Music production with Ubuntu

The following are essential tools for sound production in Ubuntu. All available via Synaptic.

Aeolus

Aeolus is a synthesised (i.e. not sampled) pipe organ emulator that should be good enough to make an organist enjoy playing it. It is a software synthesiser optimised for this job, with possibly hundreds of controls for each stop, that enable the user to "voice" his instrument. Main features of the default instrument: three manuals and one pedal, five different temperaments, variable tuning, MIDI control of course, stereo, surround or Ambisonics output, flexible audio controls including a large church reverb. Aeolus is not very CPU-hungry, and should run without problems on a e.g. a 1GHz, 256Mb machine.

A good tutorial for installing Aeolus can be found at:

http://www.geocities.jp/midi_organ_net/aeolus/#compile

Ardour

A digital audio workstation that rocks.

* Unlimited audio tracks and buses
* Non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo
* Anything-to-anywhere signal routing
* Unlimited pre- and post-fader plugins
* 32 bit floating point audio path
* Automatic track delay compensation
* Sample accurate automation
* Standard file formats (BWF, WAV, WAV64, AIFF, CAF & more ...)
* Full AudioUnit plugin support on OS X
* More than 200 LADSPA & LV2 plugins freely available
* Support for Windows VST plugins available
* MIDI CC control with 1 click
* Level 2 MIDI Machine Control
* MIDI Timecode (MTC) Master or Slave
* Full integration with all JACK applications
* Video-synced playback, pull up/pull down

* No copy-protection
* Distributed, world-wide development
* Released under the GPL
* Source code for everyone
* Open XML session file format

http://ardour.org/

Audacity

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

FreeBirth

Freebirth consists of a 3 oscillator bass synth (sin, sqr, saw) and an integrated 16 step sequencer which controls the bass as well as the triggering of 5 other samples (currently drum samples). This is an early release but should mature into a great program with further development. It is a Gtk+ application and uses OSS and could do with a better skin.

http://www.bitmechanic.com/projects/freebirth/

gmorgan

Gmorgan is a MIDI rhythm station for ALSA that looks set to go places by emulating the capabilities of commercial rhythm stations “Korg”,”Roland”, “Solton” . It also has a small pattern based sequencer like “Band in a Box” and uses the capabilities of ALSA sequencer to produce MIDI accompaniment. From my first encounter with it, it would appear the soundbank is in need of attention from sample freaks, and none of the "commercial" packaged sounds are included. An opportunity for open-source samplists to share their creativity?

http://gmorgan.sourceforge.net/

Rosegarden

Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.

Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/



Hydrogen



Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

http://www.hydrogen-music.org/

Mixxx

After DBmixer failed miserably to work on my Hardy system, this free, open source DJ software came to the rescue. Mixxx gives you everything you need to perform live mixes and I can't recommend it highly enough.

http://mixxx.org/

QArecord

QArecord is a convenient tool to record sound from JACK clients.

Links

Music education with Linux sound tools http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7606

Linux Online Audio and Multimedia http://www.linux.org/apps/all/Multimedia/Audio_tools.html

UPDATE: You can download free sound samples from http://freesound.org/