How can I download/set up different instruments?

MusE is a DAW for Linux with both MIDI and Audio editing. https://muse-sequencer.github.io

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TheDiamondLego
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How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

All I know how to use is the soft synth(thanks to the small tutorial in the documentation), how can I download/set up different instruments so that I can use more than just the soft synth?
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by Tim E. Real »

If you have been using the built-in MESS soft synths such as the one in the demo, a whole other wold of great quality soft synths awaits.
Provided the support is configured in MusE, download any LV2 or LinuxVST or DSSI soft synth plugin and install it in an appropriate folder.
See MusE's Global Settings > Plugin Paths tab to see where MusE looks for various plugins in folders.

Then (re)start MusE and the new plugin(s) should appear in the add-track menus and/or the effects rack add-plugin dialog.

Or was your question about hooking up and using hardware synths (actual keyboards for example) and finding or creating
MusE Instrument Definition Files to represent them in MusE?
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

Tim E. Real wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 8:12 pm If you have been using the built-in MESS soft synths such as the one in the demo, a whole other wold of great quality soft synths awaits.
Provided the support is configured in MusE, download any LV2 or LinuxVST or DSSI soft synth plugin and install it in an appropriate folder.
See MusE's Global Settings > Plugin Paths tab to see where MusE looks for various plugins in folders.

Then (re)start MusE and the new plugin(s) should appear in the add-track menus and/or the effects rack add-plugin dialog.

Or was your question about hooking up and using hardware synths (actual keyboards for example) and finding or creating
MusE Instrument Definition Files to represent them in MusE?
I noticed talking about any hardware, I'm trying to use MuseE to compose music for my games on mt computer, I don't have any external hardware to use, all I'm looking to use MusE for its midi sequencing features and I would like to use more thanjust the soft synth sounds, I would like to be able to have different tracks that have different sound. Does this make what I'm looking for any clearer? I'm not the greatest at explaining things
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TAERSH
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TAERSH »

By creating different tracks (MIDI & Instrument) you can have multiple tracks with different sounds for each track.
Note, there's a need to create an instrument track in addition to each MIDI track.

There's lots of LV2 and VST Synthesizer plugins available on the web to download.

https://kx.studio/Repositories:Plugins
https://kx.studio/Repositories:Applications
http://linux-sound.org/linux-vst-plugins.html
https://u-he.com/ (Scroll down for free versions of Zebralette, Podolski & Triple Cheese)
TheDiamondLego
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

TAERSH wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 10:59 pm By creating different tracks (MIDI & Instrument) you can have multiple tracks with different sounds for each track.
Note, there's a need to create an instrument track in addition to each MIDI track.

There's lots of LV2 and VST Synthesizer plugins available on the web to download.

https://kx.studio/Repositories:Plugins
https://kx.studio/Repositories:Applications
http://linux-sound.org/linux-vst-plugins.html
https://u-he.com/ (Scroll down for free versions of Zebralette, Podolski & Triple Cheese)
Okay, so I need to install a plugin to be able to play different sounds(e.g. piano, guitar, flute, ...), sorry but I'm a complete noob to this and I am still working on understanding some of this
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by Michael Willis »

Yes. There are many different plugins that will give you a wide variety of sounds. Rather than starting off giving you suggestions, it might be better for you to say what kind of sound you are looking for. If you want to compose a symphonic soundtrack, the suggestions are going to be very different than I'd you want to compose an electronic soundtrack.
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

Michael Willis wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 3:23 am Yes. There are many different plugins that will give you a wide variety of sounds. Rather than starting off giving you suggestions, it might be better for you to say what kind of sound you are looking for. If you want to compose a symphonic soundtrack, the suggestions are going to be very different than I'd you want to compose an electronic soundtrack.
I'm mostly just playing around with stuff at the moment and learning how this stuff works so that when I'm actually ready to use it for making music for my games ill know how to do it. Which would be easier to learn with?
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by Michael Willis »

It seems like you're not yet quite sure what you want. Sfizz is a plugin that is pretty easy to get started with. It is designed to load sample libraries in a format called SFZ. You can get some SFZ instruments from bandshed.net, try starting out with the Little Lizard, a pretty good lightweight sampled piano.

If you need some help installing plugins, just ask. I'm not sure where Muse expects you to put plugins, since I mainly use Ardour, but other folks will be able to help with that.
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

Michael Willis wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 4:26 am It seems like you're not yet quite sure what you want. Sfizz is a plugin that is pretty easy to get started with. It is designed to load sample libraries in a format called SFZ. You can get some SFZ instruments from bandshed.net, try starting out with the Little Lizard, a pretty good lightweight sampled piano.

If you need some help installing plugins, just ask. I'm not sure where Muse expects you to put plugins, since I mainly use Ardour, but other folks will be able to help with that.
Yea, I don't have anything specific that I want to make at the moment, I'm mostly just trying to learn how to do this for when I do have something specific that I want to make. Thanks for showing me a specific plugin that should be easier , Ill take a look at it tomorrow, I have to go to bed soon. I'll be sure to let you know if I have and questions!
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by sunrat »

This is a great resource for finding plugins of all types for Linux - http://linuxmusic.rocks/
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TAERSH »

Since you don't know yet, what sounds you may need etc. I would suggest to download the following from the repository of your OS:

Yoshimi
ZynAddSubFx

Both of them come with lots of different sounds for Bass, Piano, Strings, Plucked sounds, Space sounds and many more. Yoshimi is a fork of ZynAddSubFx, so perhaps you may find Yoshimi only in the repository. E.g. those programs using .sfz files are more complicated and often need some additional work after installation.

Yoshimi and/or ZynAddSubFx is a very good starting point to discover sounds and to try things out.
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by spamatica »

Hi there!

A lot of good suggestions already. I just wanted to add that if you didn't see them already I've made several tutorial videos for MusE over the years.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... OSjDMYLEQa

They are getting a bit long in the tooth and I really should do some updated versions. Still the core functionality is the same even if the details may differ and MusE is hopefully easier to use these days.
You can for instance look at the MusE 2.2 introduction video at 3.30 for how it would look if you MusE had found more synths on your system.

I didn't get what distribution you are using. For many distributions there are overlays with multimedia applications you can add, that will make a lot of plugins available. For Debian based distributions there is kxstudio for instance.
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by oscillator »

@TheDiamondLego: Have you seen my tutorial on the MusE wiki? I think (and hope!) it at least partly covers what you are looking for.

https://github.com/muse-sequencer/muse/ ... p-tutorial

MusE DAW running on Debian 11 Testing/XFCE4.
https://oscillator.se/musik

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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

@spamatica I'm running raspberry pi os (on my rpi4), which i think is Debian. I'll might take a look at your videos, ive tried looking up muse on YouTube but didn't find anything, thank you for the link!

@oscillator I haven't taken a good look at the wiki yet, thank you for pointing me to a part that will(hopefully) help me learn muse

@sunrat thank you for sending a link to that sight, I looked at it and it looks like it is a whole lot easier to understand than some of the other ones I've seen

@TAERSH thank you for the recommendations, ill take a look at them, how would I get those plugins into muse(I expect its a little different since I'm downloading it from the repository and not getting a zip file from online)?
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Re: How can I download/set up different instruments?

Post by TheDiamondLego »

@Michael Willis sadly it doesn't look like I can use sfizz, i don't see a 32 bit Linux version or an 32 bit Linux arm version

@TAERSH it doesn't look like I'll be able to use either of those, i try getting them via sudo apt install, but it just says that it is unable to find packages
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