Beat making applications for Linux.

Support & discussion regarding DAWs and MIDI sequencers.

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thetotalchaos
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Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by thetotalchaos »

In all those alternatives, members, pieces of Linux Audio ecosystem the biggest void from my experience, is an easy to use, feature-rich, free and opensource beat maker application. A software that is capable of making modern and agile rhythms and beats in any style. In your opinion which DAW's and other apps is the strongest and capable beat-maker application? Something that if approached correctly can create original and outstanding beats. An application capable enough to convince a respected beatmaker to switch to Linux. Because even to this day, if i want to shine with powerful and quality beats and rhythms, i am thinking about proprietary trademarks like FLStudio or ReBirth over any open source alternative. Although not having a native Linux versions, fortunately they both run better on Wine then on Windows. ReBirth in fact has a Linux clone called ReBorn, but at the end the Windows native ReBirth is superior. (ReBorn was discounted for trademark violations and worst of all, it seems that the source code is lost if ever existed). I am not scared of alternative approaches as long as they can get the job done.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by lilith »

Ardour is implementing something called Beatbox in the future (Ardour 7?). Reaper offers a lot tools to make sample based beats (Sampler, Step Sequencer) and everything can be routed to own tracks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jtNOJsAEjPE

Renoise comes to my mind, Hydrogen ... Must it be open source?

Ardour or Qtractor with several instances of drumkv1 or one instance of LSP multisampler would get the job done also.
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thetotalchaos
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by thetotalchaos »

lilith wrote:Ardour is implementing something called Beatbox in the future (Ardour 7?)....
...Ardour or Qtractor with several instances of drumkv1 or one instance of LSP multisampler would get the job done also.
This is good news. Its those kind of alternatives i want to learn more about here. Thanks Lilith
lilith wrote:Reaper offers a lot tools to make sample based beats (Sampler, Step Sequencer) and everything can be routed to own tracks. Renoise comes to my mind, Hydrogen ... Must it be open source?
Yes it must. Because i already have a satisfying proprietary solution with both FLStudio and ReBirth. And although without native Linux versions they play just fine from Wine. Their open source alternatives are LMMS and Hydrogen respectively. But both feels to me like a compromise in comparison. I am not excluding the possibility that i overlooked their true capabilities though.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by sysrqer »

Renoise, without question.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by gimmeapill »

sysrqer wrote:Renoise, without question.
+1 for Renoise. Not open source, but way faster than the monster DAWS once you master the keyboard.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by ssj71 »

maybe I don't know exactly what you want, but I think hydrogen and/or patroneo (https://github.com/diovudau/Patroneo) could be a good fit. Or maybe giada (https://www.giadamusic.com/)?

EDIT: of course seq64 deserves a look too: https://github.com/ahlstromcj/sequencer64
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by chaocrator »

ssj71 wrote:EDIT: of course seq64 deserves a look too: https://github.com/ahlstromcj/sequencer64
the most underestimated linux sequencer.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by davephillips »

Greetings,

Check out some of the possibilities in VCV Rack. Valley Free has contributed a port of the Grids beatmaker from Mutable Instruments, and there are other unique sequencers that can create some cool rhythmic output (e.g. Euclidean rhythms and other constrained random stuff).

http://www.vcvrack.com

https://mutable-instruments.net/modules/grids/

Best,

dp

An example of a Euclidean rhythm sequencer:

https://soundcloud.com/davephillips69/e ... r-vcv-rack

Some brief YouTube demos of Topograph and mGraph:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXfdyoR1nno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLt_r_2DDPo&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDmFuiaf_YQ&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWIzS0Lspo
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by dazastah »

Hydrogen is pretty much the closest thing to fl studio in the step sequencing layout triggering samples. No one here is really going to have your answer until you try all of them out. You may find that its easier just to spend a bit of money on something like renoise / or even bitwig compared to the time it takes to figure out how to make a ecosystem of apps just "work like fl studio" in linux let alone make music. Every app that is mentioned is more than capable of making polished music . It is really up to you to make those apps work..
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by tavasti »

thetotalchaos wrote:In all those alternatives, members, pieces of Linux Audio ecosystem the biggest void from my experience, is an easy to use, feature-rich, free and opensource beat maker application. A software that is capable of making modern and agile rhythms and beats in any style. In your opinion which DAW's and other apps is the strongest and capable beat-maker application? Something that if approached correctly can create original and outstanding beats. An application capable enough to convince a respected beatmaker to switch to Linux. Because even to this day, if i want to shine with powerful and quality beats and rhythms, i am thinking about proprietary trademarks like FLStudio or ReBirth over any open source alternative.
Not sure about vocabulary what 'beats' here means, but anyway giving LMMS a try might not be bad idea. I think LMMS UI is similar as Fruity Looper, predecessor of FL Studio.

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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by sysrqer »

There's also B-Step, probably one of the most interesting sequencers on any platform.
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by franlopez »

Not sure what you mean by "beat making", but if you're willing to go "closed source / commercial", I've been using Waveform and enjoying it quite a bit. The MIDI editor is very good and comfortable to work with, there's also a rhythm / drum parts editor that's very simple but very quick to work with, the built in multi-sampler is very fun and direct to work with, the file browser is very good to find and preview samples, etc.
You can try a demo for free and see if it scratches your itch (ugh, that's a horrible image, sorry).
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by thetotalchaos »

franlopez wrote:Not sure what you mean by "beat making", but if you're willing to go "closed source / commercial"
By beat making i mean the general concept of producing the drum and the rhythm section of a song. Imagine everything from Hip-Hop and Funk to Various styles of electronic music. In the whole free and opensource music making ecosystem, it seems that this is the weakest part. There are mostly old school approaches, like trackers and drum machines. The obvious winners in 2018 are Ardour 5+ series combined with appropriate plugins, and of course LMMS which unfortunately stopped its active development when it barely reached FLStudio 4 stage. With this topic i hoped to discover something that i overlooked through the years.

In fact i use Linux and make my music on it for more than 10 years now, started with the legendary 64Studio distribution. I even wrote a bachelor thesis about "Using Linux for Professional Audio" for my Computer Science education. And speaking of that, i was so determined in my belief in free and opensource software that i graduated Computer Science without using any proprietary of closed source operating systems or applications.

In conclusion of this topic so far i noticed that there truly isn't a quality open source solution for producing beats and rhythms. Its a situation similar to Linux Gaming unfortunately. Nevertheless Ardour is slowly but steadily moving forward, and LMMS is not that bad and who know, maybe someday someone will continue LMMS' active development. And utilities like Hydrogen, Seq64 and Giada can be useful, combined with the right approach.

Anyway lets keep this topic open, because when it comes to producing beats and rhythms, we all have a road in front of us. Anyone who can share his or hers approach is warmly welcome to do so.

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Totalchaos
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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by tavasti »

thetotalchaos wrote:... LMMS which unfortunately stopped its active development when it barely reached FLStudio 4 stage.
I think LMMS is actively developed. What are missing features you would need?

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Re: Beat making applications for Linux.

Post by thetotalchaos »

tavasti wrote: I think LMMS is actively developed. What are missing features you would need?
I have high hopes for the next big release of LMMS aka 1.2.0 Its hard to explain what particular feature i need. I have some memories of what FLStudio could do, but that is it. And Ardour 6 is coming soon and hopefully will present some interesting features as well.
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