Umm...Thanks martinjordan546, but, even so, I'd like to welcome you to this forum :) I noticed you just "checked in"...
Do you make music as well?
I use a softsynth (amSynth) to generate sounds. Brian provided some sound banks...
The whole setup here is:
- a mixer panel
- a synth
- a PC with the sortsynth (amongst others)
- a PC that has the recording sortware...
- inspiration...if and when it comes :)

What's your setup like?

Again: warmly welcomed here, and welcome to this thread!!


Thor

Yes, welcome martinjordan546!

There are several softsynths available for the linux platform. I have a website that showcases a few of them, you can see by clicking here: amsynth.com

Feel free to browse and ask questions! :)

brian

Just to update: Amsynth.com is now Linuxsynths.com Over 50 software audio synthesizers (and growing!) for the linux platform. (and some of the best around!)
Of course, linux is great for other audio and video production needs, too. :)


brian

Just to add to that...
- two MIDI keyboards (SIEL and Miditech)
- two computers (one per keyboard)
- samplers on the one, synths on the other
- mixer (EPM6)
- computer to record the thing (Audacity or Ardour, depending on the project)
Who needs a full blown studio? hehe
Melissa

In all these responses, music = sound. If anyone here is interested in writing sheet music, I'd like to recommend an awesome program called Philip's Music Writer. What this man has done is invent a coding language for music that provides equivalents for notes, rests, expression marks and any other musical signs you can imagine, all in plain text. You can create a file in your favourite editor, run it through the pmw program and hey presto! You have a postscript file that prints out as professional-looking sheet music. And if you don't like it, you can edit and play with your original file until you get it right.

Best of all, it has no dependencies except ghostscript.

Interesting.. -do you have a link?


brian

I like the idea of 2 computers! :D I'm currently using one for video and another for audio. :)

How technology has progressed!


brian

Since this thread is speaking about MIDI on Linux in general, <Shameless Plug :)> you might check out SeekMIDI/. It's a simple MIDI song editor written in Perl. It's not quite done yet, but it'll get there. </Shameless Plug>

Cool! So it's a sort of sequencer, right? Looks interesting and worth a try! -Keep us posted on any updates!


brian

Thanks! I'll try to keep you updated.

Yes, here is his site. The funny thing is we have a name in common, but we're definitely not related!

Greetz all
I don't use synths much since I'm more into traditional instruments and recording/editing but I am interested in all forms of Music and how this new digital world can be employed to put tools in musicians' hands. So I thought some of you might like to know about a great Forum created by the guy that wrote and developed Ardour, Jack, and much of LADSPA which has now been in existence for over 5 years and has expanded into covering all manner of Linux Audio work, including synths.

You can find it here -

GEARSLUTZ

Keep Playin! :D

Thanks Hazel! :) I mentioned it over at linuxmusicians too. Very interesting app. Kind of a nice alternative way to write sheet music at the computer, without the GUI frontends that are usually suggested. Looking at the source files at the link you posted, it looks pretty easy to get the hang of.

update: I'm now reading the manual from the zip file, it looks like midi control is indeed possible. Yay! Very intriguing!


brian

If anyone does want a GUI front-end to pmw, I did actually write one, because it's a lot easier editing a pmw file than creating one from scratch (unless you do it frequently). I only occasionally need to write out music and I keep forgetting the syntax. So I use my front-end to create a quick and dirty file as a starting point.

And you keep this stuff secret??? :)



brian