Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Yknurd on January 30, 2008, 12:34:55 PM
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Wanna record your own music? Well, now you can...for free! That's right...for free!
I'm gonna start posting about some free-as-in-beer programs and OS's you can use to record your own music. I'll try to post a little each day about something different, maybe not...maybe I'll go bananas one day at lunch and do it all.
Oh, you techno guys will also find something useful about this too. Easy beat makers and loopers included.
Today I'll start with something for Windows. And it's free.
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is free multi-track recorder and editor.
It's intuitive, fairly robust and does not have a steep learning curve. Try it out!
(http://www.freesmug.org/review/img/review/audacity.png)
Tomorrow I'll start with some of the other OS's out there.
Again, they are free. Really. Legit. Straight up. Aight?
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In addition, Audacity can be used to make ringtones for your cellphone.
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I love Audacity. It's great for grabbing audio samples off of DVD's, internet streams, etc... I also use this to down-convert live recordings to .mp3. Be sure to set your output bitrate though as it is set default to 128kbps.
Xilsoft Audio Converter is another great free program, and comes bundled with some other stuff I haven't even played with yet. I use this one for converting .m4a's back to mp3's(thanks iTunes), but it can do just about any format.
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The OS's that I will be mentioning will be Linux centric.
And all these OS's will feature much of the same free open source programs. But please do not think that because they are free or open source that these programs are sub-quality. Audio programs in Linux are very robust and stable with constant development for new features.
Before we get into the different OS's though, I would also like to discuss a few concepts and terms.
Although all these distributions are based on Linux they are all slightly different. Each one will 'feel' different. Some will look more appealing to you initially and some will be more enjoyable after you become more familiar with them.
Since all it will cost you is the time to download them and the discs to burn them I advise you to experiment to find the one that makes you happy. At least as happy as an operating system can; it's not like it will make a super model fall in love with you.
Okay, now a few terms:
Live CD
There are quite a few distributions that will offer a Live CD. Put it in your computer and reboot. It will then boot up off the CD (or DVD) installing the operation system into memory. The upside to all of this is that you can actually run the OS without installing anything. Great way to explore with the system and see if it rubs you the wrong way or not.
This does not install anything on your machine. When you are done, shut down, remove the CD and viola...you are back to your machine as it was.
In some cases you may even be able to read from your existing hard drive although I would not expect all Live CDs to write to it. Furthermore, I would not expect every OS operating from a Live CD to work as smoothly as your native OS.
Remember, you are working from a CD, this is just to get a feel for OS. If you do want to install, well that is as easy as clicking on the icon on the desktop that says, "Install".
Dual Boot
You don't need a separate computer to run Linux. You can always make you're computer a 'dual boot' system. This will install a menu (Grub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_GRUB) ) that will allow you to choose which OS you want to boot.
All you need is the disk space to install, a few handy instructions and the fortitude to try something different.
Okay, I'm out of time for this lunch so I'll continue the concepts tomorrow or the following day.
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(Concepts cont.)
Plugins
Think of plugins as the software equivalent to a guitar effects pedal. You can have distortion, compression, hi-pass filter, vocoder, Barry's Satan Maximizer, reverb and a load of others.
You can use these plugins to change the sound of your recordings. Either in real-time (see below) or as an effect in the multi-track recorder.
You can use multiple plugins at once for a single signal via Jack-Rack (see below). This will become clearer later.
Real-time and the Linux Kernel
The Linux kernel allows for real scheduling so most of the A/V (audio-visual) distribution have optimized the kernel so that it favors the A/V processes.
That is a really simplistic explanation. But an even better one by way of analogy is this: If you are recording music, would you rather the computer stutter it's recording when you moved the mouse? or would you rather the computer never miss a millisecond of your recording and move the cursor a second late after you moved the mouse?
Why is this important? Well, for starters you don't want your computer thinking that updating the cursor location is more important that making sure it didn't drop any of your music when writing it to the hardrive. But also for real-time applications.
Sure you can record something, say drums, then add a reverb plugin and let the computer chug away at it later to apply the reverb sound to it and record the final work to another track. Slower computer with limited memory, might take a couple of minutes to work all that out. Or...
If you have a svelte computer with gobs of memory and a real-time capable kernel you can apply these plugin effects to your signal as you play them and record them and you hear the effected output right now!
You want distortion for your guitar? Add the effect to the correct guitar channel in Ardour (the multi-track) and monitor your sound and the computer will add the distortion to it in real-time and you hear it right now!
Jack and Jack-Rack
Well, first I have to explain what Jack is. It's a recursive acronym for Jack Audio Connection Kit. Here (http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1004080) is a good primer for it by Dave Phillips whom many consider to be the guru of Linux music.
Simply put, Jack exists in a layer or space between the hardware/driver and any audio program that you use. But to use Jack the program has to be design with Jack support built in it.
Jack let's you route any audio signal from one program to another. The importance of this will become clearer soon.
Jack-Rack let's you stack multiple plugins in it. Think of a virtual guitarist rack with various effects in it.
So, I want to record my guitar with distortion, flanger and a little bit of compressor. I start Jack-Rack and add these effects into it adjusting their settings as I like
Now, using Jack to route my signal, I connect the input from the soundcard and attach it to Jack-Rack. Then I take the output from Jack-Rack and patch it to Ardour (the multi-track recorder). And finally I take the output from Ardour and with a final flick of my wrist I connect it to the speakers for the computer.
ViolaI now have a guitar with all my effects added to it with a computer just as the guitar effects pedals would. You can have multiple instances of Jack-Rack working at one time also.
So you want distortion, flanger, compression on the guitar. Start Jack-Rack and set it up. Now I want to add effects to my drum machine so I start Jack-Rack (which starts another instance) and add reverb and a hi-pass filter to it. I can route each signal (guitar and drums) separately though the Rack-Rack instance as I want.
This is a simple explanation which does not show the robust nature of Jack, but it illustrates the concept.
Next, I'll start talking about the common program and their purpose along with a couple of distributions.
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This post will take about some of the programs that most of the distributions use and then we'll get into the distributions themselves.
Hard Disk Multi-Track Recorder
Audacity (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Faudacity.sourceforge.net%2F&ei=r02rR4vDOan8pgT14omeAw&usg=AFQjCNEjZ2LIXUq09FvorQJKXfovOmNfWg&sig2=srTelbqXgwGy5XOr_uiSxg)
This was mentioned before. It's cross platform and offered in a lot of distributions. Easy, functional, stable. Audio editor also.
Ardour 2.0 (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fardour.org%2F&ei=-k2rR9aOA6LSpgT40fGXAw&usg=AFQjCNGYOT_edMg2Ro1TNQ00C6Tfq27c7Q&sig2=H83rib_hB79HFCRBfW185Q)
If you have ever worked with Pro-Tools then you will be right at home with Ardour. Extremely powerful, stable, mature and feature rich with a fairly steep learning curve. Audio editor along with multi-track recording and the advantage of using plugins. Can be compiled to use VST/VSTi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Studio_Technology) plugins created by Steinberg.
Drums
Hydrogen (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hydrogen-music.org%2F&ei=VE6rR4f8DKKypgSnjaypAw&usg=AFQjCNFvcS-IR_Cq_e1FKCWbP58O7PbXZg&sig2=iBIp_OtMQK5e8PovCP3Llw)
Powerful, programmable drum machine.
Midi
Rosegarden (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hydrogen-music.org%2F&ei=VE6rR4f8DKKypgSnjaypAw&usg=AFQjCNFvcS-IR_Cq_e1FKCWbP58O7PbXZg&sig2=iBIp_OtMQK5e8PovCP3Llw)
Powerful, mature (some would say venerable) midi sequencing program. Rumor is it will become more robust with multi-track recording and audio editing. Also score editing.
Plugins
LADSPA (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ladspa.org%2F&ei=fU-rR_OSNqbypgSH9O2aAw&usg=AFQjCNHb2Thfgepu-02YFU-GCGkS5emRbQ&sig2=bICWJyhDkPdLytxp9c7qjQ)
Collection of plugins to use in Ardour or Jack-Rack. Been around for a while and some of them are real good.
LV2 (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Flv2plug.in%2F&ei=y0-rR87ZKIHOpgS_leChAw&usg=AFQjCNEgvk0GjDWVw4ZyBZKMwd8N1GOGxQ&sig2=BxND5P8tFHrrRb9bb9VbnA)
The next generation of Linux plugins. Now pervasive yet, but expect them to mature and flourish.
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I'm guessing this is the link you meant to post for Rosegarden.
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
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It's too bad Hydrogen doesn't work on Windows. I used to play with Renoise for a while but gave up because it was too time consuming.
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Originally posted by moot
It's too bad Hydrogen doesn't work on Windows.
It's working on mine..
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Cool, I thought it was supposed to be for Linux like he said.
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he said Linux centric, meaning it does work for linux, maybe or maybe not for other OS.
Audacity and Hydrogen works on XP. well they have an installer for windows anyway.
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Yeah, I assumed too quick. I have had audacity forever but had never heard of Hydrogen.
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Originally posted by DieAz
I'm guessing this is the link you meant to post for Rosegarden.
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
Yes, you are correct!
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Originally posted by moot
It's too bad Hydrogen doesn't work on Windows. I used to play with Renoise for a while but gave up because it was too time consuming.
Renoise has an update out. Here is an article on it by Dave Phillips. (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/renoise-linux)
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Kewl post Yknurd:aok I'm just getting into the home/computer studio thing myself and was pleased when I came across this thread. Here is another free(well almost) multi track DAW http://www.reaper.fm/download.php
and website with lots of info: http://www.tweakheadz.com/
Jenksie
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I use Acid pro 5, a Line 6 Tone Port and Toontrax Easydrummer. I have been very happy with the results except that easy drummer uses around 780 mb of ram by itself...
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Remembered that I mentioned the Loopers for the techno music people!
Loopers
LMMS (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Flmms.sourceforge.net%2F&ei=JJOwR-_ZNYOmpwS8jdWYAw&usg=AFQjCNGfeXQePk-UPDGDEvVUkwXr63zbQA&sig2=3JVk2JythJhjS4k6N55lWA)
This is considered the closest to Fruity Loops. Very mature and powerful. Tasty!
Freecycle (http://www.redsteamrecords.com/freecycle/)
This is considered the the beat-slicer extraordinaire for Linux (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/updates-beautiful-updates) by Dave Phillips and many others.
There are gads more but I believe these are the most prevalent.
Resources for Loopers:
Dave Phillips: Loop-based Music Composition with Linux - Part 1 (http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000304)
Dave Phillips: Loop-based Music Composition with Linux - Part 2 (http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000315)
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Okay, now I'll start mentioning some of the different distributions based on Linux. Keep in mind these are Linux distributions that have been optimized for media (audio primarily for this discussion).
64Studio 2.0 (http://64studio.com/)
Based on Debian and offers both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. LiveCD is available. VST/VSTi is available although not sure to what extent.
While this distribution is free to download and use, commercial user support is available. Also visit the 64Studio Forums (http://64studio.com/forum/11) for free support.
(http://www.64studio.com/files/64studio-beryl.jpg)
This pictures shows the cube desktop. On the left visible side is JACK and the Jammin' mastering application and on the right is Ardour.
JAD (http://jacklab.net/)
From the makers of Jack and Jack-Rack comes an 32-bit OpenSuSE based OS. LiveCD is available. VST support is integrated.
Also free to download and use and visit the JackLab Forms (http://forum.jacklab.net/) for free support.
(http://wiki.jacklab.net/images/e/e6/JAD_reaper.png)
Picture shown includes Reaper which is not installed by default and JACK connections GUI.
Ubuntu Studio 7.10 (http://ubuntustudio.org/)
Based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian, Ubuntu Studio offers both 32-bit and 64-bit. A LiveCD is not available at this time, but there are rumors of one possibly in the near future. VST support is not native, but Adrour can be compiled for it.
Ubuntu Studio, just as with all the Ubuntu variations (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Geubuntu, Edubuntu), is free to download and use. Unfortunately there is not a dedicated forum for Ubuntu Studio at this time. The Ubuntu Forums (http://ubuntuforums.org/) can be used but for more immediate, direct and knowledgeable help it would be advised to join the Ubuntu Studio User's Mailing List (https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-Studio-users) .
(http://ubustu.com/img/pre-gimp-sm.png) (http://ubustu.com/img/pre-blender-sm.png)
Here are pictures, left to right, of Gimp - the free, open source equivalent of Photoshop (http://www.gimp.org/) and Blender - the open source, cross platform suite of tools for 3D creation (http://www.blender.org/)
Next post, I'll mention a few more.