Hello from Europe

[samsonite2010]

Good day to you all!

I say from Europe because I have been living in Italy for a while, but should be returning to the UK soon.

I am really getting into the world of music with Linux (as well as Linux in general). It all happened when my internal hard disk died and I discovered that Windows could not be installed on an external. I installed Ubuntu as a temporary measure to rescue any files (which it did). Funnily enough, I've been running Linux off the external drive for 4 months now!

From a music point of view, I've been performing and writing music since studying it at school from age 14-18 - I very nearly studied music technology at university, but went for computer science instead. I have maintained a healthy interest in music and the technical side.

Currently I am playing with many music applications in Linux such as ZynAddSubFX, Hydrogen, Rosegarden & LMMS. Audacity is great for editing sound and exporting to various formats - I used this in Windows before too.

Rosegarden is incredible - my mother is a professional typesetter using Sibelius, but recently she has found the latest version is full of bugs and the performance almost makes the recording side of things impossible. I have found Rosegarden to do everything much better, but I am still trying to convince my mother to make the switch!

I also really like LMMS from a sound tweaking point of view, although I have had a few issues with it - hopefully I can get some help here!

Cheers

[etienne]

Welcome! So glad to have you here. If you ever need someone to chat with about music typesetting and Linux, by all means, contact me!

I do a lot of typesetting myself, using MuseScore, another free/opensource program, which is more focused on typesetting than Rosegarden. Each one, of course, has its own specific purpose. You can find MuseScore in the Ubuntu Software Centre, or download it from MuseScore.org. The great thing about MuseScore is that it is also available for Windows. If you need more specific directions/help, don't be afraid to ask.

I left Windows for Ubuntu about 3 years ago, and I haven't looked back since. Everything you can do on Proprietry software these days can also be done on free/open software.

[samsonite2010]

Thanks for the warm welcom Etienne.

I will have to give MuseScore a go as it looks good. The biggest challenge in getting someone to move from Sibelius is to be able to get files to and from each system without losing anything. It appears that you have to pay $200 to buy a plugin that allow Sibelius to export as musicXML - this seems crazy!?

[etienne]

Well, I've never tried exporting from Sibelius to MusicXML, since I never needed to. That could be difficult. Can Sibelius export to the ABC format? Or any other formats? MuseScore can import from a variety of formats.

You might also want to post a question on the forum at Musescore.org - the people there are very friendly and helpful. They've helped me so much in the past, and the only thing they want in return is a simple "thank you".