LinuxMusicians

HI, all,

I have songs roaming around in my head, but at present I don't know how to make the music to record them with. Or, for that matter, how to record my singing, with or without a backing track. I only have a PC and no money to buy tons of hardware (nor room for it, to be honest). I'll be lucky to get a headset with mic.

A LONG time ago, I owned an Amiga, with a program called Octa-Med. It let me choose an instrument sample, compose the music notation, put the tracks together and play them. I need something like that, plus a tool that would let me mix the music with me singing.

Please, help someone who's about 20 years behind the times to get back into the swing of things, so to speak. Thank you so much!

Have a good day,
Robert Luckett

Looks like Octa-Med was a tracker-style app, in which case something like CheeseTracker will probably be the closest. If you want a music notation and playback app, get MuseScore. You might also try Qtractor for a modern midi + audio DAW.

Assuming I use one of these programs, how would I get the music mixed with my singing?

Perhaps your best bet could be Renoise.

Here's a demo. There are many videos on youtube about Renoise. This one here is a pop song with vocals and answers your question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37Y7CbKERc&t=3m47s

Website:

https://www.renoise.com/

Runs on Linux.

Answering the question:

If you use MuseScore, you can

a) Record the output of MuseScore with another program (like Audacity, for instance) and then record your vocals with that program, too.
b) Synchronize MuseScore with another program. If you press the play button in the Master Program, the other program will start as well.

If you use QTractor, this is a complete DAW (digital audio workstation), you can directly record your vocals there.

Most people here use a DAW of some kind. The problem is that those programs tend to be complex.

You might want to look at LMMS. It's different from tracker-style programs, but it's a pretty easy environment for creating electronic music. I don't think you can record vocals in it; for that, you'd want to bring your tracks into something like Ardour or QTractor (the latter being the gentler learning curve).