01-27 23:56 · Score: 4, Funny

Who nests parenthetical statements?

Programmers, mathematicians, engineers, physicists and the guy you're replying to obviously.

--
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.

Re:Must use MacOS by multimediavt · 2014-01-28 00:36 · Score: 3, Informative

but standard is Logic and/or ProTools. Period. On a Mac.

FTFY

In order to fix something you have to do it with correct information. You have not. I have been doing analog and digital audio production and engineering since 1988. I have seen apps come and go. Pro Tools is the number one digital audio production app out there, and has been for more than two decades. It runs on Mac and PC. Logic is the only real competitor in the commercial/professional space, it only runs on Mac. Having said that the split is something like 70:30 Pro Tools. Now, there are some hobbyists, some garage studios and some outliers using other tools, but most are not what anyone would call first tier professional outfits and they are not the ones setting the standards.

Re:It's like telling a Photoshop user: Try Paint! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-28 01:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Honorary mention to Sir Terry Pratchett, who nests his footnotes.

Re:It's like telling a Photoshop user: Try Paint! by fendragon · 2014-01-28 01:28 · Score: 2

Ardour is getting very good these days. The MIDI support (new in Ardour 3) still has a few problems, but some intensive development focus on MIDI is apparently planned soon. I've produced a couple of whole CD albums on Ardour (sound recording only, no MIDI) and it's performed well, originally with M-Audio hardware but I'm using RME now.

Getting Ardour and other music/video software installed and configured to work properly and with low latency isn't easy though, and you are best off with a distribution that's been designed for that purpose from the start. AV Linux is my choice, though I've heard good things said about KXStudio and Dream Studio too.

No software is perfect by frog_strat · 2014-01-28 04:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was just talking to a friend who owns a Protools studios, he just went through some nasty downtime. I was also called to help troubleshoot a Sonar studio a while back. I have been using Linux / Ardour / Rosegarden / Hydrogen for years and pretty much have it down. Running a pro studio with it would require ready backup machines, (probably should be done with any OS). Here is a prog rock song, using 42 tracks in Ardour, Hydrogen. Mesa Boogie Mark IV into an SM57. Custom fanned fret guitar, Roland RD digital piano. http://www.think600.com/647mix...

Just get a Mac and use Logic Pro X by rumpsummoner · 2014-01-28 05:33 · Score: 2

I know it's not fashionable on Slashdot, but a Mac with Logic does everything you want to do. Logic even does notation reasonably well. I've used it to score string parts and it's fine. It isn't as good as Finale, but you can try it and see if it does what you want. It's $200 for Logic Pro X which pretty much gobbles up the difference between the cost of the mac and an equally equipped PC with Pro Tools. You'll still need IO, but that tends to not be terribly expensive. It also comes with boatloads of synths and samples, so you likely won't need to buy those (although I love everything that Native Instruments makes and highly recommend everything they make).

If you get more into the synthesis side of things, you can also check out Max/MSP. You can also check out PureData, if you want something open source. For your initial requirements, I think a mac running Logic Pro X is the best solution though, and could end up being the cheapest in an apples to apples comparison.

I use a mac with Ableton/MaxMSP live in a band setting and use Logic Pro X for recording anything multi-track where phase correlation matters (drums, live recordings, etc.). I use MOTU IO. I rarely have problems. The gear just works. I rarely spend time optimizing or fiddling with settings. I plug things in and it makes/records noise. I think those last four sentences are very important when making music.

If I sit down to record and get distracted by having to fuck with processes running in the background, or crackling and popping on my IO because my buffer settings aren't dialed in or because some errant process is causing things to hang momentarily every few minutes, that distracts me from making music. I love open source for a lot of things, but no one has really dialed in open source audio to the point where you're not constantly messing with it. Windows is actually the same way. Some people like that though. Some people don't mind spending time dialing things in, if it saves them some money. I'm not that guy though. I know that macs aren't immune to problems, but I have significantly fewer problems with background processes making my life difficult than I had with my windows boxes. Windows 8.1 might be better, I haven't tried it, but 8 had all the same irritating problems that 7 and XP had for me.

Anyway, that's my $0.02. I recommend a mac with Logic. It works great for me. Take lots of people's suggestions and see which ones align the most with what you're trying to do, and then run with it. Spend time making music and not worrying about your decision once you're running. There is an extraordinary amount of brilliant software out there. If you go with a PC and Reaper, you'll have more capability to make amazing music than was available even a few years ago, and it will be cheap. You can't really lose, regardless of the decision you make.

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