Are U an Ubuntu Musician?

[angelsguitar]

Hi. How many of you use Ubuntu to make music (record audio and MIDI)? Please share your experience and equipment/software used.

Let me start. I use Ubuntu Studio 7.10. I've been experimenting with Rosegarden, Ardour and MuseScore (for music writing; really has a lot of posibilities, I hope they develop it further. It has a Sibelius-like interface), plus some other software and plugins.

Currently use an M-Audio Delta 1010LT card to record. My PC has an Intel Dual Core 3.2 Ghz processor, 2 GB RAM, 2 HD's (200 GB and 250 GB).

So far so good. Really stable. Jack runs great.:guitar: Although I can't move entirely to Ubuntu / Linux for making music, it is moving in the right direction.

Anyone wants to share his/her experience?

[Bungo Pony]

The only things I've really used for making music (so far) are Hydrogen (excellent drum program) and Audacity. I'm still using Windows for most other things. I've also been on a bit of a break from creating music, but hopefully I'll start back up soon.

[empthollow]

I haven't done a whole lot of recording and haven't used midi. When I did do some recording i used audacious. It seemed to have alot of effects and amplifiers available but i wasn't in love with it. I recently began looking for a better program to record with, something profesional grade. From what i've read none of the programs seemed to have all the features in one prog. Some said one was good for recording and another good for midi. Jokosher looks to be the most user friendly although still in beta stages. It seems to have all of the necesities for recording. I liked it for it's simple interface but i haven't had time to explore the extent of it's capabilities.

[alwiap]

I still dualboot in Windows just so I can use Sibelius 5 natively (have tried getting it to work in 7.10, no luck yet), I would love to not have to dualboot but I need Sibelius :(

[daverich]

Yes I am.

I use ubuntu with Wine and Reaper.

I successfully run voxengo plugins via wine in reaper and I use this setup with a laptop and a Mackie Onyx 1640 desk with firewire for location recording.

It works very well indeed :)

I have to say I found the native linux offerings disappointing, and certainly reaper + wine blows them away.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[angelsguitar]

I still dualboot in Windows just so I can use Sibelius 5 natively (have tried getting it to work in 7.10, no luck yet), I would love to not have to dualboot but I need Sibelius :(

That's exactly my case too. I dual boot to use Sibelius too. I hope someday MuseScore can catch up; it looks promising, but still not like Sibelius.

By the way, I use Audacity, and have experimented with Hydrogen and Qsynth. Soon I'll try the vst effects with wine; let's see how it goes.

[lespaul_rentals]

I have not found anything that works well enough on Ubuntu to record with. Audacity is always throwing errors about soundbank issues, and as much as I try to troubleshoot and configure and modprobe I have never gotten it to run well. Windows is far better in that regard, thus I keep a Windows partition on my laptop.

[empthollow]

as far as drum machines are concerned LMMS is excelent. it also has other instruments as well!

[Wayne_T3]

Yes, I am now! I've converted from Windows and Cubase to Ubuntu. I was wondering what a really good sound card for recording would be (or should I go for a USB interface for my guitar?) Thanks in advance for your attention.

[Kingsley]

What app is used to listen to midi files?

[empthollow]

timidity is the name of the midi player.

[angelsguitar]

Yes, I am now! I've converted from Windows and Cubase to Ubuntu. I was wondering what a really good sound card for recording would be (or should I go for a USB interface for my guitar?) Thanks in advance for your attention.

Wel, I use an M-Audio Delta 1010 LT. Never had problems. There are other good M-Audio cards with fewer inputs and outputs, like the Delta 66, Delta 44 or the Audiophile series. If you prefer USB, check the Fast Track models.

I have Cubase too. Are you using Rosegarden now?

[jan quark]

check out my new piano bar site
see signature

I use audacity to record my tunes :)

[angelsguitar]

check out my new piano bar site
see signature

I use audacity to record my tunes :)

Nice Playing!

Just two things, as a manner of suggestion:

I found the volume of the mp3's very low. Surely running Audacity's Amplify plugin fixes it.

I noticed that you recorded a stereo file but only are using the left channel; the right channel is silence. Perhaps converting it to a mono file would be better, so that the music could be heard on both left and right channels.

[jan quark]

hey angelsguitar

thanks for the kudos
and I will follow your suggestions

the next recording should be better. perhaps I will record even today a new tune...

[jan quark]

I have uploaded an amplified version of the blues should be louder now:)

[angelsguitar]

Any of you making music for a living (or almost) with Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro)? Maybe in a studio recording context? Musical Arrangements? Scoring?

I've heard of a few studios using a Linux computer.

[stoodleysnow]

I would use Ubuntu to record from tapes, vinyl and instruments, but only if Intel ICH8 sound chips get full ALSA support. Until then, I'm stuck in bug-land. (And i tried OSS4, not much better).

[Bungo Pony]

I actually had some time to play with the recording & mixing tools last night. I pulled out an incomplete song that I've had sitting around. All the tracks have been mastered, but not put into a final mix. I figured I'd try it in Ubuntu.

Jack audio control is nice and powerful, but JackEQ doesn't have enough channels for me to work with. 4 stereo channels plus two auxilaries isn't enough, especially when you have stereo drums, two electric guitars, one acoustic guitar, a bass guitar, three or four vocal tracks, and some other miscellaneous instruments and effects :(

Does anyone have a suggestion for something better to use? The EQ in JackEQ isn't much of an EQ either. Bass, Midrange, and Treble just aren't enough, a true multiband equalizer would be a much better option. I could always loop the sound through my stereo and use my analog equalizer, but I prefer to avoid doing that.

Looks like I might be stuck with Windows a while longer.

[angelsguitar]

I actually had some time to play with the recording & mixing tools last night. I pulled out an incomplete song that I've had sitting around. All the tracks have been mastered, but not put into a final mix. I figured I'd try it in Ubuntu.

Jack audio control is nice and powerful, but JackEQ doesn't have enough channels for me to work with. 4 stereo channels plus two auxilaries isn't enough, especially when you have stereo drums, two electric guitars, one acoustic guitar, a bass guitar, three or four vocal tracks, and some other miscellaneous instruments and effects :(

Does anyone have a suggestion for something better to use? The EQ in JackEQ isn't much of an EQ either. Bass, Midrange, and Treble just aren't enough, a true multiband equalizer would be a much better option. I could always loop the sound through my stereo and use my analog equalizer, but I prefer to avoid doing that.

Looks like I might be stuck with Windows a while longer.

I don't know if you are using it already, but maybe you can try JAMin.

[UbuWu]

That's exactly my case too. I dual boot to use Sibelius too. I hope someday MuseScore can catch up; it looks promising, but still not like Sibelius.


Another one that is catching up fast, but still isn't there yet is NtEd (http://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/staff/jan/nted/nted.xhtml). It is now almost good enough for me as an amateur pianist.

[angelsguitar]

Another one that is catching up fast, but still isn't there yet is NtEd (http://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/staff/jan/nted/nted.xhtml). It is now almost good enough for me as an amateur pianist.

Interesting project. I'll be downloading it and put it to test. Thanks.

[angelsguitar]

Any of you knows of a good Linux alternative to Band in a Box? I've ran Band in a Box using wine, but I'd just like to know if there's a Linux alternative to it.