KNOW-HOW LMMS Making Music with Linux Multimedia Studio MUSICMUSIC BUILDERBUILDER Linux has truly started to compete with Windows and MacOS as a platform for professional sound applications. Linux Multimedia Studio www.photocase.de (LMMS) is a Linux sound tool that packs a variety of impressive features into a neat bundle. BY TOBIAS DOERFFEL ot too long ago, multimedia and Users with distros that aren't represented program even quicker. For example, it Linux were separate worlds, but by the binary packages will need to doesn’t make much sense to build sur- N– thank goodness – the situation build LMMS from the source code to in- round support into LMMS if your sound has changed dramatically. Linux no lon- stall it. You can start off by downloading card doesn’t support the option. Without ger lags behind Windows and MacOS the source code from [1]. surround support, LMMS only needs to even in the field of music productions: As LMMS is a realtime application that handle half the volume of data in some Audacity brings sound editing power to needs a lot of CPU power, you should places, and this pays dividends in the Linux, Rosegarden handles Midi, and enable any appropriate optimization op- form of much quicker performance. Hydrogen gives you the ability to put tions. The “Major Compiler Options” You can disable surround by specify- beats and rhythms together. Last but not box lists important compiler options for ing --disable-surround ab. And if you can least, Csound adds customized software the Intel platform. do without genuine realtime, because synthesizers and effects. You can use configure options to dis- you do not have a midi keyboard, you As you will no doubt have noticed, able some LMMS features and make the can specify --with-latency=VALUE, there is a separate tool for each task, al- where VALUE is a power of 2, though many users would prefer an inte- that is, 64, 128, or 256. The grated system instead of individual com- default value is 256, which ponents for really creative work. This led gives you a latency time (that to the launch of the Linux Multimedia is, a delay between event and Studio (LMMS) in spring last year. sound output) of 6 millisec- LMMS combines all the functionality of onds. The smaller the value, the programs I just mentioned in a single the lower the latency, and the interface that looks a bit like Fruity closer to realtime you get. Loops on Windows. To specify all these options for the build, you could con- Installing and Setting Up figure the source code with LMMS Figure 1: In LMMS, you can put beats together with a the following command: You man be able to find binary packages few clicks. The program comes with a collection of ./configure -prefix=/usr for your distro at the LMMS website [1]. samples you can use for your own songs. CXXFLAGS="-O2 ..." 58 ISSUE 61 DECEMBER 2005 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM LMMS KNOW-HOW defines a few presets. Preset files con- tains specific settings for a single chan- nel. They store information on the plug- in used (such as Triple Oscillator, Audio File Processor), the settings, and the fil- ters and envelopes. Loading a preset avoids the need to tinker with complex sound generation parameters. At the same time, presets are the ideal jump-off point for your own sounds; you can twiddle the buttons to get them just right. To access the preset browser, click on the yellow asterisk on the left-hand side. Each plug-in resides in its own folder. Before we go on, let’s set up a new bassline. To do so, click the Add Beat/ Bassline button in the Song Editor tool- box, and then open the Rough! preset for this example. As we will be doing more than just Figure 2: Using the Piano Roll to edit basslines. Clicking allows you to add, remove, or change creating beats with this preset, we need the values of notes. to edit the pattern in the piano roll. You can double click the pattern (above or [--disable-surround] [--with-latency= Beat+Bassline Editor, along with a new below the step buttons) in the VALUE]. Then run make to build an channel containing the selected sample. Beat+Bassline Editor to open the piano LMMS binary and make install to install The AudioFileProcessor plug-in, visible roll tool. Once in the Piano Roll (Figure the required files on your system. in the same window, is used for loading 2), you can simply click to add notes, make rpm gives you an RPM package, samples. AudioFileProcessor allows you typically below /usr/src/. You can then to set up a number of output parameters. Major Compiler Options install the package by entering rpm -i Now is a good time to try out the vir- • -O2 or -O3: This option specifies the FILE.rpm. However, this disables the op- tual piano keyboard, to see if you are optimization level the compiler should tions that you set at the configure stage; getting any sound output and if LMMS use. For newer processors with lots of instead, you have to set the environmen- has successfully loaded the sample. If cache, try using -O3. tal RPM_OPT_FLAGS variable. you can hear a few thudding noises at • -mcpu=IHRECPU: This tells the com- After building and installing, you can this point, everything is well, and you piler which processor it should opti- type lmms to launch the program. This can close the channel window. mize the code for. The possible values launches a wizard to walk you through Time to press on with our first steps. for YOURCPU are: pentium2, pen- the initial setup. To create steps, click the gray buttons in tium3, pentium4, k6, k6-2, k6-3, ath- the corresponding pattern in the Beat+ lon, athlon-tbird, athlon-4, athlon-xp. First Steps Bassline editor; this changes the gray The GCC manpage has a few other options. Check /proc/cpuinfo to find When you launch the program, the buttons to green. You can then click on out which CPU you have. LMMS interface appears with the follow- the play button above the tracks to listen • -msse, -msse2: This tells the compiler ing areas and windows. The most impor- to the initial results. to use SSE commands for floating tant window, the Song Editor, contains Of course, a kick can get monotonous, point operations. This considerably the playlist with the various tracks and a but you can double click to add snares, improves the performance of LMMS, toolbox. The Beat+Bassline Editor helps hi-hats, and so on. Figure 1 shows an ex- however, only the current crop of you create beats and basslines, which ample of a completed beat. AMD and Intel CPUs (Pentium 3 or you can drop into the Song Editor later. later) actually support these com- The Project Notes window is where you Melodic Moments mands. can add notes to describe the project. On We want LMMS to give us some real • -mfpmath=sse,387: If your processor the left is a sidebar with various task music rather than just a couple of drum does support SSE instructions, you areas, such as the Project and Sample samples. Luckily, LMMS has its own can use this option to enable the SSE browser. software synthesizer, dubbed Triple unit and the internal co-processor. Let’s start off by creating a simple Oscillator, which comprises three oscilla- More adventurous readers looking for beat. To do so, open the Sample Browser tors, filters, envelopes, and low fre- more power might like to try the Acovea (My Samples), open the drums folder, quency oscillators (LFOs). [2] program, which uses genetic algo- and double click the kick_hiphop01.ogg As newcomers are typically over- rithms to discover optimum tuning op- file. A new track appears in the whelmed by this feature-richness, LMMS tions. WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 61 DECEMBER 2005 59 KNOW-HOW LMMS change their positions, or change their original value. A low frequency oscillator mat, a window with options for the song lengths. Drag the light end of the note to changes the value periodically. You will export appears. Now click on Export to do this. Right clicking with the mouse need to experiment with this technology tell LMMS to write the song to the out- removes individual notes. to get used to the effects you can create. put file, which you can then burn onto a In the Song Editor, you can now link The Arp/Chord tab helps you define CD or play back in your favorite music up the beat and the newly created settings for automatic arpeggios and player. bassline. Left click to create playlist ob- chords. If you select a major chord and jects that define when and for how long a range of two octaves Big Plans a beat or bassline will play. for a tone, LMMS can The LMMS roadmap is full As shown in Figure 3, the playlist can automatically add the of major extensions to the also comprise channels (the Triple Oscil- matching major chord program. For example, lator is shown in the figure.) This makes over a range of two oc- LMMS does not give you sense if your patterns do not contain taves. The arpeggio any options for applying basslines that continually repeat, but function allows you to effects (reverb, echo, dis- genuine melodies that occur just once in play the individual tortion, chorus, equaliz- the whole song. You can left click on a notes in the chord se- ers, and filters, just to channel track to create a pattern of this quentially.