this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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I'm a Professional Game Composer now using entirely Open-Source tooling (johnoestmannmusic.com)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Thank you so much for this! I never ever see anyone share open-source setups like this for non-hobby work, and it's inspiring. :)

(Ramble incoming)

I noticed since jumping from windows I'm missing Ableton, and it's been a mental block of knowing that I'll need to choose a new way to do things. It's daft as I loved ardour and LMMS back in 2014, and I'm sure they're even better now :) I totally need to dedicate some time to music, it's been a neglected piece of my soul for a bit too long. :)

Edit: also, Plug Data looks brilliant! I loved MaxMSP, and it got me into game making/coding. :)

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Crazy, for the first time blender is not mentioned! ;-)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have used and would recommend Blender. I just don't use it regularly :)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Now I imagine someone building the soundwaves in Blender polygon by polygon.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Nice! I'm not a composer, but I just started playing with LMMS the other week and thought it was cool and intuitive—even encouraged me to finally pull the trigger on that Kurzweil keyboard with midi support I've been eyeing for some time! I bookmarked this and will take a look at OpenMPT and Furnace too.

Open source FTW ✊

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Latest release is 2020 it says on the GitHub page, is that incorrect information? I started using LMMS in 2022 but I recall ditching it because I thought it was a dead project..

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah I asked about that on the LMMS Discord too, and said I had the same assumption. Apparently it is still under active dev, but you need to scroll down to the nightly builds.

I don't know why they don't update the Git Releases..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Lol ok. I paid money to ableton when I could have just donated instead. Thank you so much for the follow-up!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Silver-lining: Ableton is very good and teaches a lot! Also, in case you ended up getting into Max4Live at all, it's worth checking out PlugData

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah LMMS is decent, and its Piano Roll is actually really really good. However, IIRC I renamed some folders and it completely broke project links to my samples and was not easily fixable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

LMMS doesn't seem to pack the samples and soundfonts into the project file when you import, so you're live referencing them in your folders, which means renaming the folders will break the links. I also learned this the hard way, and now tend to copy soundfonts I use into the project folder of each project, so if I need to move or send over files to someone else, I can copy the folder without breaking anything.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ardour is another great open source DAW along with Linux Studio Plugins

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Just started exploring Linux Studio Plugins last weekend! I've heard Ardour is good, but I'm sticking to $0 options if I can help it. That way people don't need access to credit cards, etc, to use the software

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

it's open source so you can build it yourself (pain in the ass) and it comes pre built with many Linux distros but yeah that's totally fair. I paid because I wanted to support the work and I'm a windows pleb

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Didn't realise it came with some Linux distros - cool! Sounds like something for me to spend a weekend looking into..

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

If you're on Linux, its on flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/org.ardour.Ardour

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I've gotten pretty far in using it, great tool with plugin integrations.

[–] Rentlar 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ooooh nice going! Saved this post because once in a blue moon I come up with short jingles, and I've been wanting a software that can record MIDI stuff without lag.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hahah yes, MIDI lag can be tricky, depending on setup. If the tracker-style DAWs I've listed don't work for your style, try LMMS, Helio, or Zrythm

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Sounds like you need asio4all (or linux), and maybe an audio interface.

[–] Rentlar 1 points 1 week ago

I've so far not had success with my Akai EIE Pro on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is really dope. I try to do open source music and this is an amazing list of resources.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

My pleasure :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

This is cool. I had no idea about most of these.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Awesome, thanks for sharing and making this effort! Bookmarked for later when I can listen to your work.

How do you feel about Audacity?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was using Audacity for quick Normalization and other edits to my samples, but I've since learned I can do that inside OpenMPT (and save those edits back to file). Audacity does lack any form of "midi-esque" sequencing though, which is how I primarily work.

Having said that, Audacity has come a long with VST support, etc, since Muse Group got involved. But unfortunately, they also allegedly enforced data tracking in a way that didn't respect the community that had supported it up until then. I actually don't know what the latest is (someone else feel free to reply with the update), but it hasn't been crucial enough in my workflow to keep up with.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Tenacity is a community-run fork of Audacity, started after Audacity's privacy fiasco.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

audacity isn't much more than an audio editor (a good one at that), nowhere the capability of a daw

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I'm not a composer but Kimai is indeed a very good time tracker. Beats the trash we use at work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

There's some great videos about this on PeerTube