LinuxMusicians

Hi,

I am new here and long story short I play keyboards, mostly piano, and I am a long time Linux user (since 1998). I have put off combining those two for far too long but I am ready now to record some music and as a Linux user I have to learn how. So again, I know how to play and I know how to fix a broken Linux install, but put the two together and I'm a total noob.

Otherwise, I am a Norwegian living in Gloucester, MA north of Boston. Long story, too long for here! Anyway, here I am and I hope I end up creating music on Linux. We will see!

Welcome Norwegian friend from Massachusseuts! 1998 is very hardcore!

Basslint wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 12:54 pm Welcome Norwegian friend from Massachusseuts! 1998 is very hardcore!

Installed Debian from 15 floppies on a HP laptop.

cdysthe wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:40 pm I am new here and long story short I play keyboards, mostly piano, and I am a long time Linux user (since 1998). I have put off combining those two for far too long but I am ready now to record some music and as a Linux user I have to learn how. So again, I know how to play and I know how to fix a broken Linux install, but put the two together and I'm a total noob.

With modern MIDI keyboards that's a matter of plugging the USB cable in the computer. And then having it recognized in your DAW which would then list the USB-MIDI devices as reported by the Linux OS.

it's possible to compile the Linux kernel with that kind of support although most if not all popular distros aren't.


it's possible to compile the Linux kernel WITHOUT that kind of support although most if not all popular distros aren't. So it's basically plug and play.

cdysthe wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:04 pm Installed Debian from 15 floppies on a HP laptop.

Wow, didn't even imagine GNU/Linux worked on laptops back in 1998!

I think you'll do fine with Linux audio. It's the noobs coming straight from Windows who suffer the most in migration.

My story is similar to yours, but the dates are a little different. I started dabbling in Linux in 2000. I had Red Hat running on a laptop in 2003, and it worked fine. Debian in '98, though, is a notch more geeky than what I accomplished.

I started dabbling in Linux audio in about 2012, at first with just LMMS and a midi controller. In 2016 I bought a USB audio interface and since then I've been off to the races.

Like I said, I'm sure you'll do fine. Welcome to the forum!

milo wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 3:41 pm
I started dabbling in Linux audio in about 2012, at first with just LMMS and a midi controller. In 2016 I bought a USB audio interface and since then I've been off to the races.

Like I said, I'm sure you'll do fine. Welcome to the forum!

Thanks. That was encouraging!

You mention "USB audio interface". I would not know what that is. I can find out how to use both software and hardware but in this case i need to buy some stuff and I do not want to spend days on hardware that isn't suitable or not suitable for my purposes. I have a powerful Thinkpad I thought of using, but how to end up with a "USB audio interface" with my Midi keyboard hooked up is another story. I am currently looking at an application called Waveform which looks like I can figure out but no idea whether I am wasting my time or not!

My interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. It's basically an external soundcard, with knobs and controllers to manage the input gain of whatever I plug into it. I actually disabled my internal soundcard in the bios and run everything through the Scarlett. Well, not quite everything. My midi controller plugs straight into the computer via USB. But there are interfaces that have the old-style midi connecter plugs on them.

I bought the interface when I wanted to record vocals and guitars. If I were to buy one today I'd probably get a Behringer U-Phoria, but there are many many options and you should definitely research it before purchasing anything. Lots of threads on this forum are dedicated to the subject. The hardware subforum here is a good place to start reading up.

Hey, welcome cdysthe!

If you want to just run a midi keyboard controller into a DAW, you won't need an interface (these are essentially just high quality USB sound cards). You should be able to use any midi keyboard with a USB port. You'd want to get an interface box if a) you wanted to mic an acoustic instrument (e.g. piano) well b) you need really high-fidelity output and the system sound card isn't cutting it (a fairly high bar) or c) you want to use a controller that doesn't provide a USB port.

For pretty much anything else, you should be perfectly fine just running your keyboard controller directly into your DAW over USB. The options are pretty much unlimited, though, as you could easily run any combination of synth or effects programs tied together by jack and alsa midi -- no DAW needed if you're just jamming.

So, been doing music with linux since 1996 with an ISA card that had two simm memory banks! and continued until last year when I switched to iOS for mobility reasons.
This is my experience on what to do to enjoy keyboards in linux:

First, keyboards come in one of three categories of connectivity.
1. 5 pin DIN MIDI interface
You need either an adapter cable or an external soundcard with midi. My Behringer UMC404HD does have it and I use it with my Korg LP380. Works great. From that , USB to the laptop.
2. USB Midi
That one is the easiest. My M-Audio Keystation61es was my first keyboard, worked right away back in Debian 4.0. Anything that has that will be just plug and play. I also have an Akai MPK II mini and works perfect, a Roland drum , a small drumpad. everything with this connectivity seems to be just fine. Didn't tried mixing controllers though, but not your use case.
3. Bluetooth BLE Midi
By far the worst support. I have a Yamaha MD-BT01 adapter for the Korg, and also a Jamstik that has BLE. The result in linux is very high latency. Can't recommend to anyone. In iOS works better (although, still not as good as just a cable).

Second, now, with that you have your keyboard connected. What goes next? Setup Jack.
There are many guides, and it is way easier now that back in the day with the preempt and real time kernel patches, but you still have to tune things here and there, and reduce every unneeded workload before doing music. Jack is like a patch that connects everything to everything. Use it.

Third, get some synths.
Here some I used lately:
1. ZynAdd Fusion
2. LinuxSampler (horrible to setup, but great .gig samples)
3. Hydrogen (for drums)
4. DrumGizmo (for drums... wants a big big big computer).
5. mda-lv2 package (great rodhes piano)
6. Bristol (for a B2... kind of not loving that, but no other option for that sound that I could find).

Fourth, a recording app.
Start with Ardour. A bit steep learning curve but you'll have the best overall results in my experience.

With that I think you are ready to go!
And like the SuSE team used to say, Have a lot of fun!

theatomicdog wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:54 pm
With that I think you are ready to go!
And like the SuSE team used to say, Have a lot of fun!

Now that was some post! Thanks! Incredible to see so much experience distilled down to a knowledge shot like this!

Over the last few days I've made some preliminary decisions I hope won't conflict too much with the advice here.

I will try to use a Korg B2 which has USB Midi out as far as i can see straight into my Linux laptop and see how far that takes me. I see that the keyboard has a Windows 10 driver available so maybe it won't cooperate with Linux at all. If not I am in the market for a midi keyboard. As I am not going to run any external keyboards or record real instruments I will wait with any USB interface solution. As for DAW I have spent more time in Waveform than in Ardour. I find Waveform a little less intimidating and I have gotten further learning it than the others I've looked at. I think the interface suits me better, but I will do Ardour if I am already limiting myself with Waveform.

I am now getting around to Jack and that is the only part I have heard horror stories about from friends who have been dabbling in music on Linux. I will give it a go today. I still do not really understand what Jack is going to give me, but I'm sure I am about to find out. Or not. I do not even know which packages to install. There's tons of Jack packages available.

My computer is a Thinkpad with an I7. 1 TB NvME SSD and 24 mb ram. I hope that will do for now. It runs Ubuntu 20.10 perfectly.

Again, thank you for sharing your knowledge and I will return to this thread and your post often over the coming weeks. I am eager to have an outlet for the songs that I have in me, but realize I have to go through all this at some point. There's no way around it. I'll make the best of it.

I find it useful to work woth a gui app to configure and use JACK. This is not strictly necessary, mind you. I prefer qjackctl for this, but there are other options. If you install qjackctl from your distro's package manager then it should pull in the correct JACK package for you as a dependency. Another package you will want and probably need is a2jmidid. See https://manual.ardour.org/setting-up-yo ... -on-linux/

milo wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 1:07 am I prefer qjackctl for this

100% with that. Regarding "why jack exists?" It does a few things, very well:
1. Gives you a cohesive interface to connect inputs and outputs. Example: [midi usb keyboard] -> [soft synth zynaddsubfx] -> [daw with effects] -> [soundcard output]
2. keeps things within a low latency, so your audio experience is as realtime-like as possible.

Most apps that are at least minimally mature will support Jack, so you will go a long way. With your laptop and ubuntu it should have a decent performance out of the box, so do as milo suggested and install qjackctl and things should go just fine.

I'm moving ahead and my main concern was that I would have problems with my Korg B2 piano and use it as part of my setup not only a digital piano (which I know it works very well at being already).. I Iove the full 88 weighted keyss and was hoping to use it for as much as possible. When I plug into my laptop 'lsudb' sees it a "Korg M2" and I am able to route it to Reaction Waveform where I can trigger the keys on the built in soft keyboard. I do not know exactly what I can expect to get out it yet. But I hope to be able to play soft synths and such with the B2. What should I be looking for and what could potentially not work?

I have ordered a Behringer UMC22 since it seems to work well on Linux and has a Reaction Waveform license. And the price was great also. I am hoping it will aa good intro to USB interface use. I have no idea how to hook it up but I will focus on getting Jack fully functional and get to control as much as possible in Waveform from the Korg B2. Any advice at this point would be helpful but I think I am able to see progress enough to move along by myself.