Open-Source Music Production Tools

https://midination.com/free-music-production-software/

by spaceman_2020 • 6 years ago

250 81 6 years ago

midination.com

RikNieu• 6 years ago

This is awesome, thanks!

I wish I had time to play with stuff like this more

spookybones• 6 years ago

This is great. Does anyone have an equivalent list for design and illustration software?

mastazi2• 6 years ago

I don’t have a link to a comprehensive list but my personal suggestions are:

* GIMP for photo editing

* Krita for freehand drawing and for CMYK support

* Inkscape for vector images

* Scribus for desktop publishing (booklets, flyers etc)

* Blender for 3D graphics (modelling/rigging/animation) [1]

* Blender for 2D animation [1]

* Blender for video editing [1]

* Blender for compositing [1]

[1] Basically Blender is expanding in fields that are outside of 3D graphics and I believe that over time it became the best alternative in those fields.

totetsu• 6 years ago

I did some video editing in Blender a few years ago. I was surprised how solid and featured it was compared to other actual video editing suits on linux at the time.

3131s2• 6 years ago

I did a zine almost 15 years ago w/ Scribus and even back then it was an excellent piece of software.

acomjean• 6 years ago

there was a website that was tracking that stuff. Not sure how often its updated, but:

https://alternativeto.net

So punching in illustrator:

https://alternativeto.net/software/adobe-illustrator/

auxym• 6 years ago

Here's a decent list centered around photography:

https://pixls.us/software/

pabs33• 6 years ago

Synfig for 2D vector animation:

https://www.synfig.org/

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

One of my favorites, not listed there, is qmidiarp.

http://qmidiarp.sourceforge.net/

3131s2• 6 years ago

Looks like this one is in the Arch official repositories as well, I'll have to try it.

Two of my favorites are in the list, Hydrogen and ZynSubAddFx.

ryanmcdonough• 6 years ago

Having followed the development of one back when I used to listen to LUGRadio: Jokosher hasn’t been updated in over 10 years, yes it’s free and open but doesn’t seem like it’s worth the hassle including in the list.

sah2ed• 6 years ago

It’s missing AudioMass https://audiomass.co/

AudioMass was well received in a recent feature on HN.

[0] Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23337091

ris• 6 years ago

Comprehensive? No PureData.

ryan_midi5• 6 years ago

Hi, author here. I aimed this list at non-technical people who wanted to make music for free. I avoided things like PureData and Sonic-Pi for this reason. Though if I'm honest, the learning curve for something like Sonic Pi isn't necessarily steeper than that for Ardour :)

ryan_midi5• 6 years ago

Hello! I'm the author of this page.

I realize that a few tools might be missing. Happy to hear all suggestions.

In the meantime, if you want this list in Google sheet, you can make a copy of this one:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YfVyZHy83WHIiZmQJwHh...

SeanLuke• 6 years ago

Some notes, hope this is useful.

- Why are helm and dexed called "sequencers"? They're synthesizers. You're missing a massive collection of open source synthesizers, effects units, and so on. Indeed you don't even have this as a category, or some common ones are put under "sequencers".

- You're also completely lacking open source patch editors, arduino and related MIDI tools, and so on.

- And ... you have supercollider but not PD? Not csound? Etc.

npteljes• 6 years ago

Hello Ryan! As long as we're talking open source, can I suggest you Onlyoffice instead of Goggle Sheets? Similar functionality, but with AGPL license, and the personal tier is free as in free beer too. Here's how you doc would look if shared similarly: https://onlyo.co/32FPJAZ

narag• 6 years ago

Thank you for the list. There something that bothers me a little. LMMS seems very much like commercial DAWs, but Muse was more of a notation+sequencer program. I remember Rosegarden much like that, but it was too long ago. The rest no idea, but it would be useful a brief commentary adding some additional info to the DAW and sequencer categories, since they seem very broad.

Of course, if someone can share opinions here, it would also be nice.

ttctciyf4• 6 years ago

It's a good list!

If you haven't visited already, maybe you could take a look at https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio

LargoLasskhyfv2• 6 years ago

Hm. Last commit "remove REAPER (offensive naming)"

https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio/commit/22f6075...

mrob• 6 years ago

You have LinuxSampler listed as GPL licensed, but it's actually source-available proprietary software.

From http://www.linuxsampler.org/downloads.html:

"LinuxSampler is licensed under the GNU GPL with the exception that USAGE of the source code, libraries and applications FOR COMMERCIAL HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS IS NOT ALLOWED without prior written permission by the LinuxSampler authors."

This directly contradicts the GPL v2.0 (the relevant version): "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

Of course the copyright holders have the right to impose whatever self-contradictory license they like, but this combination isn't GPL and it isn't Open Source.

hoseja• 6 years ago

Well, if anything, it's more honest than GPL.

justaj• 6 years ago

Do you accept suggestions for missing tools?

I've noticed that Surge [0] was missing, it's a softsynth made by the same dev that now works on Bitwig Studio.

0: https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

ryan_midi5• 6 years ago

Happy to include any and all relevant tools. I hope to make this the single most relevant resource for FOSS music production

zubspace• 6 years ago

Another suggestion: Orca [1], which is an experimental sequencer based upon an esoteric programming language and Pilot [2], which is a synth sometimes used together with Orca

[1] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca

[2] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Pilot

o-__-o• 6 years ago

Phasex is money and not on this list.

mastazi2• 6 years ago

I can’t speak well enough of qTractor: it has a nice and intuitive UI, it does MIDI and Audio, it supports many different plugin formats, both instruments and effects (VST 2/3, LADSPA, DSSI, LV2), and it supports many forms of audio manipulation including time stretching and pitch shifting. If you’re looking for an open source DAW in my opinion it’s the way to go https://qtractor.sourceforge.io/

keeblers_n_bits• 6 years ago

One of the reasons I haven't been able to fully commit to Linux on the desktop is that I haven't been able to find quality music production tools. I always end up going back to macOS because I miss Logic Pro X and Ableton Live too much. Also the audio routing in macOS is so much easier than any other operating system I've encountered. I would love to hear about music studios using FOSS.

4043D• 6 years ago

Renoise isn't open source but is Linux native. Aducity is good for recording. And hydrogen is an ok drum machine.

amazing_stories2• 6 years ago

I agree, it's difficult to do music on Linux. I almost punched my computer last weekend because it's so hard. However, two things I can say for sure is that the Linux native of Reaper works great and Ubuntu Studio presents a pretty good OOBE with Ardour. Nothing running on Linux compares to Ableton, so if that's your preferred workflow, just stick with that. Now, if someone could just write a good audio editor that works on Linux... (Audacity is complete garbage).

avhon1• 6 years ago

As somebody who has only used Audacity and Pure Data, what's an example of a good audio editor?

trts• 6 years ago

It seems like I have been infrequently using Audacity for close to 20 years now which is surprising to think about.

I've used it to slice up tons of live recordings, mix multitrack audio, clean up, remove background noise, dub aging tape reels to digital, add some post-production effects to music tracks, and teach my dad how to use free software to do some of the same stuff. Some of the work was for broadcast and digital retail.

My most frequent use in the past couple years has been to time stretch a random track once in awhile and listen to it in a completely different light e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZJyxQjdib0

"Complete garbage" seems harsh to me!

user48a• 6 years ago

Nothing running on Linux compares to Ableton

Does this statement include your assessment of Bitwig (https://www.bitwig.com/en/home.html)? The company was founded by former Ableton employees and the software is supposed to run on Linux machines...

phre4k2• 6 years ago

Bigwig Studio (https://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html) isn't open source bit definitely comparable to the tools you mentioned. Coupled with the JACK audio routing.... thing it's pretty great for audio production.

tb303• 6 years ago

The best. Also I think your autocorrect got you: It's "Bitwig"

fit2rule2• 6 years ago

I've been running a Linux DAW in my studio for decades, based around Ubuntu Studio and all the tools that are bundled in that distribution. It is easily one of the most fun DAW's to use in the setup - I have MacOS systems based around UAD (Luna) and Pro Tools as well, as this is a pro studio and we get a lot of musicians in it, who have their own ideas about things - so we accommodate them. The Ubuntu Studio DAW recently got a LOT more use while we got the Mac's upgraded to Catalina and through that painful upgrade/obsolete process - something that just does not happen in Ubuntu.

But whenever someone new comes along who doesn't care what they use to track vocals or backing tracks of whatever, I put them in front of the Ubuntu Studio DAW, leave them alone for a few hours to get their tracking done, and always find its very productive. It holds its own against the other DAW's that are in production as well (MacBooks with REAPER).

The thing that has to be understood is that Ubuntu Studio is designed for 'out of the box' production - you have everything installed that is needed to get started, and if you have good audio hardware (for this system we standardised on PRESONUS, as it is very well supported under Linux) - you can compete with Pro Tools systems, easily. The latency is among the best of the DAW's in the studio, and while its fair to say that the software packages available are not as polished as the commercial offerings, its still an amazing system full of tools to explore and use - thousands of plugins, soft synths and instruments, tons of unique apps that, once you get involved, will give you great capabilities, e.g., seq24, hydrogen, zynaddsubfx = instant jam party, once you get it configured with aconnectgui/Carla, of course..)

Its really worth taking a weekend, installing Ubuntu Studio somewhere, and going through the packages that have been included. They are deep, powerful, and most of all - free and open source. I can't tell you how great it was to have a reverb plugin open and in use, get asked a simple "how does reverb code work?", then bust out the sources and have a look for ourselves .. can't do that with any other DAW, and yet Ubuntu Studio is packed with apps that really work. Having the sources for everything is just astonishing in terms of what it offers the competent producer or engineer in understanding what's going on.

lillesvin• 6 years ago

Reaper isn't Open Source but it runs on Linux and it's really good, IMO. And you can try the full version for free.

myself248• 6 years ago

VCV Rack, anyone? https://vcvrack.com/

duncanawoods• 6 years ago

Sadly running it as a DAW won't be open source.

ttctciyf4• 6 years ago

Though running the FOSS version on linux allows to route audio back and forth between Rack and external recorders, hosts, plugins, etc with ease via JACK.

deusofnull• 6 years ago

VCV Rack is a titan in the FOSS eurorack modular world. nothing else comes close. I have a physical eurorack as well but i use Rack all the time to sketch out ideas and to explore new kinds of modules before i buy something physical.

mxmilkb2• 6 years ago

rogerclark• 6 years ago

One thing missing from this list -- and pretty much any mention of open source music tools for some reason -- is OpenMPT: an open-source Windows-based tracker with full VST support. It runs great under WINE.

It's a tracker, and not a sequencer-style DAW, but unlike every other open source DAW, it is battle-tested, non-beta non-alpha post-1.0 release software, and capable of producing commercial-quality music.

https://openmpt.org/

bane• 6 years ago

It also happens to have pretty great compatibility with various tracker music formats like .mod, .s3m, .it and so on.

spankalee• 6 years ago

I'd love to see more synthesizers on the list, and more open-source synths in general. MIDI controllers and SBCs are plentiful and cheap enough that you can do some really amazing custom rigs, but the sound generations options aren't there yet.

lioeters• 6 years ago

MIDI controllers and SBCs

I recently discovered this niche, of building/using portable "digital instruments" with a heart of Linux, in my case running on Raspberry Pi with audio interface.

It's so exciting how affordable and practical this is, I feel like it's an area of exploration worth more attention.

A couple of related open-source/open-hardware projects:

Pisound - https://www.blokas.io/pisound/docs/

Zynthian - https://github.com/zynthian

In the latter's wiki/documentation, there's a big list of open-source synths bundled with their Linux distro.

http://wiki.zynthian.org/index.php/Zynthian_Supported_Synth_...

The above link is down at the moment, I think they may be switching CMS backend. Here's an archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20191020093102/http://wiki.zynth...

---

Edit: Here's a good one, from another comment:

https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio#synthesizers

rzzzt2• 6 years ago

Schism Tracker is an SDL-based reimagination of Impulse Tracker [1]. Jeffrey Lim also made the sources of the original project available [2].

[1] https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker

[2] https://bitbucket.org/jthlim/impulsetracker

tony• 6 years ago

I witnessed a supposed open source music app "in the wild" on YT recently:

https://youtu.be/U6Og9wtO9jE?t=640

Context: Someone was using fiverr to get people to play a tune on bass guitar. The supposed "pro" player was hooked directly into Ubuntu (it looks like Unity)

Anyone know what app in the background?

rzzzt2• 6 years ago

The application icon is Ardour's.

racl101• 6 years ago

Here's a chance for a content maker to make a YouTube channel to show people how to use these tools.

I know that a lot of people's apprehension with these kinds of open source tools is they're afraid of investing their time into a tool that might not be widely supported because if they get stuck there will be little to no support in figuring out the software. And also, if the project is not popular enough then it won't get updated enough and, thus, remain not competitive with commercial software.

ttctciyf4• 6 years ago

There are a couple of yt channels out there, for example https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAYKj_peyESIMDp5LtHlH2A

But nothing like you might expect compared to FOSS creative software in other fields, like Blender or Gimp.

grawprog• 6 years ago

I've never thought of making a youtube channel about it but I have started and stopped a few articles in a series I was planning on creating a song from start to finish with open source tools. I've just never really had the time, or to be honest motivation to sit down and work on it.

ryan_midi5• 6 years ago

That's where I'm going towards next. I'm going to create a song from scratch using just Ardour and Zyn synth. I actually find Ardour's CPU usage to be more efficient than Ableton or Logic. And honestly, the learning curve isn't any steeper

mxmilkb2• 6 years ago

Carla, LV2 etc host, LV2/JACK patchbay, sound bank support, etc., by falkTX, maintainer of JACK and MOD Devices developer.

https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla https://github.com/falkTX/Carla https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/108225/87578308-26...

pabs33• 6 years ago

Another DAW:

https://www.zrythm.org/

pabs33• 6 years ago

This is a list of different multimedia related tasks that you can do with Debian, from DAWs to animation:

https://blends.debian.org/multimedia/tasks/

exikyut2• 6 years ago

Naive, under-researched :) question: what Linux-native program lets me import a bunch of audio tracks, arrange them in a timeline with subsample-level resolution, apply nondestructive edits such as crossfades...

...with a fast, simple UI? :)

So far I've poked at Ardour, but

a) I was pretty sure it was absolute overkill for my simple purposes,

b) The program felt kinda clunky, like if I moved wrong it would crash, and

c) I wasn't sure the program was subsample-accurate.

I've pretty much never pursued playing around with audio or music because all the software out there is either undiscoverably obscure, or firmly out of my price range (which is $0, since I a) have no idea if audio editing will even be interesting, and b) don't know what program would be the most appropriate).

After throwing my hands up in the air for the 20th time at Audacity's remarkable sluggishness I stumbled on ReZound (http://rezound.sourceforge.net/ss.shtml) a few years ago and discovered a refreshingly fast tool with VUs that would happily run at 60fps on the ~20 year old machine I was using at the time. (2014 was interesting. I was using an 800MHz AMD Duron with 320MB RAM. And to reiterate, ReZound was completely usable on that machine.)

Sadly, while the most-recent SVN of ReZound does compile on modern Linux, project saving has been broken since the paleolithic era so you have to (re-)export as FLAC to save... and sometimes the edit process subtly injects single-sample gaps of silence which sound like clicks/pops (!), making the program unusable. Not to mention it uses the destructive edit model.

Wish it was in better shape, it's a fairly excellent program.

iotku• 6 years ago

Ardour felt kinda clunky, like if I moved wrong it would crash

I'd say Ardour is one of the more mature(re: stable) open-source solutions on linux and has a fair bit of development effort behind it.

Personally usability wise I never quite figured it out, although it seems fairly feature packed (if you can figure it out)

Apparently Qtractor also supports non-destructive audio editing but I haven't really tried it yet.

Aside from that I know this is a thread on open-source, but I will point out Reaper has experimental native Linux builds which I've found to work quite well and Reaper (not $0, but minor nag screen) is also non-destructive.

codemusings• 6 years ago

Audacity works well for that purpose. But not all things are intuitive and the interface looks quite dated to be honest.

vbsteven• 6 years ago

It's not open source but for your purposes of figuring out if audio editing is for you Reaper could be a nice introduction. It runs on Linux and works pretty similar to most commercial DAWs. You can run its evaluation mode for free indefinitely with a nag screen at startup. I started with that and then graduated to Cubase when I decided I wanted to pursue further.

fit2rule2• 6 years ago

REAPER runs really very well on Linux, it has to be stated, and is one of the easier DAW's to learn thanks to things like "The REAPER Blog" and "RAPER MANIA" channels on Youtube that really make REAPER great. It is one of the best values for money in the DAW world as well. VERY, very powerful software, great price.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/audiogeekzine

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq297H7Ca98HlB5mVFHGSsQ

pcf• 6 years ago

"I've pretty much never pursued playing around with audio or music because all the software out there is either undiscoverably obscure, or firmly out of my price range (which is $0, since I a) have no idea if audio editing will even be interesting, and b) don't know what program would be the most appropriate)."

Not to be a dick, but it doesn't sound like you have a need to play around with audio or music. People who really want that make it happen, no matter how few tools they have at their disposal.

exikyut2• 6 years ago

I totally understand where you're coming from, and to an extent I agree.

I didn't adequately clarify the sentiment I was getting at.

There are a million things I want to do with technology: machine learning, advanced robotics, data science, UI/UX research, networking/homelab experimentation, music/drawing/animation, photography, programming.

Sometimes significant events happen in life that throw you very far away from the path that you'd logically gravitate towards. Sometimes those events make sense; sometimes they don't. One of those happened for me in 1998, when my family realized the only viable resolution to the concerns they'd raised regarding the public school I was attending, would be to home-school. (The school was quick to clarify that it was not legal to transfer between schools.)

In any world, if I did things over I would absolutely have ticked the "[x] sound education" box. I don't understand math. I don't understand electronics. I don't understand a lot of things. I feel very much undone. It took 15 years to finally learn I had high-functioning autism and ADHD, figure out why the public school I'd attended had been so oppressive and condemning, and make sense of why my poor mother's best efforts never seemed to make a dent in my understanding. I'm now trying my best to make up for lost time, albeit without adequate resources.

I've learned that under-resourcedness is generally counterbalanced by having connections, and that a social network - a real, functional, practical one, not the all-thumbs kind you see on interactive TV - is one of the critical components of success in life, especially when (multiple) circumstances beyond your control make you stick out like a sore thumb and make sustenance of equilibrium orders of magnitude harder than the statistical average. But when those very circumstances make socialization and communication difficult, things can become very depressing. I guess the GP was a bit of a rant.

TL;DR, I have a VERY long list of "hey that could be a thing I could be really good at". It's huge. I've carried it for 20 years. I have no idea what I'm concretely good at. And I currently have no way to find out. It's a bit of a catch-22.

(Yes, I really was using a machine with 320MB of RAM in 2014.)

ryan_midi5• 6 years ago

If you're simply working with audio files, then I'd say Audacity is a really good option. A full-fledged DAW is useful if you're working with external plugins and MIDI files. But for basic audio work, Audacity will do well enough.

It's also one of the best supported and mature audio programs around, so stability won't be an issue at all

geff82• 6 years ago

I have only experience with Propellerheads Reason and what I like there that lots of instruments and synthesizer settings are available. Where do I go for instruments when using open source software? How is this topic being handled?

ordrumbox• 6 years ago

https://ordrumbox.com Gpl2 free open source drum machine

richrichardsson• 6 years ago

Surge Synth[1] has been FOSS for a while now and is being actively developed. It's very good to boot!

[1] https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

Open-Source Music Production Tools

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