Complete Newb. What can I do with a keyboard?

[Illegal Bayblade]

Due to strange circumstances, for the next few months I will be in possession of a Keystation 49 MK3. I have been using Linux for a few years, but I have never tried to make music with it. What software do you use to do stuff, and what does that stuff entail? I use arch linux.

[Michael Willis]

I you just want to make some noise, there are a variety of different sound samplers and synths. Try zynaddsubfx, yoshimi, and bristol for synthesized sounds, and sfizz for SFZ sampled instruments.

If you want to arrange music with it, you can try LMMS, Muse, QTractor, and/or Ardour.

[kengoudsward]

In my very limited experience, I will just say the Yoshimi was BY FAR the easiest synth to play with

[Flan_TheDude]

If you just want to play piano, then qsynth is great (a graphical frontend for fluidsynth, a soundfont player); some free sound fonts can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/

Bristol is an excellent collection of vintage synth emulators (DX-7, Moog, SID, Oberheim and more) for those delicious 80s sounds.

ZynAddSubFX/Zyn-Fusion and Helm are both great synths for sound design, others such as Surge, TAL Noize Mak3r, obxd and Odin2 are available as plugins that require a host (Ardour, Carla and others)