KVR Audio

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:25 pm

Hi all,

Some of you may know about LMMS, the open-source and cross-platform (Windows and Linux) DAW, sequencer and synthesizer.

I'm a semi-developer of LMMS, focusing on documentation and bits of the website. If you've got any questions or any problems with the program, ask away and I'll do my best to answer them. Either way, here's a few links and guides to help you get started using it. I've found that there's very few unfixable problems in LMMS now, and it's gaining in popularity very quickly now, with over 1,000 downloads a day from sourceforge

LMMS Homepage (now with a wiki search, and easy install instructions for Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows)
LMMS Wiki
Fixing latency problems on Ubuntu
Adding Instruments in LMMS
Adding Effects to Instruments
Working with VSTs and VSTis

There's also dedicated LMMS Forums (finally!) and of course IRC chat if you have any other problems. It'd also be cool to hear about your wishes for the program, as the developers are starting to push forward on new features after a period of getting things stable. Some of the things on the way may surpass FL Studio in power and features, so there's lots on the way!

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:57 pm

I should mention that LMMS does support VSTis too, the page here on KVR claims it's just VST.

zeep · Post by **zeep** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:17 pm

Sounds interesting. I would like to suggest though that you change the video link. I was expecting to see a movie showing features, screens, effects etc with narration to get an overall good idea how LMMS works and what it can do.

Cheers

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:19 pm

zeep wrote:Sounds interesting. I would like to suggest though that you change the video link. I was expecting to see a movie showing features, screens, effects etc with narration to get an overall good idea how LMMS works and what it can do.

Cheers

There's not really any video like that around, most of the info is on the wiki itself. It's something that needs to be done, certainly.

mao · Post by **mao** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:24 pm

Interesting... sorry to say but you really need a graphic designer. Gradients are confusing, big icons with different styles... and so on. If you want to help the user use flat colors on the tracks and avoid cartoon style icons.

OutCider · Post by **OutCider** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:26 pm

I've left a couple of posts on the forum, but no-ones ever replied to them - That's not too encouraging.

I still want to know if it's normal on windows xp that that the audio breaks up when moving items on screen, and if it's ever going to be possible to select patches and banks from the vsti wrapper?.
Of those 1000 downloads a day, a few will no doubt be dissapointed if those issues are not addressed, at some point?
Maybe if a couple of hundred quiz, it may get answered.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:29 pm

Hi,

I have tried the latest stable build on windows Vista. For me it didn't worked very well because LMMS didn't recognize ASIO4All so I was stuck with basic sound card drivers. Also, a pdf manual would be very usefull for people like me who have a separate "music" computer, so I could follow the manual & tutorial offline. Other than that, I think it is a very interesting project, the only thing is maybe that would be a good thing to create new original artwork for the GUI, the old FruityLoops keyboard for the sampler, well, it isn't really cool to take graphic like that. I'm sure finding a graphic designer who would do this for free would be easy...

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:31 pm

mao wrote:Interesting... sorry to say but you really need a graphic designer. Gradients are confusing, big icons with different styles... and so on. If you want to help the user use flat colors on the tracks and avoid cartoon style icons.

LMMS actually looks quite good compared to how it used to do a year or so ago, though yeah, I agree with you, navy blue/purply murk isn't the best DAW color scheme ever. But I don't think FL Studio looks stunning either (at least from what I could see in the demo). Some free VSTs don't look brilliant either.

A lot of the UI is being reworked in future versions. It's built on Qt (the same code that Opera and the KDE desktop environment use), so it's certainly capable of looking a lot better. At the moment though, some UI elements are hardcoded (hence the rework, which should solve this problem).

Purity Lied wrote:I've left a couple of posts on the forum, but no-ones ever replied to them - That's not too encouraging.

The forum was only added a week or two ago, and I had to persuade the developers that we needed one for users. This is a fault of FOSS developers, but it's a start.

Purity Lied wrote: I still want to know if it's normal on windows xp that that the audio breaks up when moving items on screen, and if it's ever going to be possible to select patches and banks from the vsti wrapper?.
Of those 1000 downloads a day, a few will no doubt be dissapointed if those issues are not addressed, at some point?
Maybe if a couple of hundred quiz, it may get answered.

The audio issues when moving windows are a real pain for the developers. It seems they can only alleviate the problem partly, and unless Qt gets some improvements, that's going to be the Achilles's heel.

As for VSTi support, I've never had a problem with banks and patches in LMMS 0.4.5. When did you last try it?

OutCider · Post by **OutCider** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:31 pm

Yeah, asio support is a must. The built in thing is next to useless for me

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:38 pm

Purity Lied wrote:Yeah, asio support is a must. The built in thing is next to useless for me

This is in the pipeline, but as this is a FOSS project, it might be a while. I'll have to ask about it.

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:46 pm

Oh, and about copying UI elements:

The devs are reworking lots of the UI (including features like changing time signatures through tracks), and are trying to give LMMS its own niche.

For example, there's an online resource browser in the development version, which lets you grab online samples from the web, without leaving LMMS itself. It'd be cool if we could have some KVRAudio integration too.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:47 pm

mazza558 wrote:
Purity Lied wrote:Yeah, asio support is a must. The built in thing is next to useless for me
This is in the pipeline, but as this is a FOSS project, it might be a while. I'll have to ask about it.

what FOSS means?

OutCider · Post by **OutCider** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:50 pm

mazza558 wrote:The forum was only added a week or two ago, and I had to persuade the developers that we needed one for users. This is a fault of FOSS developers, but it's a start.

As for VSTi support, I've never had a problem with banks and patches in LMMS 0.4.5. When did you last try it?

Not complaining about the forum, just wanted some answers to my problems with the app.
Shame if the audio jitter is going to be staying - It's gonna be a deal killer.

I last used the latest lmms version off the site.
On plugs that don't have gui patch changing or preset loading capabilities, you're stuck on the default sound as the wrapper doesnt have next/previous buttons.

mazza558 · Post by **mazza558** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:50 pm

SampleScience wrote:
mazza558 wrote:
Purity Lied wrote:Yeah, asio support is a must. The built in thing is next to useless for me
This is in the pipeline, but as this is a FOSS project, it might be a while. I'll have to ask about it.
what FOSS means?

FOSS = Free Open-Source Software (e.g Firefox, OpenOffice, Linux)

Purity Lied wrote:
mazza558 wrote:The forum was only added a week or two ago, and I had to persuade the developers that we needed one for users. This is a fault of FOSS developers, but it's a start.

As for VSTi support, I've never had a problem with banks and patches in LMMS 0.4.5. When did you last try it?
Not complaining about the forum, just wanted some answers to my problems with the app.
Shame if the audio jitter is going to be staying - It's gonna be a deal killer.

I last used the latest lmms version off the site.
On plugs that don't have gui patch changing or preset loading capabilities, you're stuck on the default sound as the wrapper doesnt have next/previous buttons.

That VST issue is strange.

The audio problem will be around for a while, but if there is a solution to it or it's fixed, I'll make sure it's known about!

For me, this isn't too big a problem as I set things up like MIDI connections to controllers, grab a synth, and just play. Doing this, I experience no skips or pauses at all, and there's no latency. Once LMMS is up and running, it just works, even live.

I think LMMS is on the fringe of being "ready" for use now, and that's the first time it's been at that point.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:00 pm

mazza558 wrote: For me, this isn't too big a problem as I set things up like MIDI connections to controllers, grab a synth, and just play. Doing this, I experience no skips or pauses at all, and there's no latency. Once LMMS is up and running, it just works, even live.

I think LMMS is on the fringe of being "ready" for use now, and that's the first time it's been at that point.

when I tried to program more that three instruments with their own score programmed with the piano roll the sounds hardly follow & I hear all kind of stutters & clipping in the audio. That's the main problem I have with LMMS, with FL Studio I don't have this problem as it use the ASIO4All drivers (I guess it help a lot). It's still a nice open source project, but it need more work to work like it's meant to work.

LMMS - A free DAW for Windows and Linux - The Ultimate Guide (and Q&A)