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LMMS User Manual

1. pP The Beat Bassline Editor Window button toggles the Beat Bassline Editor window The Piano Roll Editor Window button toggles the Piano Roll Editor Tip The Piano Roll Editor Window is supposed to edit the notes stored in a piano roll element in the Song Editor window Therefore it must be launched by double clicking on an element The Automation Window button toggles the Automation Editor The FX mixer toggle button toggles the FX mixer window The Project Notes button toggles the Project Notes Editor window SEE The Controller rack button depicting a hand tweaking a knob toggles the Controller Rack window LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 32 Tempo Control Button Remarks TEMP OJBEM The current tempo is shown in terms of BPM Beats per Minute To change the tempo click inside the area hold the mouse button down and then drag the mouse up or down It can also be automated from its context menu Time Signature Controls Button Remarks The default time signature is 4 4 but you can change it The time axis of the Piano roll will automatically adapt to the chosen time signature Volume and Pitch Controls Button Remarks The Master Volume control sets the master volume for the entire song The Master Pitch control sets the root note on which every other note in the song is based Turn
2. LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 48 A typical song has multiple Beat Bassline tracks We want to start each rhythm at a specific time play it for a specific duration and then switch to another rhythm track To do this we use the Song Editor and insert elements in the desired Beat bassline track We also resize each element so that it plays its track for the required duration as shown in the example below NN a Beat Bassline 0 NN OO Beat Bassline 1 NM O Beat Bassline 2 How would these tracks play Notice that in this example none of the tracks has any element in the first measure Therefore none of the three BB tracks is playing during this measure As a result our example song remains silent in its first measure After that the first track plays for two measures Then the second track plays for two measures Then the third track plays for three measures Then the first track again plays for six measures And so on Playing multiple rhythms together In the above example at any given time only one BB track has content In other words only one BB track contributes sound at a time and the rest are silent However sometimes multiple BB tracks contribute simultaneously A typical application is to play a variation rhythm periodically as shown below Se E E r Main rhythm PR 2 E i Hi Hat only The Hi Hat sounds only during some time creating a variation This example shows the song end
3. 2 Now draw the curve in the Automation Editor window The BB Editor reflects the latest shape of the automation curve in real time Repeat steps 1 2 to automate the other controls as well Each time the Automation Editor immediately switches to the new element When you have finished you can safely close the Automation Editor window without losing the contents You must use a separate automation track for each control Unlike the automation tracks in the Song Editor the automation track in the BB Editor can handle only one single control Caution If the length of the automation track exceeds one measure LMMS plays the track erratically Applying the global Instead of using an automation track for a control you can directly apply the global song song automation to automation to that control Unlike the automation track the song global automation curve a control remains hidden To apply the song global automation curve right click on the control and select the Edit song global automation option The Automation Editor pops up Now create or edit the automation curve Close the Automation Editor when done LMMS automatically remembers the latest curve There are no controls to save the curve The process flow for composing a rhythm So far we have seen the theory of how the Song Editor and BB Editor work together to create rhythm To create a Beat Bassline track the process is as follows 1 First plan wh
4. Before we do anything let us first resize these windows to reveal their contents fully If they are overlapping or partially hidden drag them by their windows bar to a new position on the screen LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 27 Now let us check the main windows starting with the Song Editor Song Editor Main Beat _ Bass Line 2 VOL PAN j 4 Melody la VOL PAN le Claps Claps er A As shown above this window contains the tracks of the newfangled song Two beat tracks named Main beat and Claps one melody track and one bassline track Li d E E CK 1 Before doing anything notice the salient features of this window o The song is 14 measures long as can be seen from the ruler markings on top of the blue bar o The Main beat is played throughout the song whereas the Claps start only from the 7 measure o The bassline is played throughout the song except the last measure o The melody starts from 5 measure and is played till the 12 measure Play the song by clicking on the o button the first button in the toolbar Listen to the playback sound and observe how it correlates with the indicators in the window Toggle individual tracks on off by clicking on the green lamps and see how that affects the song oa SN Play any track in solo mode by clicking on the second lamp the black lamp ol which turns red i when you click on it and see how that affects the
5. The native interface of ZynAddSubFX looks like this Wa ZynAddSub l File Instrument d o i Ch1 ae E 0 Vase Min key Max key mi RIM Effect LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 132 Effect Plugins Bass Booster BassBooster Eff SIN FREQ GAIN RATIO Peak Controller Peak Controller e00 BASE AMT ATTACDECAY E Mute This plugin boosts the bass low frequencies It has the following controls Control Function FREQ The cut off frequency the frequency up to which it will provide the boost GAIN The gain boost provided to lower frequencies RATIO This plugin has the following controls Control Function BASE The average value of the target sound around which the swing takes place AMT The modulation amount more amount means higher effect on the target sound e When the knob is set at the center the AMT is zero The target control won t swing at all e If you turn the knob to the left the AMT is negative the target control swings in the negative direction e If you turn the knob to the right the AMT is positive the target control swings in the positive direction ATTACK How quickly the effect takes effect e A lower attack means fast onset of the effect e Ahigher attack means gradual onset of the effect DECAY How quickly the target sound is released from the effect A slow decay
6. Version 0 4 12 1 User Manual 0 4 12 1 User Manual Version Contents A a e E nv OO OT A TN 3 UE CUR Ma 9 HON O A caieissts aimanarnieddeb EEEE ENR 9 Bial yi pA T AEE IE A E EP E EEE AA 9 A 9 A A O EOS E O E A A 9 A es Ses Ubeese EE E veins pmnteiestenatcechen as 9 A A Pq ee ee ee eet yn teen eer eee ea te aes eae emer EAT eee 10 lt P PE gu o O O UPS E on 10 oie S cess ss A peer aes nena 11 BO Sy a TE ati cnia 11 Sas A ENNS A PP ensnedenisqanrdnebenengarepareritetieap mene 14 co dp 2108 ro uo AA A o ROO O on E A o O O ee see 16 lala es lo eo eo A Aa 17 Vs plo Using MO eo lp A A e RE PES SO ER E A AA 17 Iago a A oa Aaaa a 19 O A E RP O O A 19 Comparison with a Sound ecordln O StI escorial aiii 20 FO LIS A ida 22 San e E EL UU E 9 BS OE COR a a 23 a Re ee e o eee eee er eer ere 24 ea PT os a E E E o PP a nm pe E E o 25 Getting a feel of LMMS with a demo SONG ccccsscccceececeececcenceceneeceeeeseucecsaeeeseaeessueessaeeeseueessueeessueesseeeeseees 25 EMISOR 29 ME AAPP E PROP A A 29 REEN AA O un E O PR PO OO E E AE T 29 A PP e E 0 NE E e e PO Po O ene A E E E 30 A O PO O E A mdecsane 30 A IINE OAE E A ET A EENT 30 NOU ann E OEA E T 30 to E e o o E O nn IA 31 e o A II 31 o eth e eeteese a nee a etecinies aces accents sce Garson os See ese tees ee ceeeee eden eis eceeeeeseonaceassedaseseseness2 32 Mica nn e Po O PE UU PU EE 32 E es Md PLENA ONO raro tao EIE A OAT TAEAE 32 Wave and
7. banned O sign will appear over the cursor The My Presets Tab B Hnvader The My Presets tab gives you easy access to your presets You can do the following You can click and hold the mouse on any preset to preview it F LE302 a Factory files E la 0 pf rar Oh synth xpt Caution Always save your project before previewing any preset especially a VSTige preset as sometimes this action can crash The My Home Tab The My Home pane contains shortcuts to specific folders on your system it a LMMS 7 STrash xpf 3 Organic Eh TripleGscillator 2 To add a preset to your project drag and drop the Mm ibed preset to either editor with mouse meld IRE 3 To load a preset in the Beat Bassline Editor double click on it 4 When you drop a sample in either editor it will be added to the bottom You can easily change this by dragging the sample to a desired position 5 If you drag a preset into an existing preset in either of the editors it will replace the previous one as resource The preset file is not affected 6 When you drag a sample observe the mouse cursor If the sample cannot be dropped into any container a banned O sign will appear over the cursor On Windows PCs My Home contains desktop favorites MyDocuments start user data and WINDOWS LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 35 The My Computer Tab The My Computer pane provides access to the
8. 2 yMutefunmute ctrl gt middle click if Clear Reset name Change name Open in Automation Editor Open the editor in automation editor window for editing the curve Note that you can create an automation curve that is longer than the element but the rest of it will not be active Delete Delete the element same as clicking the MMB Cut Remove the element from track and place its contents on clipboard Copy Copy the element into clipboard the original element is not affected Paste Paste the element from the clipboard The original element is overwritten You cannot paste an element on bare track only on another element e Note that you can paste an element into another track only if it is of compatible type Mute Mute this element the other elements on that track are still active Unmute Unmute this element if muted previously Clear Clear off the automation data the target control will not be automated any more Reset name Resets the label on the element now the name on it is the same as the track s name Change name Change the label that appears on the element when you see the track Each element can have its own label So if a track has multiple elements they can have different labels 36 Thus before pasting an element you must create a blank new element at the target position and then paste the content of the clipboard The Piano Roll Editor The piano ro
9. 4 S A 4 FX CHINL td VOL PAN PITCH PLUGIN ENV ALFO FUNC A MIDI EFFECTS CHAIN e Dd In um WD DECAY GATE Peak Controller a a inane ae rar Default preset Mec s delay line cubic spline interpolation Audio Divider Suboctave Generator bama abr ls Peak Controller a De BASE AMT ATTACIDECAY f Mute LMMS User Manual gt E Adding Special Effects 148 A Connection settings window pops up EJ Click on the User controller lamp to turn it on PA In the pull down menu select the Controller number that you noted two steps earlier Press OK With this the volume control of the melody track is now controlled by the volume of the beat track In the Song Editor click the Play button LMMS plays the song in the loop mode Notice that the volume knob of the melody track swings when the beats are played The setting window for the Peak Controller is still open Tweak the settings of the controller and see how it affects the volume knob in the melody track f Mute Note that if AMT knob is set to a positive value i e when the knob is turned to the right the volume of the melody increases when the beat occurs But we want the exact opposite duck effect To achieve this effect set the AMT knob to a negative value turn it to the left Side chaining through FX Mixer BASE AMT Connection Settings MIDI CONTROLLER CHANNEL CONTROLLER Auto
10. Introduction to LMMS 22 How LMMS works The functional blocks of LMMS are shown below Sample track EE RR YT Beat Bassline track L f a a a I I I A ss ss I SE ESE TESSA A Beat Bassline Editor MAIN symbol means Her eer of a control using a An Automation Track or b Direct automation or c A Controller from controller rack LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 23 Functional Parts of LMMS LMMS has seven windows out of which two windows The Song Editor and the FX Mixer are top level windows which produce the actual song The other windows support these two The two core windows work as follows Window Function details Song Editor oY OY SS Put together all the different types of tracks instrument beats bassline sample Adjust their positions on the timeline Apply automation to each control of each track separately Apply a chain of effects to each track separately Mute any number of tracks while rendering the song Play a track solo to check it out For instrument tracks only Apply envelope and filter variations during each note FX Mixer Make groups of tracks and apply a chain of effects to the entire group Provide quick access volume faders for individual tracks and groups of tracks The supporting windows are as follows 6 Window Function details Piano Roll 1 Compose notes for
11. LMMS creates a new track with that synthesizer as instrument The new track does not have any musical content You have to first add a blank element in the track and then double click on it to add content using the Piano Roll Editor e Itis usual to fine tune the instrument first so that its sound suits your taste You may like to save the new sound as a preset so that you can reuse it later and in other projects as well e When a new Instrument track is added it is always named Default preset You have to rename the track after the instrument that is actually used in it e g 1 piano cello etc If you plan to use multiple instruments of the same type e g two flutes in the song use a numerical suffix to identify them e g Flute 1 and Flute 2 Inserting notes ina multi measure stretch Double click on any element in the Song Editor That element is opened in the Piano Roll Editor which reveals four consecutive measures You can drag the right hand edge of the Piano Roll Editor window to reveal even more measures You can insert notes in as many measures as you want rather than inserting notes in one measure at a time As soon as you insert a note in the adjacent measure the element expands automatically by one measure in the Song Editor and your new note appears instantly on the element as a thin orange line like this As you enter new notes in the adjacent measures the element go
12. but now these new points lie on y 0 axis i e the horizontal line in the center of the graph In other words the old data for those points is not retained To sum up when you reduce the sample length and then increase it again the later part of the waveform is flattened This creates a beat like effect LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 118 Kicker Kicker is a kick and bass drum synthesizer It works by producing a frequency sweep It starts at a certain frequency and gradually increases the frequency till it reaches the higher limit Kicker ignores the pitch of the note it plays regardless of which piano key you click at the bottom the window it will play the same sound Thus it is most suitable for use in the Beat Bassline Editor Process Adjust the knobs until you get a satisfactory sound To get realistic sounds set the Start and End frequencies to low values take care not to set them too far apart otherwise Kicker will sound like a siren Also set the Decay at a low value because a beat sound is not supposed to sustain for long L Detault preset Control How it works GENERAL SETTINGS Default preset 00 PARE e Note that the START frequency can be set of y FR CHNL Cy END End frequency a PAN PITCH PLUGIN MAA a a DECAY Time taken by the Kicker for one frequency sweep from the Start frequency to the End frequency DIST Distortion added to the output Distortion is a
13. e Clicking on the button once again hides the contents pane so that you get more space for the project work LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 25 No Item Remarks Main Interface This is the main working area of LMMS Up to seven types of windows can appear here see the following table Each window lets you view and edit certain part of the song You can close any all of these inner windows without affecting the project data Windows in LMMS LMMS can display seven different types of windows in the main interface EJ Window Purpose Song Editor This is where you put different parts of the song together in the form of tracks e This window contains separate tracks for melody and percussion e It may also contain one or more automation tracks e Each type of track is edited in a different editor window see below Beat Bassline Editor BB Editor This is where each Beat Bassline pattern is created by combining several instrument tracks Some of these instrument tracks have automation applied to their controls FX Mixer This is the sound mixer where you can add multiple effects to each sound track and also adjust the relative volume of each sound source Controller Rack This window lists all controllers used in LMMS LMMS has two types of controllers e LFOs Low Frequency Oscillators Each LFO produces a low frequency signal w
14. or synthesized sound that does not match any real life musical instrument e g BitInvader Vibed TripleOscillator ZynAddSubF xX etc Each instrument has its own separate track Here are the unique operations in instrument tracks 25 26 Task Details Creating a new track To create an instrument track click on the Instrument Plugins or My presets button in the Side Bar and drag an item to the Song Editor LMMS shows a new track for that instrument or preset e f you have the recorded sound of a real life musical instrument in the form of an audio file wav mp3 ogg etc select that file from the Side Bar and drag n drop in the Song Editor LMMS automatically launches a plugin called AudioFileProcessor and loads the voice sample file in it LMMS also creates a new track where the AudioFileProcessor plugin acts as an instrument with your sample sound e If you have recorded sound of a musical instrument in the form of SoundFont2 or GUS patches LMMS has SF2 and Patman plugins to play these patches To use the patches first open the Instrument plugins tab of the Side Bar and drag n drop the correct type of plugin into the Song Editor LMMS creates a new track with the selected plugin Now click on the instrument panel to open the instrument window and load the patch file in it e If you want to create a track with a synthesized voice just drag its synthesizer plugin from the Side Bar into the Song Editor
15. then gradually lowers untill you release the key note After this instant the sound fades quickly to silence The volume vs time graph is called volume envelope see below Time raea rea gt Pre delay Attack Hold Release Key is pressed Key is released In fact LMMS also allows you to apply a filter to the sound and then apply two additional control envelopes to the filter to its Q Factor and the Center Frequency This gives a precise control over the characteristics of the sound Each envelope has six parts that can be controlled independently Part Label Description Pre DEL Time from the instant when key is pressed to when the volume delay starts rising Attack ATT Time taken for the volume to rise from near zero to peak Hold HOLD Time for which the volume is held at the peak value 122 Although we say piano key LMMS actually plays the chosen instrument or sampled sound not necessarily piano 123 The LMMS interface shows these labels for these variables LMMS User Manual gt H Glossary 156 Filter Freeze LADSPA LFO Low Frequency Oscillator Decay DEC After the hold period the volume decreases at a steady rate till the key is released The DEC parameter controls the slope of this line segment segment HS Alert You would expect that since higher decay means more rapid decline the line should become steeper But it is exactly the opposite
16. this window is of no use because it is not associated with any control and so it cannot automate anything LMMS itself warns you like this Automation Editor no pattern 00 wal ioe ie gt ml A ms MA ee ce Y 1 2 3 Es hd r a E C A El So if you have launched a window like this just identify the control to be automated and use its context menu to automate it The Automation Editor window offers you a canvas for drawing a graph with your mouse 77 LMMS shows the playhead position while the track is played However once the playhead position goes beyond the right edge of the screen you cannot see it i e what is being played LMMS has auto scroll mode in which the track is scrolled automatically to keep the currently played part of the track in view 78 You can force LMMS to play between two markers start marker end marker placed on the time ruler You can also force LMMS to play endlessly within this range As soon as the playhead reaches the end marker it jumps back to the start marker and continues to play This is why it is called a loop This is useful to review a particular part of the song LMMS User Manual gt The Automation Editor 92 More about the Automation Graph Automation Editor Drag a control while pressing lt Ctrl gt 00 WV ewt YR p gt MS EA Ab 1 2 Notice that the y axis of the window is actually dimensionless It simply plots all possible values of the
17. Amplifier Stereo ito phaser Amp Tube amp lt Ampl Tube amp tone controls Amp Tube amp AmpYTS Tube amp Tone stack E AuboWah Resonant envelope following filter ADSPA Effect abinetil Refir ADSPA Effe rus Mic Plugin description Mame 4 x 4 pole allpass Maker Steve Harris steved plugin org uk gt Copyright GPL Requires Real Time No Real Time Capable ves In Place Broken No Channels In 1 Channels Gut 1 To search for a desired effect use the gray bar at the top of the window Browse through the list As you highlight an effect its description is displayed at the bottom of the pane Select an effect and press OK This new effect is added to the pane and forms a chain of effects The sound generated by the instrument is passed through the stack of effects in top to bottom direction Each effect box has four controls Control Function W D wet dry knob Sets the output input signal ratio A higher ratio means more effect at the output Decay knob Sets how much silence must pass before the effect turns off completely Turning the effect off reduces the amount of CPU time used processing silence and reduces the chance of unwanted noise However if the effect turns off too soon it may introduce a clipped sound to the effect for instance in the case of a reverb if the reverb time is longer than the decay time then the reverb will be cut off before it has fully d
18. CPU Usage AAA e e Po A Erin 60 O REEE Anai 32 e Cn S 32 The Monument ALIAS TAB martina tibio tales eine 33 a AA A E N A 33 A O e Eo O o elegance ibe asdnnesasediens 34 MEN ascent shite casing sek tue E a O E 34 BT a AP A e o AQ A EEE ET EE 34 LMMS User Manual gt Contents 4 ad e acdsee te near orca arenes E II A 35 o P 37 MES 10 119 ION e id sacas 38 WORO VUTEC m ona E T APA A PB e RU A E 39 cres co NC AA E E E teceaaivananrendeiaaradaoiaaianans 39 AR A o EE SE E E A AE S 41 ONO OR as A e E E A 44 Using the instrument track to play an audio track with pitch Shift ccooocccccoccnccoccnonocononanonanoncnnnnonannannns 45 e o os e e APP E E E A EA e A o E O A A UU o o cites idea A 46 isa ek la so ce AAA A A 47 dele WiN e odo pco e PPP On e PE O A A 48 To Cone A a edo e AA A STO A 49 Context menu for Instrument track clemencia 49 Context menu Tor Beat rack ale Men ascitis bras 50 Context menu for Sample track clemencia iio 51 Context menu for Automation track SISA CI vias ca ohce cese ecndested are codecescaseuededastoxnouatencdeciouccenadesslecvesseetdoracestenedeeds 52 NS PIO RO EOI nn rg o oi redadas 53 The Fiano Roll Editor o recat aciyneecedseaeniselvadeneseatunennaiaccacceaeanacasmccnautesiaheasenion deasesecHastarecicceacenteges 53 o OE aa tae EE e e IA 56 eco e AAA 57 A A o PU OO O TN E E E T EEE NE EEE 58 E AE ees bs cee oc EEE AAT E a ss gets AEE E T EAE EET OA E E ETEN 58 Pe Ao E E 58 O
19. Detect USER CONTROLLER Controller 1 MAPPING FUNCTION input Peak Controller Ga Be ATTACIDECAY In the previous example we applied a Peak Controller directly to the beat track s Instrument window and connected the target volume knob of the melody track to this controller But often side chaining is done through the FX Mixer The basic idea still remains the same but the tracks are first connected to the input channels of the FX Mixer and then side chain is applied to the FX Mixer So what s the advantage of this method over the direct connection method Well as discussed before the value of FX Mixer lies in the fact that each of its input channels Channel 1 to 64 can be connected to a group of tracks after which the input channel controls all those tracks in unison The details are as follows In the BB Editor click on the beat track s button a a pe Ot Kkick0i ogg 2 2 SS VOL PAN 118 Recall that by default the input channels of the FX Mixer are not used All sounds are directly connected to the output channel Channel 0 But for the sake of side chaining we will have to use those input channels LMMS User Manual gt E Adding Special Effects 149 The Instrument window of the beat track al cOI pee pops up AA By default all sounds are connected to S VOL Channel 0 the output channel of FX Mixer Change the channel to Channel 1 Close the window there is
20. El or the space bar to stop recording Now edit the notes placement and length Also add edit the expressions by editing their volume The Beat Bassline Editor If you listen carefully to the percussion or bassline track of a song you will discover four things 1 The track plays several instruments for example a typical drum sound actually consists of six different percussion instruments known collectively as the drum kit Similarly a bassline track typically contains 2 3 bass instruments The track has a very small rhythm pattern that repeats over and over again Typically this pattern is one measure long What appears as a single rhythm track is actually composed of several distinct rhythms The song actually switches between these rhythms or at least it introduces minor variations in a base rhythm from time to time The song does not switch instantly from one rhythm to another It uses a third short changeover pattern to ease into the next rhythm In LMMS the rhythm is actually the combined work of two different editors see LMMS functional diagram The Beat Bassline Editor composes a short percussion bassline pattern of sounds The Song Editor repeats this short pattern to create a rhythm of any duration We have already seen the Song Editor So now we will see how the Beat Bassline Editor works Then we will see how they work together The Beat Bassline Editor window We have already seen the BB edi
21. LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 39 You can select and move the bars Ed Playback E i 15 control Enable disable auto scrolling of the track Enable disable loop points When the loops are enabled the button lights up Otherwise it is grayed out Toggles the loop behavior between 1 When stopped the playhead automatically returns to the start of the track If the play is resumed now the playhead jumps first to the loop start point and starts playing from there 2 When stopped the playhead stays at that place If the play is resumed now the playhead continues from the position where it had paused E Zoom Controls the horizontal magnification for viewing the timeline of the track Boh Bee Tip A much easier way to zoom in out is to hover the mouse on the track area E press CTRL and roll the mousewheel Next we will see the tracks in detail Working with tracks in Song Editor In this section we will see how to work with the tracks in the Song Editor Note that the Beat Bassline Editor also has tracks that look similar However they contain only one instance of a repetitive sound pattern which is then repeated back to back in the song Therefore the tracks in the BB Editor are edited a little differently We will see later how to edit them The structure of a typical track In this section we will see the features that are common for all types of tracks In the next
22. LMMS into pause mode Record sound captured from an external source a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer or notes played in LMMS using your computer s keyboard Record samples from audio device while playing a song in Song Editor or a track from the Beat Bassline Editor Spacebar Stop playing recording Edit This multipurpose tool can do almost all operations on the notes It can create resize move delete and select notes Deletes the notes Draws a selection rectangle to select multiple notes Automates a note this is also called detuning a note Clipboard CTRL X Cut to clipboard CTRL C Copy to clipboard original is not affected O O E 6 0 BN Bee Ooo CTRL V Paste from clipboard LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 55 No Group Button Keyboard Function shortcut Playhead Enable disable auto scrolling of the track Enable disable loop points When the loops are enabled the button lights up Otherwise it is grayed out Toggles the loop behavior between 1 When stopped the playhead automatically returns to the start of the track If the play is resumed now the playhead jumps first to the loop start point and starts playing from there de de 2 When stopped the playhead stays at that place If the play is resumed now the playhead
23. LMMS is unable to match the demands of your music 120 Variously denoted as 12eT 12TET 12 TeT etc G FAQ About LMMS Q A What is LMMS You can produce an entire song or a background musical score with LMMS In short you can compose instrumental melodies percussion tracks and bassline tracks with LMMS and add special effects to these tracks and mix them together to create a song The only additional thing you need is to get someone to sing either live or a recorded track With that you can create a full fledged song in all its glory LMMS can also connect to your MIDI keyboard in fact you can use your computer keyboard as a make shift MIDI keyboard You can either export the song say as a mp3 file or play the music in live mode including your MIDI keyboard and singing e For melodies you can use either the sounds of traditional musical instruments piano violin flute etc or with a synthesized voice e For percussion LMMS offers built in sounds of different instruments used around the world Is it sufficient to create a musical score on its own Well the only thing missing in it is the ability to edit the audio tracks captured from outside singing or other natural man made sounds However this can be easily done with other open source freeware such as Audacity which is a powerful audio editor Which commercial software does LMMS replace LMMS is similar to Apple s Garage Band FL Studio
24. Now onwards LMMS will consider this key as A4 TTT In this example we have marked the A5 key of this plugin which means that when you play its A5 key it actually produces the 440 Hz sound which is standardized as the A4 note So while playing this instrument LMMS automatically applies the same offset to all its keys to produce the correct notes In the following example three instruments are shown Instruments A and B have different offsets Instrument C is true its A4 key really plays the standard 440 Hz signal so no offset is applied to it Notice that the green marked keys of all instruments are aligned with the A4 key of the Piano Roll Editor So when we play A4 note on the keyboard of Piano Roll Editor LMMS actually plays the A5 note in Instrument A F4 note in Instrument B and A4 note in Instrument C And to the listener they all seem to be playing the same A4 note LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 87 Piano Roll Editor COLOCA TOTTI nn ACA MA won TM a So what is the practical use of this marking Well ideally all instruments should play a 440 Hz signal when we press the A4 note in their keyboard But in real world some instruments are not tuned perfectly So if they all play the same note say A4 they will produce sounds with different pitches Therefore we simply offset each instrument to make them play the same pitch Note that all synthesizers have the correct pitch by
25. P1 P1 P1 P2 LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 70 The BB pattern has only one instrument In this approach each pattern created in the Beat Bassline Editor has only one instrument These instrument specific patterns are added up in the Song Editor and not in the Beat Bassline Editor First focus on how many different patterns are required to be played by each instrument Then create all these patterns in the Beat Bassline Editor separately Finally add them to the Song Editor OO VOL PAN Snare Snare P3 Note that while the kick instrument has one pattern the snare instrument has two patterns In each measure of the song the Song Editor activates all the needed instrument patterns So the Song Editor assembles the patterns like this Case 1 Y P1 P2 P1 P3 P1 P2 P1 P3 Case 2 Y P1 P2 P1 P2 P1 P2 P1 P3 Which approach is best There are advantages and disadvantages to each of the above approaches e The first option makes logical sense considered from a musical notation point of view and is often easier to see the integration of all the instruments in the rhythm You will be able to see a clearer visual clue whether two instruments play at a given instant e However the first means that you have to create a separate rhythm for each minor variation It is often much quicker to simply program that second pattern to contain only the no
26. Songs 102 EFFECTS CHAIN The selected effect appears in the Effects chain box y IS EEE of the FX Mixer WD DECAYGATE TAF Tremolo At any time you can toggle any effect on off by clicking on the yellow lamp in its box The entire effects chain can be toggled on off by clicking on the Effects Chain green lamp at the top LMMS also pops up another window so that you can TAP Tremolo adjust the settings of the effect to your liking Channel 1 Channel 2 Adjust the settings and close the window LMMS just remembers the new values There is no OK or Save button Repeat the above steps to add other effects All the effects are added in the Effects Chain box and applied in top to bottom order All the sounds connected to Channel 17 are affected in an identical manner Now play the rhythm in the BB Editor by clicking on the button This completes our experimentation with all different parts of LMMS Composing a song from score sheet In this section we will compose a well known song in LMMS Baa baa blacksheep The purpose behind selecting this particular song is twofold Its score sheet is readily available follow the link More importantly even if you cannot read a score sheet you can play it by ear because you are already familiar with this melody By the way this melody has many variations around the World so the tune you know may be a little different Therefore do not
27. Stiffness of the string uw Default preset WHF This plugin has the following controls GENERAL SETTINGS Default preset AAA Control Function ob H String The plugin has nine strings represented by 1 9 buttons VOL AN FX CHNL fu E a Select a string by clicking on the number pad and then set its ENV LEO FUNC FX MIDI parameters Imp Determines whether the graph represents an impulse or the actual shape of the string e When ON the graph represents the shape of the pluck that will propagate up and down the string e When OFF the graph represents the shape of the string at the time it is sounded when you play a note you are bending the whole string into the shape on the graph and releasing it to let it ring out Octave There are nine values 2 1 F 2 3 4 5 6 and 7 Changes the octave of the selected string e Negative values mean shift down by x octaves e F fundamental means no change e Positive values mean shift up by x octaves Graph Either select a waveform by clicking on the buttons at right or panel draw a graph in the pane e You can also select a waveform and then edit it manually Waveform Select a waveform to load a predefined waveform sine triangle sawtooth square white noise and user defined Toggles the selected string on off Smoothen the waveform This removes any spikes in the curve Normalize the waveform Volume of the selecte
28. WIN pE EE a 59 Bees leds Foll Egils A trnt i etna ere ra 59 NUNO Me ei ioe A eee een er ees ne ey eset eee tae Reet E eee ene on eee eet meena 59 Creating notes with keyboard cocina lia iia 60 THE Bela i a Sine EOR e dai precede E crab 61 me Boalt el Editor WNG W seresa reinn n E Ea EAEE aa i a apotes 61 MOV Be ae Er O aa E see paaeensaanisensiaeedstenjssaaseees eeeeeeeeee 62 ile A A acs PI E UE CE EE EAE TEAN EE S A E E A SE E A 63 E E EE A ee 64 CaN NO NE o A E ERES E E E AS 64 GRAN INO NE PEA Or GINGrSn Podio Sete RP EEE 64 A ana Edita a a EE E EEE EA 65 MOW ine BE Edir workS with ee es AA a a o E O E CE PI 66 UsmgAutmaton in the Beat Bassline EOI eirionarata ler cia 67 The hs Now Tor composngd a TMY Misas a EESE 68 sisas om io Nace epee a a aE rana EAS ea a aaa aeania 69 T E A AA E EE 70 The timeline in BB EQU sr pde debes 70 PM VG O IU E a E EE E EE EA 70 Effect of Time Signature on BB Editor s TIM asistir 71 The Ore Menu iN il errian aan Eei T EENE 12 The Context Menu in Automation TAG cisco s 73 An 75 liste rel gate Eo AA Eo q orem EE CRC pee see entire ere E ae Sore e ee rT 76 TEES CNA ADA ans dianas 17 CHENS TUMMEN ASA E ETa e Eea Ei 79 nstr ment Sound COMMONS SOCIO A is 80 LMMS User Manual gt Contents 5 ia A A A OO UE CE AEO T 80 o e 0 O O e E E 83 e eE A anaes E ET AE 83 A O E IA 84 Ann a Pe peers E em EEA E van EENT 84 PE N A a tat coarser anceps piso bios 86 The 2 eg Lp Oa cae es 1 4 mene men
29. a kick01 299 VOL PAN A Y A e a hihat_closed05 o0gg A Ad Y O gt hihat_opened03 09g VOL PAN OL PA 3 kickO1 ogq gt DP De Pe De Pe De a WOL PAN SI Remarks The pull down menu in the BB Editor displays all BB tracks in the Song Editor Select any BB track from the pull down menu and start adding content to it in the BB Editor 51 The diagram shows two instances of Beat Bassline Editor just to show the concept LMMS cannot launch two windows of Beat Bassline Editor simultaneously These two instances were launched one after another to edit two different BB tracks In other words the BB Editor can edit only one BB track at a time 52 This is a live list If you add a new BB Track in the Song Editor it will immediately appear in the BB Editor too LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 67 Note that what appears as a single track Beat Bassline 0 in the Song Editor is actually a combination of seven tracks playing seven different percussion instruments in the BB Editor Also note that both BB tracks are totally independent of each other The Beat Bassline 7 track uses four different percussion instruments in a completely different pattern in the BB Editor In general the patterns provided by the BB Editor are repeated in the Song Editor till they occupy the full width duration of the element The entire 16 step pattern created using seven percussion ins
30. a small file but can be played only on those devices here there its codec is installed Another window pops up titled export project to lt filename gt This is the file name you specified in step 3 isi Export project to demo1 ogg Output Quality settings File format Interpolation Samplerate Oversampling use with carel Bitrate Sample exact controllers Depth Please note that not all of the parameters above apply for all file formats Control Remarks Sample rate This is a measure of number of times the analog signal signal is sampled per second The higher this number the more accurate the song to the original especially if the original song has rapid changes in volume Keeping a low rate means low quality but increasing it also makes the file large Therefore this factor should be selected by compromising between quality and file size LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 108 Bit rate Bit rate refers to the speed at which the song is processed streamed It affects both quality and size of the song file the higher the bit rate the larger the file and better the quality Uncompressed audio as stored on an audio CD has a bit rate of 1 411 kbit s so LMMS offers compression ratios in the range of 4 to 22 Depth This is the internal accuracy used while recording each sample The 16 bit integer option is much faster and results in lower loading of the computer
31. affected Paste Paste the element from the clipboard The original element is overwritten You cannot paste an element on bare track only on another element e Note that you can paste an element into another track only if it is of compatible type Mute Mute this element the other elements on that track are still active Unmute Unmute this element if muted previously Clear all notes Clear all notes on the element The element is reduced to one measure duration but is not deleted from the track Reset name Resets the label on the element now the name on it is the same as the track s name Change name Change the label that appears on the element when you see the track Each element can have its own label So if a track has multiple elements they can have different labels Freeze LMMS pre processes the content of the element and plays it directly This lessens the load on the CPU If you change the contents of a frozen track it will not take effect until you unfreeze it When a track is frozen LMMS puts a blue outline around it and places a ice flake icon on the left side of the track Unfreeze Let LMMS process the track normally Refreeze Momentarily unfreeze the track incorporate the changes and re freeze it Add steps Adds the specified number of steps to the duration Remove steps Removes the specified number of steps to the duration You cannot reduce the duration below 1
32. are more likely to be turned ON 92 There is a small difference though In the score sheet you identify the position of any note by line number measure number but in LMMS the measure number starts from the beginning of the song and continues till the end LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 105 Adding Automation Let us pretend that the sheep is standing very close to us compared to the boy Since the question Baa baa blacksheep have you any wool is asked from a great distance it should sound faint The sheep s answer should be much louder We will achieve this effect with two alternative methods a song global automation and b Automation track Applying song global automation We are automating the volume for the entire duration of the song which is best done with the song global automation method instead of using a separate automation track 1 Right click on the Vol control of the Default preset and select Edit Song global automation option 2 LMMS pops up the Automation Editor All you have to do is to edit the automation curve to keep the curve at a low level for the first two measures and then take it to the maximum level for the rest of the song like this Automation Editor Default preset gt Volume 00 W V a VER FMS A mn A 0 Quem y 1 2 3 200 _ KCO l Applying Automation Track In this variation we will add an element on an automation track and then link the instrument
33. average level around which the target control swings SPD Speed of LFO signal if you set a higher speed LMMS swings the target control faster 82 Where n is the actual number of the controller LMMS User Manual gt The Controller Rack 95 AMT Amount of swing e When the knob is set at the center the AMT is zero The target control won t swing at all e If you turn the knob to the left the AMT is negative the target control swings in the negative direction e If you turn the knob to the right the AMT is positive the target control swings in the positive direction PHS Phase delays the swing by a variable amount of time e The third section EJ offers three different multipliers for the frequency of the modulating signal Applying the LFO Controller To apply an LFO Controller to any control e g knob slider etc r as Pipa right click on that control and select the Connect to connector A HE p option E MOOT CONTROLLER A window as shown on the right pops up Do the following CHANNEL CONTROLLER 1 Click on the User Controller lamp KE This activates the y lila controller section 1 e USER CONTROLLER 2 Click the selector arrow of the pull down menu PA This will eiii gt present a list of all the controllers that are defined so far in ANN LMMS MAPPING FUNTION input Select any desired controller and Press OK You can apply the same controller t
34. better job of passing the wanted frequencies while stopping the unwanted frequencies LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 81 e If the LFO is applied to the filter frequency envelope it will introduce a trill a rapid altering of the tone e LFOs applied to the filter s cut off frequency and Q Factor envelopes will allow stop different bands of frequencies during the lifetime of a note This creates a richer sound with changing tonal characteristic as each note is played out The overall schematic is shown below FILTER Filter type a 2 Volume CUTOFF RESO A e COCOR Cutoff frequency TT HOLD DEC SUST RA D ODR DEL AMT SPD AMT FREQ x 100 MODULATE ENV AMOUN Q Factor Resolution sacos Seo DEL ATT HOLD DEC SUST REL DEL ATT HOLD DEC SUST RA D ODR D ODR DEL ATT SPD AMT DEL ATT SPD AMT C FREQ x 100 FREQ x 100 VAN MODULATE ENV AMOUN MODULATE ENV AMOUN Now let us see how these parts work in the ENV LFO tab U Default preset Here is an overview of how the Env LFO tab works m The TARGET toolbar ME Ue the three parameters hata the envelope ead LFO can be OO G tl applied VOL PAN PITCH CHN Gha 1 Instrument volume Default preset PLUGIN EN LFO FUNC FX MIDI TARGET ame 2 Filter s cutoff frequency 3 Filters Q Factor Resolution S gt IN AA A As described before LMMS has three independent DEL ATT HOLD DEC SUST REL envelope LFO sets for these pa
35. can have its own label So if a track has multiple elements they can have different labels Notice that compared to the automation track in the Song Editor the context menu is shorter here because you cannot manipulate the element So the commands for deleting and cutting the element are missing here 63 Thus before pasting an element you must create a blank new element at the target position and then paste the content of the clipboard The FX Mixer The main function of the FX Mixer Effects Mixer is to apply effects to incoming sounds and then mix them to create the final output sound of LMMS see LMMS functional diagram To launch the FX Mixer window click the EJ button in the main LMMS window The FX Mixer has 64 identical input channels and one output Master channel It also has a pane to apply any number of effects to the selected input output channel Since its window cannot show all 64 input channels at a time it divides these channels in four groups called racks and displays one rack at a time The racks are named as follows Rack Channels name A 1to 16 B 17 to 32 C 33 to 48 D 49 to 64 To see any channel you have to click on the appropriate rack button By default rack A is selected e A E for Input channels ey ae Gene e i y AN i ee are OUTOL en annel IS 10X4 AC d emects EET ES viistrs ies a EFFECTS CHAIN e By default none of the
36. changes are not saved AREE SURE i LMMS will ask you whether to save those changes CTRL R Execute the last step that was reversed with the Undo operation 109 Although all keys are shown capitalized the letter simply shows which key is to be pressed Ignore the capitalization For example CTRL C means press the CTRL and C keys together not CTRL SHFT c LMMS User Manual gt B Keyboard shortcuts 136 Instrument Plugins SHFT drag and drop Links the drop knob to the drag knob Once Applies only to standard up down i e any knob on another linked changing any linked knob will change all of non classical twist the knob mode knob the linked knobs All editors that include a time line l e the Song Editor Beat Bassline Editor Piano Roll Editor and Automation Editor AA A RP o Click on timeline oo pozon O Works during playback as well as when stopped Move loop start point to that e If you click after the loop s end point LMMS will Middle click on timeline time snaps to the nearest automatically reverse the loop s start and end points so measure mark on the ruler that the start point is to the left of the end point Move loop start point to that If you click after the loop s end point LMMS will time exactly Ignore the snap automatically reverse the loop s start and end points so to measure that the start point is to the left of the end point CTRL middle click on timeline Move loop end point to
37. control at equal distance For example the volume is allowed to have continuous values between 0 and 200 A lamp is allowed to be on or off The pan is allowed to vary continuously between 100 and 100 The Note Length pull down menu has 12 options out of which 11 are fractions These twelve values are placed at equal distance on the y axis including the last option Last note 7 When you launch an automation window it may show some graph already Let us see two examples This is the automation window for the mute lamp in the Song Editor The lamp is allowed to have only two values On and off The default curve is a flat horizontal line at y 0 PT This is the automation window for the volume knob el The default volume is a horizontal line meaning the volume is constant Now click the LMB anywhere inside the window and drag to draw the contour of the graph None of the graphs are truly smooth because the controls are allowed to have only certain discrete values Depending on how many values are allowed for the control the graph will have discrete y values Here are four examples Automation Editor 00 M m Yep y T n or Sample track gt Volume Automation Edit Bw 5 oos u YER H y l 7 utomation Editor Default preset gt Solo A A Yup A ine v 1 1 1 d Volume Pan Pull down menu with Lamp Positive variable positive and negative 7 options 2 values On off variable Several special ef
38. create a fade out effect typically at the end of the song or one part of a song The same shape can be also used to create a decrescendo diminuendo effect for a musical phrase 4 Inthe time stretch marked 5 the volume goes up and down rapidly to create tremolo effect To sum up we just saw that the automation curve can create a lot of different effects Likewise the other controls in LMMS can also be varied during the song LMMS allows you to create unlimited number of automation curves in any song Applications of Automation Curves LMMS allows you to apply automation curve in two different ways 1 Right click on any control and select Edit song global Automation option LMMS applies an automation curve to the control that lasts for the entire song and hence the term song global 2 You can launch a separate automation track in LMMS This track can hold small automation curves for one or more controls located in the same window Unlike the song global automation option each automation curve lasts for only a few measures Ot Thunder 2 WHOL Ot Automation track In the example above the Automation track has two curves which are applied to two different controls of two different tracks o The first automation curve is applied to the Thunder track s volume control see KJ As a result of this curve the thunderclap volume builds quickly and then slowly fades away The second automation curve is applied to the Guita
39. default because their A4 note is always programmed to produce the standard 440 Hz tone However this is not true for the sampled sounds Their frequency is not necessarily correct in fact in case of non instrumental sounds the actual frequency may not be even known initially So notes derived from these sources need to be calibrated The Automation Editor The Automation Editor allows you to edit the property vs time control graph When this track is played along with the other tracks LMMS varies the target control according to this curve This can be used to create various effects from fading in an instrument keep its volume at zero at the beginning and then raise it smoothly to panning a sound from one side to another to complex manipulation of the envelopes or filters of an instrument Refer to the LMMS functional diagram If any of the Automation blocks is implemented through automation curves as opposed to using a LFO controller those automation curves are created and edited by the Automation Editor You can launch the Automation Editor window in two different ways 1 Right click on any control of LMMS e g a knob fader etc and in the context menu that appears select the Edit song global automation Edit song global automation option 2 Double click on an element located on an Automation type track in the Song Editor or BB Editor The Automation Editor Window The Automation Editor window
40. e g about its pitch tempo or pan Here are the operations that are specific to sample tracks Task Details Creating a new track To launch a new Sample track click on the button in the toolbar of the Song Editor The new track does not have any musical content You have to add one or more audio file s at different places in the track When a new sample track is added it is always named Sample track You have to rename the track after the actual audio file s it plays 33 e g Lead singer Chorus thunder etc 29 This is not treated as Instrument track because in the Instrument track LMMS creates notes using the instrument s unit sound But here LMMS treats the sound of instrument like any random sound it is not aware of what is being played LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 47 Inserting a The task before us is to play an audio file between precisely chosen start and stop sample in a track moments during the song To do this we insert an element that starts at the desired point of time and lasts till the stop point Then we place the desired audio file on that element When we insert an element in the track LMMS also pops up the Open Audio file dialog box which lets you browse in your computer and locate the correct audio file Once you locate the right file click on the Open button Note that the audio waveform is displa
41. formerly Fruity Loops Logic Studio Beat Machine Pro and similar powerful audio tools For the latest list of equivalent software click here Is it free Yes LMMS is free and open source Plugins Q How do find plugins for LMMS A LMMS provides various interfaces to make it compatible with a huge number of plugins In general you can use all plugins that have VST VSTi or LADSPA interface Q What if some plugin does not work A Some of the plugins are known to have problem on certain operating system Windows or Linux So you should try changing the settings and if that does not work get help from the LMMS forum Miscellaneous Q Is the BB Editor really necessary A You may think why is this BB Editor required at all Why can t we simply compose the beats and bassline tracks just like the melody tracks Let us examine this question separately for beats tracks and bassline tracks e As we Saw earlier a given beat track actually plays several percussion instruments We must be able to see the relative placement of each sound in the beat as shown below LMMS User Manual gt G FAQ 154 Beat Bassline Editor ODO Eeat Bassline 0 Ml a We A ak VOL BAM O _ gt bassdrumOi ogg ze WOL PAN K clap i ogg x WOL PAN oo WOL PAN a kh VOL BAM E a ak VOL BAM E TIT VOL PAN y rfide 2 09u 2 crash02 09g hihat_closed0S ogg r ii hihat_opened 3 099 z i kickOd o Jg The Song Edito
42. held arcade game The arcade sound is produced by mixing the stereo sound from four sweep oscillator channels Uy Default preset It has the following controls GENERAL SETTINGS Tetsu SEL Line Control Function L Vol Volume Left channel bf A f L ENVEE FONC FW MIDI R Vol Volume Right channel discal hd Treb Treble high frequencies Bass Bass low frequencies 1b ch1 ch4 This patch panel toggles the outp uts of the individual channels MI is off and is on Vol Volume SSL Sweep step length WPD Wave pattern duty 2 SRS Sweep right shift amount STime Sweep time SwDir Sweep direction up down VSwDir Volume Sweep direction up down Vol Volume SSL Sweep step length i WPD Wave pattern duty VSwDir Volume Sweep direction up down Vol Noise channel Volume SSL Sweep step length a VSwDir Volume Sweep direction up down SRW Shift register width 4 Vol Master volume control LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 123 PatMan This plugin provides a GUS compatible patch instrument To produce instrumental sound this plugin needs the GUS sound patch files A GUS patch set consists of around 180 pat instrument files plus a default cfg index file which lists which patch goes with each MIDI program number Instead of having to use 181 separate files a unified fff or dat file can also be used Process Once the patch is set just proceed with th
43. individual track PAN distributes the total sound power between the left and right speakers It simulates the movement of the sound source between the left and right speakers The combination of all steps KEJ and the top bar REJ is called timeline The timeline is shown as a sequence of blocks called steps Each step has time duration of 1 16 note For ease of counting the steps steps are grouped in fours and colored in alternate shades of light and dark gray Double click on this bar to launch the Song Editor without toggling any of the steps on off Now the beats will be composed in the Song Editor with multiple pitches that can be chosen from all 9 octaves instead of the on off pattern of steps Creating Beats Each step EJ is in fact a mute unmute switch Click on it to toggle it on off When a step is unmuted on it looks green el When a step is muted off it looks gray A The sound from the instrument plays only during the on green steps It will be muted during the off gray steps Since the steps have very short duration only 1 16th of a note the sound comes through during the on steps as a short burst and that is why it is called a beat The actual sound of a beat depends on what instrument or sample sound is used in the pattern track To create a beat pattern turn on some of the steps LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 64 Here are three
44. markers start marker EJ end marker RIJ that are placed on the time ruler You can also force LMMS to play endlessly within this range As soon as the playhead reaches the end marker it jumps back to the start marker and continues to play This is why it is called a loop This is useful to review a particular part of the song LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 41 No Item Function The marker that shows the current playing position It consists of an inverted gray triangle and a vertical pointer line which spans across all tracks e At any given time the playhead could be moving when LMMS is in play mode or El Playhead stationary when LMMS is either pause or stop mode e In play mode the playhead moves to the right When this line touches the content of any track LMMS plays it Since the playhead line touches multiple tracks at once all their contents are played simultaneously e You can drag the playhead marker with mouse to a new position at any time even when LMMS is in play mode This marker shows the end of the loop 10 Loop end This marker can be set anywhere on the time ruler by right clicking eel e Usually it has magnetic behavior It will lock to the nearest time tick However you can slide it to any place by pressing CTRL while you drag it with the RMB EE Time tick White vertical lines that mark the boundary line between measures beats A Measure Measur
45. means the effect is held for a longer time Mute The Mute lamp turns off the modulating signal itself which in turns off the controller also Now you can hear the pure target instrument without the modulating sound OR its effect on the target sound Compare this with the yellow lamp located on the main window of the Peak Controller which turns off the controller only but not the controlling signal For more information on Peak Controller follow this link LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 133 Spectrum Analyzer spectum Analyzer 20 40 80 160 400 lk 2k 4K 10K 20K E Linear spectrum J Linear Y axis Stereo Enhancer e Stereo ae WIDE Stereophonic Matrix Stereophoni Stereo Matrix This plugin analyzes the spectral content of the signal This plugin has the following controls Control Function Linear Changes the x axis toggles between linear log spectrum Linear Y Changes the y axis toggles between linear log axis This plugin introduces spatial distance between the left and right speakers It has only one control which changes the simulated width between the speakers This plugin has four knobs Two of them are individual gain knobs for the left and right channels The other two knobs control the cross signal between the left and right channels Knob between Function lp L o p L Gain attenuation of the Left channe
46. midi files while others are videos Try both types So the first few musical pieces you create would be critical If they are fulfilling you will try more and more complex pieces in a journey of self discovery On the other hand without the fundamental knowledge you will limit yourself to imitating a few songs that you love but gradually lose interest as such experiments do not add excitement to your life wish you a long and happy use of LMMS with many creative musical pieces to your credit 102 Even the music theory and drumming techniques do not make you a musician You still need the spark of creative inspiration 103 Sources that teach a specific musical genre are harder to find such as Jazz Blues etc Also note that websites that teach drumming techniques do not usually teach basic music theory Therefore you will have to conduct separate searches for music theory and drumming techniques Appendices A Plugins Plugins are external applications that enhance the capabilities of LMMS In general plugins fall in three categories 1 Instrument Such a plugin produces the sound of an instrument real life or synthesized 2 Effect Such a plugin modifies the audio signal 3 Controller Such a plugin can vary a control e g Vol Pan in LMMS LMMS comes with the following built in plugins In addition a huge variety of plugins are available on the Internet Plugin type Remarks Instrument Se ate WS oa A
47. off steps Although our example shows a beat track and a bassline track together in actual practice they are always part of separate BB tracks In other words a given BB track will have pattern tracks of only one type Either beat or bassline but not both e If your bassline pattern becomes too long compared to the other tracks then you have a problem LMMS takes the longest track as reference and repeats the entire set only after the longest track has played through But the problem is the other tracks fall silent much before this track ends It is impossible to spot this problem from the LMMS display because it actually compresses the timeline of the longer tracks into the standard length which creates the impression that all tracks will finish playing in the same time However if you check the track contents using the context menu Open in Piano Roll option you will spot the problem 48 You may be wondering if each step has duration of 1 16 of a note why does the bassline note have to be of 1 48 of a note Well the step is divided into three parts The bassline note plays for one part and the other two parts are silent to space apart the bassline notes without them the bassline notes would merge into one another So if you divide 1 16 of a note by 3 you get 1 48 of a note 49 Well there is a subtle difference The first two methods do not disturb the existing pattern But the third method toggles the step on which you
48. on the left side of the Piano Roll Editor identify the octave numbers the screenshot above shows C4 and C5 keys If you cannot decide your pitch from those markings just click on the piano keys to play the instrument and look for a pitch that feels just right Hover the mouse over the piano and roll the mousewheel to scroll the piano up down Now you know where to place your starting note for the song In our example we have chosen the 6 octave 5 Select the pencil tool as and start clicking in the Piano Roll Editor to create new notes o This is a good time to steal a quick look at the Piano Roll Editor chapter once again to refresh your 89 The default project in LUMS has one track of each type melody beat sample and automation 90 Another equally acceptable strategy is to set the Note Duration pull down menu to Last Note and then adjust the notes only when a different length is used in the piece Once the note length is adjusted LMMS remembers it and creates subsequent notes of that length 91 You may have to lower the volume using the Master volume slider located at the top of the LMMS window LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 104 memory about how different controls work o Keep this manual open in the background as you work with LMMS In the beginning you will need to refer to the manual very often Use ALT TAB key combination to switch between LMMS and this guide 6 The fig
49. or using the menu option File gt Quit Be sure to discard the changes otherwise LMMS will save the project with your experimental changes If you want try this with other demo projects Be warned though that these demo projects are not selected to teach you specific aspects of composition Neither are they graded in terms of difficulty complexity Again a reminder Do not try to learn LMMS just by tinkering with such demo projects It would be much easier if you read this manual or the wiki and learn LMMS in a systematic manner LMMS Main Window In this chapter we will look at the LMMS interface in depth Launch LMMS and keep looking at its interface a you read through this chapter Main Menu Bar Normally the menu system of any software contains nearly all its functions But in LMMS the menu is minimalistic Project Edit Tools Help Project Menu The Project menu allows you to load save and export projects and import MIDI files Menu Keyboard shortcut Remarks New CTRL N Creates a new project Open CTRL O Gives you a dialog to choose an existing project file to open Recently opened Opens up a submenu listing all the recent project files you have Projects opened so that you can easily open a project you were recently working on Tip This does not include a project that you have just created and saved so you have to open the project at least once before it will show up in this menu Save CTRL S Saves th
50. section we will compose a new song from a score sheet and save it as a mp3 file Editing an existing song We will edit our familiar newfangled demo song To begin open the newfangled song Sidebar gt My Projects gt Demos gt newfangled mmpz We will experiment with the three main windows in LMMS Song Editor BB Editor and FX Mixer Experimenting with the Song Editor Before we edit the tracks in the Song Editor notice that the original author has not chosen to create multi measure elements in the melody and bassline tracks Instead he has used elements that are one measure long Therefore keep in mind that when we edit any element its new content must not exceed one measure length otherwise it would overlap with the subsequent element Now let us edit the song In the Bass Line track double click on Fz the first element ifs Bias Lina LMMS loads the element in the Piano Roll Editor Piano Roll Bass Line Lan ES O gt a 100 T Q T a Notice that the contents of the element 000 Wy mu OCCUPY only one measure 1 ES i Before editing the bassline element play it once by clicking on the button By default the Piano Roll Editor plays the contents in repeat mode So you will get a good idea how the bassline would sound in the actual song Ii ll Ld Now change the contents in the following steps Each step is a separate experiment After each step pla
51. smooth Useful for string instruments Sawtooth A linearly rising edge which reaches a peak value and then sharply falls to bottom This waveform is also inverted linearly falling edge and sharp rise to peak It has a very sharp synth like sound Useful for string instruments and generic synth like instruments LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 114 Waveform Symbol Details Pulse Square wave The waveform toggles between full value and minimum value The typical sound of vintage arcade games Sounds much less old fashioned when combined with other waveforms Be cautious as the square wave will sound a lot louder than the other waves Moog like Sounds similar to sawtooth but can also be used for some organ like sounds Triangle The shape is due to a historic glitch in the analogue circuitry of the original Moog synthesizer Exponential Like sawtooth shape but with sharply rising and falling edges resulting in a narrow Wave peak Noise A broad spectrum of frequencies are generated and varied randomly Useful for creating drum beats and other effects like wind User defined Double click to draw your own shape or use any sound file as a waveform Instrument Plugins Think of a real sound recording studio where several musical instruments are placed in a room As a music composer you can select any of those instruments and play t
52. steps in the display For example for the 4 4 measure the display has 4 4 16 16 steps The following table shows the default timeline display for some popular time signatures Time Duration of a measure Default Timeline display of BB Editor signature Always 1 measure long by default The measure has 4 beats 1 4 note each 4 x 1 4 1 note 16 steps The measure has 2 beats 1 4 note each 2 x 1 4 1 2 note 8 steps The measure has 2 beats 1 2 note each 2 x 1 2 1 note 16 steps The measure has 3 beats 1 3 note each 3 x 1 3 1 note 16 steps The measure has 3 beats 1 4 note each 3 x 1 4 3 4 note 12 steps The measure has 3 beats 1 2 note each 3 x 1 2 1 5 note 24 steps The measure has 6 beats 1 8 note each 6 x 1 8 3 4 note 12 steps The measure has 5 beats 1 4 note each 5x 1 4 1 25 note 20 steps Keep in mind that these are only the default timelines You can always add more steps manually when required 60 The time signature has two figures The number on top is the number of beats per measure and the bottom number shows the duration of that beat in terms of a note full half quarter 1 16 etc LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 12 The Context Menu in Pattern Track You can access several special functions by right clicking in the timeline portion KEJ and KEJ of the patte
53. that If you click before the loop s start point LMMS will Right click on timeline time snaps to the nearest automatically reverse the loop s start and end points so measure mark on the ruler that the start point is to the left of the end point Move loop end point to that If you click before the loop s start point LMMS will time exactly ignore the snap automatically reverse the loop s start and end points so O measure that the start point is to the left of the end point CTRL right click on timeline Beat Bassline Editor Right click on pattern Show context menu for editing patterns Move to next pattern does not seem to work Minus Move to previous pattern does not seem to work Space N pause playback of Make sure to select a play point in the Beat Bassline Editor p this pattern otherwise LMMS starts playback in the Song Editor Piano Roll Editor Move the piano roll sheet up down Mousewheel roll up down higher or lower pitches are shown SHFT mousewheel roll up down Move left or right in the song editor view earlier or Alternatively use horizontal later times mouse wheel CTRL mousewheel roll up down Zoom in or out horizontally only the vertical scale is not affected LMMS User Manual gt B Keyboard shortcuts 137 cl E i E O LN O O O O A iO O O O O O O a O A O O A O O E CTRL SHET Keep old selection While selecting new notes with Select tool A A CS A A A O A E A O A
54. the chorusing sound that is natural to multi stringed instruments Slap Fuzziness range 0 to 0 75 Adds white noise to the vibration of the string to create fuzzed out or slapped sound depending on how long the string rings nut The P knob controls how far from the bridge the pluck occurs A setting of O places the pluck right at the bridge A setting of 0 05 places the pluck 5 of the way down the string towards the nut 108 Again a setting of 0 places the pick up right at the bridge A setting of 0 05 places the pick up 5 of the way down the string towards the nut LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 131 ZynAddSubFX This plugin Uses the ZynAddSubF X synthesizer uy Default preset This plugin has the following controls GENERAL SETTINGS Default preset set Control Function a o G ql Show GUI Toggles the native interface of ZynAddSubFX see below VOL PAN PITCH m mlt O eee PORT Portamento A gradual slide from one note to another range 0 to 127 FREQ Filter Frequency range O to 127 RES Filter resonance range 0 to 127 A O BW Bandwidth range 0 to 127 PORT FREQ RES Bilt Nel eo RES CF Resonance center frequency range 0 to 127 FM GAIN FM gain range 0 to 127 Forward MIDI Control Changes RES BW Resonance bandwidth range 0 to 127 a RS ON changes La
55. the bottom of the window above the piano keyboard In our example the marker is at A5 This means that you must insert an Ad note in the Piano Roll Editor to preserve the natural pitch of the recorded audio If you place the note at B5 the pitch of the audio track will be raised by one tone Similarly if you place the note at G4 the pitch of the audio track will be lowered by one tone Note that the marker in the instrument window is placed arbitrarily You can change its position without affecting the actual pitch of the audio Once you shift the marker to a new position that new position becomes the new reference So for example if you place the marker at B3 then we will have to insert this track at B3 in the Piano Roll Editor to get a natural sounding playback of the track Working with sample tracks The sample track contains recorded sound such as recordings of singers and chorus instruments playing a melody line or sampled sounds such as ocean waves thunder rain car engine clops a scream etc rave_bassO2 ogg GENERAL SETTINGS rave_bass02 0gq vo PAN PITCH FX CHNL PLUGIN Ma o E omen 1 bassloopes rave_bass02 09g Sample tracks are the simplest type of track because they only have a volume control and an effects chain LMMS simply plays this track like an audio player It does not render this track using a wavetable Neither is it aware of the musical contents of the track
56. the mousewheel up down mousewheel Middle click Click on the mousewheel as if it is a button just like LMB RMB Drag with mouse Click LMB on a control and without releasing the LMB move the mouse Release the LMB when done Right drag with Click RMB on a control and without releasing the RMB move the mouse mouse Release the RMB when done Middle drag with Click MMB on a control and without releasing the MMB move the mouse mouse Release the MMB when done Draw with mouse Click with LMB hold down and draw a shape with the mouse pointer When done release LMB Song The musical piece being created edited in LMMS is loosely called song even if there is no singing in it Also called an LMMS project see below Project Any music composed in LMMS is called a project LMMS stores data pertaining to the composition in a project file You can save this project file and reload it in LMMS later LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 12 Term Meaning Plugin An independent software that adds some capability to LMMS For convenience we divide LMMS plugins into three classes e instruments Either imitate a real life musical instrument such as a piano guitar or flute or play a synthesized sound Plugins that play MIDI or audio files are also included in this class e Filters Filter the sound to impart a different character Typically filters in LMMS are dyn
57. to Delay DEL Time before the oscillator starts with reference to the key press moment Attack ATT Time taken by LFO to reach its full effect Speed SPD Measured in terms of period time taken by its one cycle in milliseconds 1 Amount AMT The amplitude of the waves superimposed on the envelope LMMS User Manual gt H Glossary 157 Ogg Peak Controller Project Q Quality factor Reverb Reverberation Sample Sample Track Song Step Thaw Track Wav Ogg is a free open standard container format maintained by the Xiph Org Foundation Similarly to MP3 it is designed to provide efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia A Peak Controller is similar to a noise gate but with greater flexibility Peak controllers are commonly placed on a percussion track and then use the output signal to control the volume of another sustained sound This results in the sustained sound being chopped up in time with the percussion and has been used by artists such as Madonna vogue and Seal crazy to create very distinctive sounds The entire package of instruments tracks patterns and settings that comprise the whole performance of the song This is what you save and load from the Project menu This is a measure of the filter s ability to distinguish between desirable and undesirable frequencies Filters with a higher Q factor can reject the reject band frequencies without aff
58. to synchronize with 73 Note that negative values of AMT are useful only for the Cutoff and Resolution envelopes Also for the volume envelope the amount does not actually affect the sound The volume envelope works only if AMT is set to 1 LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 83 SI How this works PA This section selects the filter that processes the instrument s sound The filter s cutoff frequency and Q Factor resolution are affected by the envelopes and LFOs set up in sections KEN and KT respectively To activate the filter press the filter title bar The green lamp at the left turns on ede PandPass cag 4 You can select a filter from the pull down menu To change the filter e Hover the mouse on it and roll the mousewheel or e Click on the main label the next value in the list appears e Click on the arrow and select from the list Set the cut off frequency range 1 Hz to 14 kHz and Resonance range 0 01 to 10 Note that the effect of a filter is more pronounced if the instrument s sound contains a broad range of frequencies Instruments like flute have narrow band of frequencies so the filters may not work well with them So experiment Caution Filtering the sound of an instrument adds a calculation overhead on CPU This can add a slight delay to the sound Therefore if you re not using any filter keep it turned off The Func tab uy Default preset GENE
59. to be erased Release LMB when done As discussed above the Quantisation Selector im defines the horizontal step size when either the entire note is moved or when the note is re sized i e when the right edge of a note is moved If you change the quantization value the existing notes are not affected However if you edit an existing note e g change its position or its length the current quantization settings will apply to that note a The select tool selects multiple notes In fact that s the only thing it can do After clicking on this tool click on the Notes pane and without releasing the LMB draw a rectangular area As you drag the mouse a blue rectangle appears on the pane see the left screenshot below If this rectangle covers any part of a note it will be selected The selected notes turn blue see the right screenshot below You can then move the entire selection by clicking on the Pencil tool LL and dragging any one of the selected notes You can move the selected notes along the time horizontal axis and or the pitch vertical axis e Moving the selection left moves it to an earlier position on the time axis Moving it to right moves it to a later position on the time axis e Moving the selection up increases the pitch Moving it down decreases the pitch Clipboard toolbar buttons Notes e The Pencil tool k l can drag the selection to a new location only within the bar How
60. to sound off key See the Appendix F on using LMMS with World Music 121 Imagine that the Piano Roll Editor allowed stacking of multiple instrument tracks just like how Audacity or OpenShot can edit multiple tracks at a time in perfect synchronization In other words the current version of LMMS in particular the Piano Roll Editor does not allow multi timbral composition Once it has the facility the BB Editor would not be the only possible tool for beat composition H Glossary Note that this glossary is aimed at beginners Therefore the terms are explained in deliberately informal manner rather than providing a formal definition Term Automation Controller Envelope Meaning Setting the position of a knob or other control in LMMS over time by a manually drawn envelope Automation is edited in the Automation Editor for individual controls See the article on Working with Automation for a more task oriented description Setting the position of a knob or other control in LMMS over time by a generated envelope such as an LFO This differs from automation because automation is drawn manually by the user and is often not a repeated effect such as a sine square or saw wave whereas controllers use such waves to give a regular pattern to a control When a piano key or your computer keyboard key is pressed or when you click on a note in the Piano Roll Editor the sound rises gradually peaks holds at the peak value briefly
61. works from recording a sample to playing percussion patterns with it Preparing the sample Record the sound using Audacity etc and save as an audio file Now edit the file to remove any defects Before using the audio editor you may have to convert the format of the file using Format Factory etc You can save the sample file anywhere on your PC Creating the percussion instrument from the sample First open the Beat Bassline Editor Use the pull down menu at the top of the window to select the rhythm to which you want to add the sampled sound as percussion instrument Now open the My Computer tab of the Side Bar and browse to the folder where you stored the sample Drag the sample into the Beat Bassline Editor You can also double click on a sample to load the sample directly in the Beat Bassline Editor This adds a pattern track to the selected rhythm in which the sample is placed in an AudioFileProcessor Plugin Click on the name button of this track The instrument window of this plugin opens Now make fine tuning to the sound For example adjust the settings in the Env LFO tab or mark the base note in the Piano Key section to set its pitch Playing the percussion Since the percussion notes are very short it does not suffer from pops and clicks described in the previous section E Adding Special Effects In this appendix we will see the special effects that can be applied in LMMS Effects Created With an Automation Curv
62. worry about being accurate and just take the plunge All you have to do here is to translate the score into LMMS Later you can edit the song to add more instruments chords percussion etc Here are the steps Preparing First look closely at the score sheet o The musical piece is a nursery rhyme This means we should keep it simple without ornaments o The score is 16 measures long It has 4 lines each line having 4 measures o The song uses a 4 4 time signature o The score sheet does not specify a tempo So we will have to set our own tempo o Most of the notes are quarter 1 4 notes A few are quavers 1 8th notes o None of the patterns repeat either measure to measure or line to line So this is what we have to reproduce in LMMS 88 Often the patterns repeat in a song sometimes with a slight change in some of the notes In such cases we can save a lot of effort by copying a part of the track content to another part and then editing the copy as required LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 103 Creating the Melody 1 Launch LMMS We need only the Song Editor at the moment Close all other windows using the second line of buttons on the toolbar 2 Check if the default settings need to be changed o The default time signature is already set at 4 4 so we don t have to change it o The default tempo is 140 We will leave it unchanged we can change it any time later o By default LMMS launches f
63. 1 The Project Notes Editor The Project Notes Editor window is a text editor that allows you to attach notes to the project To launch the Project Notes Editor click the Don in the main menu bar of LMMS When launched the editor window is small so it hides its editing toolbar Project notes g r r r r r r E r Ma i y F Ta A E a i ar m r r r r r r Put down your project notes here To see the full toolbar drag its right edge and expand the window s size Project notes AS Fa MS Shell Dig 2 Ms Put down your project notes here These tools allow you to choose the font size and color of the text as well as its location in the window Typical uses of Project Notes You can enter the following information in the Notes window e Your contact details address phone email Facebook ID website etc e Copyright information e Describe the scene in which the musical piece is to be played in the drama description of the characters their mood emotions etc e Set up needed while playing this piece props lighting microphones etc e If the project is a work in progress then how it needs to progress e How much you are going to charge your producer Editing and Composing Songs Now that we have understood how all windows in LMMS work let us try and edit an existing song to gain some practice In the following section we will edit the newfangled song that we saw earlier In the next
64. 6 steps Context menu for Beat track element 8 open in Beat Bassline Editor a Delete middle mousebutton Copy p Faste MYMutejunmute lt Ctrl gt middle click C Reset name Change name change color Open in Beat Bassline Editor Opens the element in the BB Editor instead of in the Piano Roll Editor Delete Delete the element same as clicking the MMB 32 Thus before pasting an element you must create a blank new element at the target position and then paste the content of the clipboard 33 If another track is set to solo mode this item is suppressed from the context menu LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 91 Cut Remove the element from track and place its contents on clipboard Copy Copy the element into clipboard the original element is not affected Paste Paste the element from the clipboard The original element is overwritten You cannot paste an element on bare track only on another element e Note that you can paste an element into another track only if it is of compatible type Mute Mute this element the other elements on that track are still active Unmute Unmute this element if muted previously Reset name Resets the label on the element now the name on it is the same as the track s name Change name Change the label that appears on the element when you see the track Each element can have its own label So if a
65. A major limitation in LMMS is that once you apply a song global automation to any control you cannot remove it The best you can do is to change the curve to set it at default value at all times 95 If you drop it elsewhere don t worry You can always drag the element to the correct position 96 Actually we should have named this track Singers it has the boy s and the sheep s parts But since this is a small exercise we did not bother 97 By making the element as long as the song we have actually simulated the song global automation method The beauty of the automation track is that it can contain multiple small automation elements and each of those elements can be applied to a different control of any track So the track is actually wasted after a single control here This application calls for the song global automation only LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 106 3 Now double click on the automation element to edit it LMMS loads it in Automation Editor Now draw a step in which the level is low for the first two measures and then high for the rest of the song This step is exactly same as step 2 of the Song global automation method see above Congratulations You have just entered your very first song Further experimentation Now that you have mastered this part experiment with various controls to expand those skills Using multiple instruments There are two voices in this song boy and sheep So we
66. A window pops up to show the available effects BassBooster Effect LADSPA Effect 4 x 4 pole allpass LADSPA Effect Amplifier Stereo LADSPA Effect Auto phaser LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect LADSPA Effect C LADSPA Effect C TG a ea ee F description ugin Ampi Tube amp AmplV Tube amp tone controls AmpV Tube amp AmpVTS Tube amp Tone stack AutoWah Cabinetl Loudspeaker cabinet emulation Cabinet Refined loudspeaker cabinet emulation Chorus Mono chorus flanger Chorusll Mono chorus flanger modulated by a fractal Resonant envelope following filter Clip Hard clipper 8x oversampled Compress Mono compressor r am 0 I r Name Amplifier Mono Maker CMT http Richa Copyright C Requires Rea ww ladspa org cmt plugin by Furse 000 2002 Richard W E Furse GNU General Public Licence Version 2 applies Time No Real Time Capable Yes In Place Broken No Channels In 1 Channels Cut 1 Use the gray bar at the top to search for any desired effect Browse the list for the effect you want When you click on any effect its description shows in the bottom half of the LMMS User Manual gt The FX Mixer 78 window When you find the desired effect press OK You can add multiple effects for the selected channel These effec
67. Commodore 64 computers It uses three voices out of which the third voice can be turned off uw Default preset This plugin has the following controls the selected option turns red GENERAL SETTINGS on Line Control Function Oo ob 1 Vol Master volume MOL PAN PITCH Fe CHHL EMV LEO FUNC FX MICI Res Resonance SID emulator Cut Cut off frequency hp bp 30 FF Y mM O Em hp bp lp Select any one filter type evol res cut hp High pass bp Band pass Ip Low pass A un A gt an w 7 as I sync ring 30FF satt dec sust rel pw crs filter test FW V VY Ta a 6581 8580 Select a chipset MOS6581 or MOS8580 satt dec sust rel pw crs filter test E h Tey 2 att Attack These parameters define the envelope of Tar E ay O ss mE the waveform watt dec susi rel TS EESE dec Decay sust Sustain rel Release pw Pulse width cts Select any waveform square triangle sawtooth and white noise sync ring filter test 3 Same as above 4 Same as above LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 126 The Triple Oscillator plugin The Triple Oscillator popularly called 3xOsc plugin is a synthesizer which generates sounds by combining the waveforms of up to three function generators uy Default preset Plug in setti ngs GENERAL SETTINGS Default preset The oscillators make up two pairs OSC1 OSC2 and OSC2 OSC3 The first panel
68. EJ As a result the segments between PAL El and EJ El are deleted shown in red To reconstruct itself the graph starts from the control point on left PA a Now it will have to reach E directly as shown in blue Again it follows the same rule First horizontal then vertical SS So in this case the graph seems to have grown substantially You also have to remember the following rules e The control points cannot be stacked in one vertical line they have to be offset horizontally e Multiple control points can be aligned in a horizontal line see EJ and EY in the example above D Working with samples In this manual a sample means a recorded audio signal of any length from a few milliseconds to a few minutes Samples can be created from any natural or man made sound someone singing or playing an instrument call of a bird or animal sound of a machine horn whistle clapping hands snapping fingers etc LMMS can use samples in three different ways As a sound track Play the complete sound track exactly as recorded same pitch and speed LMMS cannot edit such tracks Therefore edit it before adding the sample to LMMS using an audio editor such as Audacity As an instrument LMMS can create melodies by playing the sampled sound of an instrument at different pitches The resultant sound is remarkably like the sound of the original instrument As a percussion The sampled sound can be used
69. Edior looks just like a piano roll and hence the name LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 24 A look around LMMS In this section we familiarize ourselves with the LMMS interface When you launch LMMS you will see this screen first re ec Default preset Dar Sample track e F pe ec Beat Bassiine 0 pe ac fn Automation track Controller Rack Note Depending on your LMMS version and Operating System you may see a slightly different interface The different parts of the screen are marked with yellow outline They function as follows No Item Remarks Menu Bar Provides options dealing with project files accessing some plugins and accessing online help Toolbar The left side of the toolbar has two rows of buttons Left side e Buttons in the top row deal with the project files Create a new one open save and export e Buttons in the second row are used to show hide toggle the different windows in the main interface EJ Toolbar Contains master controls for the song such as tempo time signature volume pitch and Right side a master output visualization pane Sidebar The sidebar has six buttons Clicking any button opens its contents pane between KK and e Each type of pane displays a specific type of resource used to compose your song nstrument plugins My projects My samples My presets My home and My computer e Only one pane can be displayed at a time
70. L SETTINGS Default preset a e VOL PAN PLUGIN R gt PT o a E a Y y PITCH FX CHNL ENV LFO FUNC FX MIDI AT The interface has the following controls Control How it works Click this button to open a Open audio file dialog Browse through your computer and select the sample file e You can also change the current sample by dragging a sample from the Samples section of the Sidebar AMP The amplitude for playback of the wave file in terms of percentage of the original Range 0 to 500 Any value below 100 means attenuation and any value above 100 means amplification START Start point in the sample waveform LMMS plays the sample only between Start and End points Check the AFP END wavegraph display pane and then adjust End point in the these points sample waveform Play in reverse e When the button is green the sample is played in reverse e When the button is gray the sample is played normally Play in repeat mode e When the button is green the sample is played in repeat mode till the note is held down In other words the sound continues as long as the note is held down e When the button is gray the sample is played just once even when the note is held down In other words the sound stops once a single playback of the sample is finished LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 117 Bitinvader The BitInvader plugi
71. MS first draws a horizontal line from each point and then a vertical line to reach the next control point on the right This construction method has significant effect on how the graph behaves when edited Now let us see in detail exactly how the graph reacts when a control point is deleted Q Q o We will take another graph with four control points to illustrate its behavior drawn here in full color for illustrative purposes Notice again its construction rule Start from a control point on the left go horizontal first till you get the x coordinate of the next control point Then go vertically up down till you reach the next control point on the right Now we will delete some points and see how the graph heals itself using this same rule First let us delete a control point that is on an ascending part of the graph O Here we delete PJ As a result the segments between KK PA and PA El are deleted shown in red To reconstruct itself the graph starts from the control point on left J Now it will have to reach EJ directly as shown in blue Again it follows the same rule First horizontal then vertical So in this case the graph appears to be trimmed it lost a peak but not quite in the way we expected Next we will delete a control point that is on a descending part of the graph LMMS User Manual gt C Editing the Automation Curve 142 Q Q We will take the original graph again and delete
72. O CN O O A O Set quantization as follows Key Quantization Remarks 1 1 Group 1 1 2 1 4 1 8 Observe that there are four distinct groups of keys Num Pad 1 16 1 32 1 3 1 6 1 12 Last Note O ODin oO 01 Bb WwW N a O Song Editor LMMS User Manual gt B Keyboard shortcuts 138 Right click on element a MERE Oreo ment Inconsistent with Piano Roll Editor Middle click on element Delete element Inconsistent with Piano Roll Editor CTRL must be re pressed each time you want to Copy Can drag to new track vertically as well as new time horizontally CTRL pressed before Copy element dragging the element Dropping onto an existing element replaces that element lf CTRL is pressed before drag starts see above entry CTRL pressed after Defeat the snap to measure dragging the element locking during the move If you want to re align the element to guaranteed bar start just move it again without holding down CTRL l 4 Mouse wheel up or down move ae SOW egong editor view SHFT mousewheel roll Move left or right in the song up down editor view earlier or later times CTRL mousewheel roll Zoom in or out horizontally up down SHFT Insert Insert bar immediately after current play point SHFT Delete Delete bar immediately after current play point Left and Right arrows Move play point earlier or later Does not move c
73. OK button Most of the LMMS controls resemble old synthesizer hardware So if you have worked on them this will look familiar LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 16 Control What is it How to use it called Counter Shows a number that represents a count or a channel number etc 4 It can be controlled in two ways 1 Hover the mouse over it and roll the mousewheel 2 Click inside it and drag up down Display pane Click on the pane to toggle the control curve displayed in it e When the control graph is active it is displayed in bright green e When it is turned off it is displayed in gray In some panels you can draw with mouse to create a waveform Buttons LMMS interface has many areas with varying shades of gray or even black that look like non functional parts but which are actually buttons e Click to toggle the button on off e Some buttons will pop up a separate window with more controls Many buttons carry default generic names which you have to rename after the instrument used etc Double click on the button to rename it Window bar LMMS uses many windows Each window has an icon on the top left corner Icons that identifies its main function Four samples are shown here This icon also offers some controls for the window minimize restore etc Amongst them the Stay on top option is important Sometimes you have to keep multiple wndows open s
74. ONTROLLER Controller 1 MAPPING FUNCTION input lt Peak Controller MAMAR BASE AMT ATTACIDECAY f Mute Note that the experiment described controlled only one melody instrument In other words we did not actually exploit the FX Mixer at all We could have achieved the same effect with the direct connection method The real power of the FX Mixer lies when you connect several instruments to channel 1 So go ahead and add a few more melody instrument tracks and then connect them all to the Channel 1 of the FX Mixer The fader of Channel 1 will control all the instruments simultaneously F LMMS and World Music LMMS is suited for Western music because it uses the same 12 tone equal temperament scale But it may not be able to produce music of certain types For example within the Western music LMMS cannot create Jazz and Blues music because they use blues notes which cannot be produced by the Piano Roll Editor Non Western music You may face difficulties in using LMMS to create music in other musical traditions around the World because they use a different scale In particular the melodies produced by LMMS will not sound in tune with the other instruments used in non Western musical tradition For example In India the Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions use the same 12 tones but with harmonic just intonation which makes the sound sweeter In Just intonation each tone is shifted by a differen
75. RAL SETTINGS Default preset a 5 WL pam pircH Fe CHL Pea _ Overview PLUSIN EMV LFS Fx MIDI reci Normally when you click on a piano key or play a note from your computer e m keyboard LMMS plays that single note using the selected instrument RANGE But you can force LMMS to play chords or arpeggio based on the note AA LMMS offers a large number of chords arpeggios You can not only select the m amp chords arpeggios here but also set their properties afte Da The tab has two sections one for chords and the other for arpeggios You can Up m amp turn any section or both sections on by clicking on their title bar The lamp at the AN left turns on By default both sections are turned off lode r Note that some of these chords arpeggios span more than one octave so they KEN will overlap e 5 a Now let us see the sections in detail Chords This section has two controls 1 A pull down list of chords that can be played and 2 The range in octaves over which the chord will be played When a piano key is pressed or when you play a note on the computer s keyboard that note will be treated as the root note base for the chord All the notes of the chord will play simultaneously until the key is released 74 The difference is notes of a chord play simultaneously where as notes of an arpeggio play one after another LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 84 Arpeggios This sect
76. ST plugins are files with dll or exe extensions but some plugins may have other supporting files also Do not forget to copy them also e Create a subfolder in your VST folder name it after the plugin and then copy the plugin contents into that subfolder This keeps your folders neat and also ensures that your plugin works properly VST plugins are available for all three categories instruments effects and filters The LMMS website contains a community generated list of fully tested VST plugins Uy Synthl V5Ti This plugin has the following controls GENERAL SETTINGS Syunthi VSTi Control Function e H oi Click this button to open the Open VST plugin dialog Browse pa ee By through your computer and select the patch file EMWILES FUNC FX MIDI Show Hide Toggles the original screen of the plugin Adjust the parameters GUI of that plugin directly using its own interface Plugin select Turn off all notes UL 105 When a VST plugin is used as an instrument it is called VSTi LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 129 Vibed Vibed models a set of up to nine vibrating strings e Each string can be set to vibrate independently waveform octave etc e The physical property of each string also can be adjusted o The position where it is picked plucked o The position of the pickup the transducer that picks up the vibrations in the string as in an electric guitar o
77. The 32 bit float option loads the computer but treats each value with much higher accuracy resulting in higher quality Interpolation When a high resolution audio is reduced to low resolution it introduces distortion To reduce this distortion spatial anti aliasing techniques are used Choose between the zero order hold option or three sinc filter options Oversampling Oversampling helps avoid aliasing improves resolution and reduces noise However it multiplies the file size by the same factor Sample exact controllers Alias free These oscillators produce a smooth waveform that does not have discontinuities oscillators which helps in reducing the distortion Note that if you save the song as a wav file the settings on the left side of the window will be ignored 5 When you click OK the song will be rendered from where the playback marker was last set To get the entire song exported ensure that the playback marker is at the start of the song before exporting it 101 Asinc filter is essentially a near perfect low pass filter Since it also consumes high CPU power three different options are provided as a compromise between quality and CPU power Summary So this brings us to the end of the manual We started with familiarization with the controls Then we saw the overall functional diagram of LMMS and overview of the LMMS window After that we saw how a demo song is played in LMMS The sub
78. This manual is meant for beginners who have no experience of LMMS and no formal training in music the manual explains the basics The best way to read this manual is to read it from start to finish LMMS has multiple windows with different controls than what you see in other software and it would save you from much trouble if you understand these concepts in the sequence presented In fact be sure to read the next Introduction chapter The manual provides links to additional reference material available on Internet Hyperlinks in this manual are denoted with brown text NOT as underlined blue text Disclaimer The manual is presented as a free guide on as is basis The manual is supposed to be a guide for the user not an authentic reference book Due care is taken to ensure that the manual is accurate and matches the current version of LMMS However it possible that you are using an outdated version of this manual or LMMS in which case there would be some mismatches If so please send me an email and will correct the anomaly in the next version of the manual The author is not responsible for any loss or damages arising out of use misuse or abuse of the information presented here or errors in the manual Please use it at your own risk Version Number This manual will be updated from time to time to keep up with the changes in LMMS or to add more help material about LMMS and plugins The version number of
79. When you add any track in the Song Editor it is always placed at the bottom of the stack The automation curve too follows this rule However it is a good practice to place an automation track just below the track it automates 30 LMMS sets the y axis of the automation curve automatically based on the selected control LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 49 e When a new Automation track is added it is always given a dummy name Automation track You have to rename the track typically based on which control of which track is being automated Piano Pan Thunder Volume etc Creating an Here is the step by step process automation curve 1 Press CTRL and then drag the target control i e the control that you want to vary for a control using this automation curve Drag it to the automation track At this moment the mouse pointer looks like this a large image of the dragged control with a overlay e Once you start moving the mouse you can release CTRL Find the measure block where you want to start the automation and release LMB LMMS creates an element in the automation track 2 Now draw the curve in the Automation Editor window The la Editor reflects the latest shape of the automation curve in real time Repeat steps 1 2 to automate the other controls as well Each time the Automation Editor immediately switches to the new element When you have finished y
80. a sound This is only a reference The song is composed with smaller fractions of this unit the whole note is rarely used Most commonly the 1 2 1 4 1 8 and 1 16 of a note are used for composing music 2 Apitched sound itself For example when we strike a piano key a note is sounded If we sustain the note for longer time we say we are holding the note GUI Graphic User Interface The windows that you see and use in any software application LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 14 Term Meaning Measure In musical notation a measure is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a Bar given duration each measure is specified at the beginning of the score by the numerator in the time signature see below Typically a piece consists of several measures of the same length The number of beats in Time signature The time signature also known as meter signature is a notational convention used in value constitutes one beat Usually the signature is expressed like a fraction with or without a line between the the denominator bottom number shows the note value of each beat Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note numbers where the numerator top number shows the number of beats in a measure and of a beat is taken from the time signature see above As an example let us take a musical piece with 3 4 time s
81. amically changed during each note e Effects Add special effects to the sound Synthesizer Synth A software that produces a sound that can be used in creating music Some synths can imitate real life melody instrument piano organ flute violin or a percussion instrument drum hi hat symbals xylophone marimba or a bassline instrument Some synths produce a sound that does not resemble any real life musical instrument Some synths are specifically designed to imitate sounds from a popular arcade game Preset The instrument in LMMS is actually a synthesizer that is capable of producing a wide range of sounds depending upon the settings of its controls While this range is good for creativity you would find it extremely difficult to re create the exact sound that you liked in the last session That s why LMMS allows you to save the instrument s settings as a preset LMMS also provides you several ready made presets to get going You can also tweak a preset to suit your own taste and save it under a different file name You can copy this file in different computers to reproduce the same sound Wavetable Wavetables are files that have the digitized sound of actual musical instruments Wavetables are used to create music in a three step process 1 Record the actual sound of a musical instrument e g piano guitar flute etc 2 Digitize the sound sample and 3 Play the sample to produce almost origi
82. ano key here C3 Move the pointer up down to the note you want Move it horizontally to place it correctly on the time axis Once you find the correct time note coordinates click to create the note at that spot A green bar appears representing the note The length of this new note is determined by the value selected in the Note Length control Pa Last note 4 l By default this control is set to copy the length of the last note created or edited but you can also set it to any preset value a whole note half note quarter note eighth note etc Play a note With the pencil tool selected click on a note bar LMMS will play that note Move a note With the pencil tool selected drag any part of the note except the right edge end point The pointer changes to four arrows The note turns blue because it is selected e You can drag a note vertically to change its pitch or horizontally to change its start time or both e As you drag the note horizontally it moves in incremental steps The size of this step is decided by the quantization control Re size a note With the pencil tool selected hover the mouse over the right edge of the note bar The start point i e the left edge of the bar remains unmoved The pointer turns into a horizontal double arrow Now click and drag the mouse horizontally to move the right edge When you get the desired length relea
83. at types of beats you would be using for the song e To use 1 16 note with unpitched instruments use the BB Editor e To use varying lengths of beats and or using pitched instruments use the Piano Roll Editor 2 Decide which instruments to use for your beat bassline pattern For example to create a typical pattern using a drumkit you will load at least six tracks in the Beat Bassline Editor one track each for bass drum floor tom snare drum tom toms hi hat cymbals ride cymbal and crash cymbal Practically all sound sources in the Sidebar can be used including instruments and presets 3 To bring the resources to the Beat Bassline Editor either drag them to the Editor or double click on the resource icon in the Sidebar When you add a new resource to the Beat Bassline Editor a new track is created 4 Nowcompose the pattern Note that the BB pattern always constructed out of all tracks at once 57 There is only a single element in the track which occupies the entire timeline so there is no other choice anyway as in case of Song Editor 58 Each drummer has his own preference for the percussion instruments in his drum kit Therefore the number of tracks may vary LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 69 5 Once the entire pattern is ready apply automation effects as required to those sources Philosophies of pattern design When your song uses multiple similar patterns you may face a dilemma Should y
84. beat bassline track plays a composite sound composed of multiple beat and or bassline instruments For example a beat bassline track can contain the sound of six percussion instruments of a drum kit Another beat bassline track can have a combined sound of 2 3 bassline instruments Further these beats bassline tracks may have automation applied to their controls Here are the operations that are specific to the Beat Bassline tracks Task Details Creating a new track To launch a new Sample track click on the button in the toolbar of the Song Editor or the Beat Bassline Editor e The new track does not have any musical content You have to compose the rhythm in the Beat Bassline Editor e A Beat Bassline track can play only one rhythm If your song uses three different rhythms you will have to insert three Beat Bassline tracks in the Song Editor and compose three separate rhythms in the Beat Bassline Editor individually e When a new Beat Bassline track is added it is always named Beat Bassline track x where x is a running number starting with 0 You have to rename the track typically based on the placement of the rhythm e g Main crossover repeat slow etc Inserting rhythms in The rhythm is actually composed in the Beat Bassline Editor which we will see later a song For now we will assume that all the rhythms are already created and focus on what to do in the Song Editor
85. button Click on the Panel area of Channel 17 to select it the name FX 17 turns green Click on the Add effects button The Add effects window pops up Select any effect In this example we have chosen TAP tremolo LADSPA Effect 4 x 4 pole allpass LADSPA Effect Amplifier Mono LADSPA Effect Amplifier Stereo Press OK to add the effect aa LADSPA Effect C AmplV Tube amp tone controls z LADSPA Effect C AmpV Tube am Ti p If you know the name of the desired effect you LADSPA Effect C AMpVTS Tube pe Tone stack a LADSPA Effect C AutoWah Resonant envelope following filter Can directly type it In the Input box at the top of LADSPA Effect C Cabinetl Loudspeaker cabinet emulation i i LADSPA Effect C Cabinetll Refined loudspeaker cabinet emulation this window The list below is shortened to LADSPA Effect C Chorus Mono chorus flange E LADSPA Effect C Chorusll Mono chorus flanger modulated by a fractal provide on ly the match Ng names LADSPA Effect C Clip Hard clipper 8x oversampled LADSPA Effect C Compress Mono compressor Plugin description 87 Recall that the individual instrument window has a FX tab fourth tab in the middle panel which can apply these same special effects to that instrument However if you want to apply the same common effect to a group of instruments you must use the FX Mixer LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing
86. ce 111 LMMS User Manual gt D Working with samples 144 2 Open the Instrument plugins section of the Side Bar and drag the AudioFileProcessor Plugin onto the Song Editor This will create a new track Click on this track s name button to open its instrument window Now click on the 1 button LMMS opens an Open audio file window Browse your folder system and select the correct sample file Now switch to the Env LFO tab to adjust the envelope settings such as hold and decay If needed mark the base note in the Piano Key section to get its pitch right Playing the instrument If the sample is very short LMMS will repeat the sample to create long notes However sometimes this presents a problem The playback sound has a spurious clicking This happens because when LMMS joins multiple sample pieces together to form longer notes the sound level and phase must be same at the joints If not a click or pop is heard at each joint To avoid this problem inspect the waveform of your source sound in an Audio editor e g Audacity and select a slice that has the same volume levels and phases at the start and end You can adjust the attenuation envelope to equalize the levels at both ends of the slice You can also adjust the pre delay attack and hold parameters in the ENV LFO tab You can now create notes with this sample in the Piano Roll Editor Sample Used as a Percussion Instrument Let us see how the complete cycle
87. ch sounds like Donald Duck and the pauses between words almost vanish On the other hand if the pitch is lowered too much it becomes a growl and the pauses between the words become very long Therefore unless you intend to produce a comic or horror sound effect limit the pitch shift to a couple of semitones only So suppose we do NOT want to change the pitch Then where do we insert the note so that it will sound natural 27 For each element you have to use the context menu twice first to copy the element on the clipboard and then to paste it from the clipboard on the target track 28 And therefore a change of pitch changes the overall playback time of the track for example if the track is played faster it gets finished sooner thus reducing the play time This means that the single note that you insert to represent the entire audio track will have to be adjusted in length LMMS does not have a direct method You have to play the track to find where it ends and adjust the note s length Note that even if you leave the note too long it does not cause any harm the remaining part of the note will play silence However if your note is too short the track will not play back fully some of the end portion will be cut off LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 46 Well there is a trick to find this Click on the track button of the AudioFileProcessor plugin to open its EZ Instrument window and look for a green marker at
88. click on the name of the project F You cannot insert a project in another project In other words nesting of projects is not allowed Caution Wait for the project to load completely If you try to do anything in LMMS it may crash El LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 34 The My Samples Tab My samples A sample is a recorded audio file of any length You can create your own sample from any natural man made sound Samples are either wave or ogg files The My Samples tab gives you easy access to the samples collection in LMMS drums You can do the following drumsynth MM _ Factory files 1 If you left click on a sample and hold the button the sample will be highlighted and LMMS will play the sample F My samples 2 To load the sample into Song Editor drag n drop it with your mouse into the Song Editor window ES electro Boom ds 3 H_closed ds H_open ds 4 Hi q ds To load it in the Beat Bassline Editor double click on the sample When you drop a sample in either editor it will be added at the bottom of the stack You can easily change this by dragging the sample to the desired position 5 If you drag n drop a sample on top of an existing sample in either of the editors it will replace that sample as a resource The original sample file is not affected 6 When you drag a sample observe the mouse cursor If the sample cannot be dropped into any container a
89. continues from the position where it had paused Zoom Change horizontal zoom factor Quantisation Change the quantization explained on next page Note length Controls the length of the note that would be created with the pencil tool ol Parts that are not on the toolbar work as follows No Item Function Piano keys Clicking on a piano key plays the note with the selected instrument sample This is useful to check out the sound It also serves as visual reference and helps you enter the correct notes in the Notes pane El Although the keyboard is 9 octave long LMMS shows Piano keys for two octaves Scroll up down to see the other keys The C key of each octave is marked CO to C8 for reference Notes pane This is the heart of the Piano Roll Editor All notes are composed in this pane This pane is permanently synchronized with the Piano keys pane EJ in vertical direction if you scroll either the Piano keys pane or the Notes pane up down the other pane also scrolls by equal amount This pane is also permanently synchronized with the Note volume pan pane KI in horizontal direction if you scroll either the Note volume pan pane or the Notes pane left right the other pane also scrolls by equal amount Note volume pan You can adjust the volume and pan properties of each individual note in this pane The rectangle ETE is ac
90. controls how each of these pairs interact with each other The CO EL following operational modes are available OL PAM PITCH Detail Phase Modulation The phase of the main oscillator is modulated by the second oscillator Amplitude Modulation The amplitude of the first oscillator is modulated by the second oscillator The waveforms are added together default Synchronized The waveform of the first oscillator is restarted with the frequency of the second one The waveform of the second one does not matter in this mode EMWLFO FONC FX MIDI Mode Triple PM AM Mix Sync FM Frequency Modulation The frequency of the first oscillator is modulated by the second oscillator TF The next three panels are identical Each panel controls one oscillator Waveform E click on any waveform The selected waveform turns blue Vol Volume Adjusts the amplitude of the waveform Set volume to O to turn off the oscillator Pan Panning Affects the stereo panning of the oscillator Crs Coarse adjustment of pitch frequency of the oscillator range 24 to 24 semitones FL Fine tuning of the pitch frequency for the left stereo channel range 100 to 100 cents 12 semitones FR Fine tuning of the pitch frequency for the right stereo channel range 100 to 100 cents 12 semitones PO Phase Offset Phase offset of the output waveform re
91. d 0 Although the channel numbers look like numerical control they cannot be edited or automated PA Label The label serves twofold purposes 1 It identifies the channel and 2 It also acts as a button to select it so that effects can be applied to that channel Double click on the label to rename the channel name it after the instrument connected to this channel To select any channel click on its label The label text turns green e Each time you start LMMS or load a saved new project the output channel is selected by default e At any given time one and only one channel is selected So when you select any channel the previously selected channel automatically gets unselected e When you select any channel for the first time the Effects Chain pane is empty When you add effects in the Effects Chain pane they are applied only to the selected channel If you select a channel which already has some effects applied to it they will be displayed in the Effects Chain pane Mute lamp Clicking on this lamp mutes un mutes the channel i e the instrument connected to it When the audio is muted the lamp is off e When the output channel is muted the entire output of LMMS is muted 66 If you see that none of the channels are selected it means the currently selected channel belongs to another rack Switch to the other racks A B C and D to find the currently selected channel LMMS User Manua
92. d projects list The Save current Project button saves the current project If you have not yet saved the project you will be prompted for a name and location to save it The Export Project button is a shortcut to exports of the current project as a WAV or OGG file You will get the same options for quality as in the Project gt Export menu option Window Controls The seven buttons in the second row show or hide toggle various windows When a button is clicked the action depends on the current state of the corresponding window e If the selected window is not at the front of the windows displayed inside the LMMS window it is brought to the front e If the selected window is already at the front it is closed e If the selected window is closed it is opened and brought to the front Note that when any window is closed its contents do not disappear All windows have a Stay in front feature This is especially useful for the FX Mixer window and it will also allow you to do real time editing of the music even as you play it To select this option just right click in the left top corner and from the menu that appears select Stay on top option Now this specific window will stay on top of all other windows To make the window normal repeat the process and deselect the Stay on top menu option The Toggle buttons are Button Remarks Cy The Song Editor button toggles the Song Editor Window
93. d section is for distortion in the sound Distortion roughness is deliberately added to the sound to create a distinct timbre in the output e Slide e Accent Dead e DIST The amount of distortion 104 Asteep slope allows a filter discriminate between two closely spaced frequencies it can accept one signal while rejecting the other If the slope is gentle the filter accepts a large the undesirable frequency as well LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 120 Mallets Mallets is a sample based synthesizer that emulates certain pitched percussion instruments In real life all these instruments consist of a set of vibrating parts such as tubes or bells The tubes and bells are designed to produce sounds in different pitches The sound is produced by hitting these tubes bells with a mallet or a stick or something equivalent The instruments in this plugin are divided in three classes Each class has a separate set of controls Class Instruments Percussion Marimba Vibraphone Agogo Wood1 Reso Wood2 Beats Two Fixed Clumps instruments Bells Tubular bells Bars Uniform Bar Tuned Bar Glass Tibetan Bowl Process Select the instrument from the pull down menu in the middle LMMS automatically changes the other controls to suit the chosen instrument Now adjust its sound by varying the controls uy Default preset Class Controls GEMERAL SETTINGS Default preset Percuss
94. d string range 0 to 200 EE e String stiffness range 0 to 0 05 A stiffer spring dampens the vibration which die sooner Lower stiffness produces brighter sounds that ring for longer P Pick position The position at which the string is plucked picked 106 If we compare this instrument to a guitar a six string guitar would be modeled as a one string instrument when a single note is plucked only one string makes a sound A twelve string guitar or a mandolin would be modeled as a two string instrument when a single note is plucked two strings ring out But here we have nine strings vibrating independently 107 In the guitar analogy the end of the string that connects to the body is referred to as the bridge and the end that connects to the tuning pegs is referred to as the LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 130 to set up the vibration range O to 0 05 PU Pickup position The position at which a transducer is placed to pick up the vibration sound range O to 0 05 Length Length multiplication factor for the string range 1 to 16 Longer strings have richer harmonic structures and sustain longer Pan Balance of power distribution between the left and right speakers in a stereo field range 1 to 1 Detune Detune range 0 1 to 0 1 It changes the resonation frequency of the string by shortening or lengthening the string by up to 10 It is useful for creating
95. dded deliberately to add timbre to the sound GAIN Additional gain added to the output makes it louder LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 119 LB302 The LB302 is a VCO Voltage Controlled Oscillator which specializes in varying its frequency according to a specified frequency vs time curve Note that we are not talking about the shape of the output waveform but how its frequency changes with time The LB 302 is an incomplete monophonic imitation of the Rolland Bass line TB 303 A Dajuuli presa Control How it works GENERAL SETTINGS Bisel Ie as VCO This is the Voltage Controlled Oscillator section a a a H Select the shape of the frequency sweep curve in the output by wf Oe AA e Y clicking on any button in the a strip The options are e Sawtooth e Triangle e Square e Square with rounded end e Moog like wave e Sine wave e Exponential wave e White noise The selected button turns green VCF This is the Voltage Controlled Filter section which changes its characteristics based on the control voltage we apply e 24dB oct Applies a steep slope of 24 dB Octave e CUT Cut off frequency for the filter e RES Resonance factor for the filter e ENV MOD Envelope modulation The filter envelope is modulated with a signal so that the filter will pass different frequencies at different points of time thus enriching the sound e DEC Decay The third unname
96. ddle the isolation between windows especially confusing to newbies Besides we must visit the Song Editor to rename the track anyway 55 Since only a single element is allowed per automation track you have to use a separate automation track for each control In other words the automation track cannot hold multiple elements to automate several controls from one or more tracks this is possible only in the Song Editor Thus the automation track in the BB Editor is equivalent to the global song automation curve for that control 56 LMMS sets the y axis of the automation curve automatically based on the selected control The reason is each control has a different set of possible values For example a volume control has the range of 0 to 200 with a default value of 100 whereas the PAN control has the range 100 to 100 with the default value of 0 Thus we cannot create an automation curve before selecting the target control LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 68 Task Details Using an Here is the step by step process automation track for conil 1 Press CTRL and then drag the target control i e the control that you want to vary using this automation curve Drag it to the automation track At this moment the mouse pointer looks like this a large image of the dragged control with overlay e Once you start moving the mouse you can release CTRL Release LMB anywhere over the automation track
97. double click 50 Note that this figure is only for illustration LMMS does not allow you to open two instances of the Piano Roll Editor side by side like this unfortunately So despite making this effort you may still miss noticing that the tracks are not of same length Anyhow the problem is easily caught when you play the BB Editor LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 66 No contents here peo do OOF Re ec Bassline 2 2 nt Joma e P N VOL PAN To avoid such problems you must add steps to the other beat patterns to make all timelines of equal length You must also extend the original pattern of each track in this additional length How the BB Editor works with the Song Editor The following diagram shows how the Beat Bassline Editor works with the Song Editor In this example the Song Editor has two Beat Bassline BB tracks numbered 0 and 1 Both contain only beats not basslines We will see how the BB Editor is used to create and edit the content of these two tracks Song Editor OOOO cth K 100 h px eo Default preset 2 2 PRA i VOL PAN px eC Sample track 2 VOL Ba ec a A OC Beat Bassline 1 PO pX ec ha Automation track Beat Bassline Editor Beat Bassline 1 gt Ps a 2 2 j s ride02 ride02 099 VOL PAN o ESS VOL PAN fo a bassdrum01 2 2 bassdrum01 0qq assdrum0i ogg VOL PAN VOL PAN J a dap i clap01 ogg 2 2 s stati VOL PAN crash02 099 2 2 A
98. e The following table shows the effects that can be created with Automation curves Effect What to do Graph Fade in At the beginning of the track start with a low master volume and then increase it smoothly Fade out Atthe end of the track decrease the master volume gradually to zero N Add Near the end of a phrase gradually decrease the master tempo expression rallentando and then immediately after the phrase is over resume the normal pace Fly past To show that a source of sound e g a plane is moving fast from right to left switch the pan of the channel from one direction to the opposite direction The middle of the graph represents the center Sudden To produce a startling burst of sound say a scream increase the volume outbirst sharply Acid trance In an instrument track create a short melody pattern Now copy it and paste it in the same track multiple times Now the track contains multiple copies of the pattern To render this track in Acid Trance style select the ENV FLO tab of its instrument and apply automation tracks to various controls in it Keep changing the shape of the automation graph in each iteration of the pattern Vibrato Vibrato is a periodic variation in the pitch frequency of a musical note en LMMS User Manual gt E Adding Special Effects 146 Effect What to do Graph Tremolo Tremolo usually refers to periodic variations in the volu
99. e On the other hand if this measure is known in Hz you can t make good sense out of it l What s new The changes in the latest version of LMMS and manual are listed here The changes are marked as follows New Modified LMMS New New feature in LMMS Modified Modified enhanced feature in LMMS Manual Added New info added in the manual Corrected Earlier version of manual is corrected SI Change Page J References
100. e current project if it has already been saved If not it functions as if you had chosen Save as Save As CTRL SHFT S Gives you a dialog to choose a new location and name to save your project in Import Allows you to import MIDI and other files as new instrument lines Export CTRL E Allows you to export your song as wav or ogg file See details here Quit CTRL Q Exits LMMS e If you have not saved the latest changes LMMS asks you if you want to save your project LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 30 Edit Menu Menu Keyboard shortcut Remarks Undo CTRL Z Step backward through a history of edits to your project reversing mistaken actions Known bug The Undo feature works incorrectly for some forms of editing In the Piano Roll Editor the bulk move copy and paste facilities using the selection tool and or clipboard do not get undone or redone correctly This bug will be resolved in a future version Redo CTRL R Step forward through a history of edits to your project re applying the steps that you just reversed Settings Opens the Settings dialog Tools Menu Menu Remarks LADSPA Plugin Displays information about available LADSPA Plugins Browser Help Menu Menu Remarks Online help Opens the wiki s Main Page What s This Changes your cursor into a help cursor When you click on any part of a LMMS window you will then see t
101. e green one red for each track Both look black when turned off e The green lamp shows the track is active i e its sound is reaching the final output By default this lamp is ON in each track i e all tracks are active by default However you can turn off mute any track by clicking on its green lamp e The red lamp allows a track to play solo by muting all other tracks By default this lamp is OFF in all tracks i e no track is set to play solo e Obviously more than one tracks cannot play solo Thus only one red lamp can remain ON at any given time So when the red lamp of any track is clicked ON the green lamps in all other tracks turn off automatically this indicates that those tracks are muted by the track playing solo When the red lamp is turned OFF the green lamps of the other tracks revert to their previous state Track button e The icon identifies the track type instrument sample sound beat or automation In case of instrument tracks it also shows the logo of the instrument plugin e Click on the button to launch another window that lets you edit the settings only in case of instrument or sample sound tracks e The name identifies the source Double click on the button to rename the track Tip Always give a suggestive name to each track so that you can recognize it quickly LED The green LED glows when the playhead crosses the start point of a note 1 This is very use
102. e music composition Uy Default preset This plugin has the following controls GEMERAL SETTINGS Control Function Default preset Click this button to open a Open audio file dialog a YOL PAM PITCH Fe CAML ENVIES FUNC FE MIDI Browse through your computer and select the patch file Toggles the Loop mode on off rate gg p errr Vall Toggles the tune mode on off what is this Select File No File selected dl LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 124 SF2 Player This plugin lets you use instruments using the Soundfont wavetables sf2 files To produce instrumental sound this plugin needs the sf2 wavetable files Uy Default preset This plugin has the following controls GENERAL SETTINGS An Group Control Function al mi 1 Gain Volume of the instrument VOL PAN PITCH F CHML EMW LEO FUNC Fx e 2 Bank Select the bank set of patches wo AL ee 2 Player Patch E Click this button to open the Open audio file dialog Browse through your computer and select the patch file ds Samples iS Fana Mbam Steren GrandPiano w Select a patch sound in the selected bank 3 REVERB SIZE DAMP WIDTH t LEVEL 4 CHORUS NUM LEVEL SPD DEPTH LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 125 SID This plugin emulates the two chipsets MOS6581 and MOS8580 used in
103. e numbers are marked on the time ruler at regular intervals number The measure number starts with 1 at the beginning of the song This part of the track shows contents visually but not as a graph against time plotted on x Timeline axis The time axis is displayed in terms of measures shown as gray boxes The measures are grouped in fours and shaded in light dark gray This facilitates counting When a track is launched it is blank it has no contents So the first thing we do is to place content on the track However LMMS does not allow us to write contents directly on any track The content has to be placed on a placeholder called element The elements can be resized widened moved anywhere within the track cloned along with the contents and deleted along with the contents You can edit the content of any me i element any time emen All the four types of tracks instrument beat bassline sample automation use nearly identical elements Only their appearance is different not the behavior A track does not contribute to the song during the periods when there is no element on its timeline The contents of an element may extend beyond the boundary of the element However LMMS ignores such content If you expand the element to expose the hidden part of the content it becomes active again Working with an element The following table shows how to work with an element This section explains what is common amongst eleme
104. eOscillator as the instrument and you want to use piano sound using the SF2 Player plugin But LMMS does not have this facility However you can switch the plugin indirectly First launch another track with the desired instrument plugin Then copy and paste all elements one by one from the old track to the new track Finally delete the old track Using the instrument track to play an audio track with pitch shift You can use an instrument track to play an entire audio file Usually a sample track is used for this purpose see the next section but the instrument track is more suited if you want to change the pitch of the audio track or if you want to automate its pitch To use this mode drag and drop the audio track into the Song Editor window This is the same process that we described before but with some critical differences 1 2 Our audio file is the full length sound track not a short duration sample We will not compose music by inserting multiple notes that are created by shifting the base note to different pitches Here we insert a single note that lasts for the entire duration of the audio track 4 to 20 minutes We will also shift its pitch by moving the single note upward or downward LMMS changes the pitch by varying the speed at which it goes through the track Thus a higher pitch means faster playback and a lower pitch means slower playback If the pitch is shifted too high a normal spee
105. ecimal points in the dialog box The seventh knob AMT controls the modulation amount for the envelope range 1 to 1 You can adjust this knob as described above Clicking on the graph toggles the envelope ON OFF The AMT is toggled between the set value and 0 The graph appears bright green when on and gray when off AMT 0 When the AMT value is between O and 1 the brightness of the graph is dull green Adjust the LFO settings as follows Adjust the three knobs range 0 to 1 To change value of any knob hover the mouse on it and roll the mousewheel Or click on the knob and drag the mouse up down Or double click on the knob and enter a precise value 4 decimal points in the dialog box Adjust the AMT amount knob in the same way range 1 to 1 When the AMT value approaches 0 from 1 or 1 the graph becomes dull green You can click on the waveform display to toggle it ON OFF The AMT is toggled between the set value and 0 The graph appears bright green when on and gray when off AMT 0 E FREQ x 100 Clicking on the Clicking on the MRE toggles the LFO on off multiplies the LFO frequency by 100 You can synchronize the LFO with the song s tempo so that successive notes will have the same continuous effect This feature is very useful for wobble or dubstep instruments Right click on the SPD knob and from the context menu select the Tempo sync option Select the type of beat
106. ecting the closely spaced accept band frequencies in the incoming signal Conversely filters with low Q factor end up rejecting some of the desired frequencies Reverberation is the persistence of sound in an enclosed space after the original sound is removed It is caused by a large number of echoes that build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air This is most noticeable when the sound source stops but the reflections continue gradually decreasing in amplitude until they can no longer be heard An individual audio file used either in an instrument See AudioFileProcessor Plugin or a sample track A type of track that is designed to take audio files Multiple different Samples can be placed in one sample track and they can overlap See Working with Samples The overall combination of tracks playing simultaneously that makes up your composition See Song Editor One sixteenth of a bar in the Beat Bassline Editor a single tab in the pattern display To unfreeze a track rendering it again in real time during playback See freeze A row in the Song Editor containing an instrument sample track or beat bassline Waveform Audio File Format A cross platform uncompressed audio standard 124 This is a more useful way to express the LFO because tyhen the duration of one cycle can be directly compared to the note s duration which would be say 1 16 seconds So you know how many LFO cycles fit in the not
107. een lamp The solo lamp allows a track to play solo by muting all other tracks By default this lamp is OFF in all tracks i e no track is set to play solo e Obviously more than one tracks cannot play solo Thus only one red lamp can remain ON at any given time e So when the red lamp of any track is clicked ON the green lamps in all other tracks turn off automatically this indicates that those tracks are muted by the track playing solo When the red lamp is turned OFF the green lamps of the other tracks revert to their previous state The track button indicates the type of track preset sampled sound bassline or automation e Click on the button to edit the settings in case of preset or sampled sound tracks Double click on this button to rename the track Tip Always give a suggestive name to each track so that you can recognize it quickly The green LED glows when the playhead crosses the position of each active on block in each measure This is very useful when there are multiple tracks in the stack and you want to quickly locate the track that is responsible for a particular sound Just look for the LED that glows at that particular moment The LED is also useful in a special case If the track is muted or if another track is playing solo then sometimes you do not realize what is happening But a flashing LED will tell you that everything is well with the track VOL controls the volume of this
108. efault preset Section What it does e a a FX CHML tl Mi CERO MIDI Input Set the MIDI channel number from which this instrument PLUGIN ENW LEO FUNC FX will receive MIDI events fe ENABLE MIDI INPUT l MIDI output Set the MIDI channel number to which this instrument will CHANNEL VELOCITY send its MIDI events PS pies ce Both sections have almost identical set of controls which work as follows Le Control Function CHANMEL YELOCIT YPROGRAM Clicking on the lamp toggles the section on off In the Channel selector set the MIDI channel that is to be used for MIDI input output ATT In the velocity selector set a volume LMMS will clamp the volume of all incoming or outgoing notes to this value Click the Device selector button to see a list of devices available in your system that can act as sources or sinks for MIDI events Select a device from this list In the Program selector select a fader of the FX Mixer module That fader will receive the MIDI output of this plugin The Piano Keys section Use the piano keys section to play the sound to check if it meets your need especially while tuning the controls in the Instrument tab and the Env LFO tab Marking a key as standard The strip above the keyboard allows you to mark the key that produces the standard 440 Hz note To mark a key click on the black strip above it A green light appears just above the key
109. ele ea A er ee en ere 86 TIE AU OMM NON EONO apasiona inicia 89 es e as aa aa E REE Ea EE EE 89 More apot the Automaton Grap iseseisana ra N araeir 92 ECONO RIE AMA O A A A A 93 Bio ight so A A tie oert tr manne Se Sc re ten ee a eee a eee eae 93 oc A DE 93 Be o UA Pekin ety 93 Attaching a Controller to Target conto luso iii iii iaa ibid 93 Changing me settings of a Controller aorta 93 Namna te AA a a A E 94 Eding Ol Removing a Ce TN a crt ane tances eater T ER a Ea 94 TOEP C OO 2 e E E E ee re eee ee 94 EP ENTO A E EAE E 94 edi a EEL hee PAE E POR OR EE A E E AT nis 95 THe Fren Controler A a asea ara ii 95 PPO Ne TO reok CONN A E O Poo EE aa E 96 THS FrojJect Notes POMO aa 97 Typioai uses 0 Pro 516 ies 97 Editing and Composing SOngS ssssssssnsnnnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnn nnnnnn ennenen nnnm 99 e EE Se E A EEP ns IEE eo ui A E AT A E E E A E TE 99 Si Ul ey AAA no a a 99 Experimenting with the Beat Bassline Edi dont 100 BE ea UI Wim Me FANIE np a E E ea 100 CORO SING asong Tom Score SMOG usd EE E 102 a E at seater uneven AEREE EA E E E FINN AE E E E E AAE E EAEE A EEE E 102 crannog Mo MOI umi eiii eii 103 A setae veda E AE E EE A 104 AUGO AGOMO q AE AR o EAEE EARE EE NEDE 105 Applying song global AUTOM siicvinranrsisdewesandsaninddsniecddndeniadacadnansdeaniansduasadadluwuraaadddanevaoriuwbeasmennnannadiennnnneacns 105 Appiying Automaton ION s n ini iia 105 FUnher eperme mat
110. endering of the song technicians to set up microphones to record each of these sounds a sound recordist who captures the sounds a sound engineer who corrects the mistakes in all sounds adds special effects and then mixes them to create the final song 2 Equipment Recording room isolation booths for loud instruments musical instruments for melody percussion and bassline equipment for recording the sounds adding special effects and mixing etc If you are an amateur hobbyist musician you can do all of this by yourself All you need is an inexpensive PC and two open source freeware programs LMMS and Audacity Having an electronic keyboard with MIDI feature will help but it is not essential Of course apart from the sound quality there are other compromises The following table compares LMMS with a studio Note that Audacity can accomplish many tasks that LMMS can t Activity Real sound recording studio LMMS Singers Chorus Yes No use Audacity O Misc sounds Yes No use Audacity 2 Melody instruments Yes Musicians play instruments Yes rendered directly in LMMS 2 Bassline instruments Yes Musicians play instruments Yes rendered directly in LMMS Percussion instruments Yes Musicians play instruments Yes rendered directly in LMMS Edit audio tracks Yes No use Audacity amp Change tempo pitch No Yes E Remove glitches Yes No use Audacity Add special effects Yes Yes 8 Mix sou
111. entire computer including all your disks and partitions This is the most generic way to access any resource that is lying anywhere in your computer The Song Editor The Song Editor is the top level window in LMMS The other windows contribute to it see LMMS functional diagram It serves the following purposes 1 It assembles different parts of the song sample audio instruments percussion and also provides musical expressions e g tremolo crescendo etc by varying the pitch and volume of all content tracks 2 It provides the visual display of the song and provides direct access to any part of the song 3 It also allows you to mute any part or play it solo The Song Editor achieves all this with the help of four types of tracks as shown below Song Editor oo0ooo0o lt 9 I ma gt a 100 g Main Beat Bassline track 4 MAS Bass Line r MOL PAN Instrument track 71 ke Melody x E Ea VOL PAN Automation track Automation track A Sample track oS Each type of track plays its distinctive role 1 An instrument track plays a melody using the sound of a musical instrument e g piano violin flute or a synthesized sound a separate track is used for each instrument 2 A beat track plays a repetitive pattern created using several percussion instruments e g drum kit a separate track is used for each distinct pattern 3 A bassline track plays repetitive bassline patter
112. er s settings window Now right click on the fader control of Channel 1 which is connected to the melody track From the context menu that appears select the Connect to controller menu option A Connection settings window pops up EJ Click on the User controller lamp to turn it on PA In the pull down menu select the Controller number that you noted two steps earlier Press OK With this the volume control of the melody track is now controlled by the volume of the beat track through FX Mixer In the Song Editor click the Play o button LMMS plays the song in the loop mode Notice that the Fader knob of Channel 1 which is connected to the melody track swings up down when the beats are played The setting window for the Peak Controller is still open Tweak the settings of the controller and see how it affects the Fader knob of Channel 1 Note that if AMT knob is set to a positive value i e when the knob is turned to the right the volume of the melody increases when the beat occurs But we want the exact opposite duck effect To achieve this effect set the AMT knob to a negative value turn it to the left EFFECTS CHAIN a ETO 8 WID DECAYGATE Peak Controller Peak Controller z9 Controller Rack Peak Controller Controller 1 aa a BASE AMT ATTACIDECAY f Mute Connection Settings MIDI CONTROLLER CHANNEL CONTROLLER Auto Detect 5 USER C
113. er this track in real time which reduces the load on CPU This is useful if your computer gets slow while rendering a song that contains a large number of tracks filters and effects While the track is frozen you can edit it but these changes will not take effect the computer will continue rendering the pre rendered version LMMS indicates the frozen status of the track by putting a blue outline around its timeline and also placing a blue snowflake icon on its left side like this Unfreeze This option appears in the context menu only when a track is frozen You can unfreeze a track while it is playing but can refreeze it only when the playback is stopped Refreeze This option appears in place of the Freeze option only when you have frozen a track This option allows you to re render the track with the latest changes 61 One interesting example Place ticks of 1 32 notes in the Piano Roll Editor Then vary the pan of these ticks so that alternate ticks appear in the left and right channel only Such a pattern would not be possible in the BB Editor 62 In comparison if you mute the track by clicking on its green lamp the LED keeps flashing when the track s content plays but the LMMS does not route this sound to the output LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 13 Add steps Remove steps This option is useful in checking out your latest changes on a frozen track allows you to add steps t
114. erosin EREA E a EA AAAA E iceeeeeneneeeess 106 Using mu l ple AAA naea A A AES 106 Ser US A EE AAE SEE 106 does cera T T 107 TIL C2 eee eee OS 109 A en ee ee EEE eee ee ee ee E ee eee enna mee NEA E meee ee A nce E heer ee EE 111 A 113 ls i o AEI cece esas T OA AA E AE E N A I E EOE N E TE 114 o A E E E E A 115 LL E EEEE A PE E E o o IA 117 SC PEE EE EE E A E O A er ey ee ee E O AAT 118 LMMS User Manual gt Contents 6 A 55m cmer eee eect tye 120 A e neat ee oO EI e iO O II 121 aaee E EAN A O OPA Notas A TEE E AAE EE E AAT E EN 122 SA A E E N 123 Aa a EEA A A A e UE PO E AET EE AANA A EEA E 124 gt E EEE T A 125 Toe dls eg O CN Or Sn AEA 126 A E EEN OEA AEE E EATE E N EE EEE EATE AT 128 o PO O EAE E A EA T NAAA A a E T 129 A E e a OEE EEN EEA AE A AENEA EE EEE A E E A EAE A 131 A E E E E A E E Anes A E he EA AE E A Ree E ees E EE E E es 132 Pa EE A OE 132 sd ede E E AEEA EE AE Es 132 SPCT ANIV AAA E e CTO a 133 o ee ee oe Cee EA Meet ere kone eens nes eerie Some enn oS EEA 133 A A 133 B REVISTA NOR CU aaa dia 135 Main Window anywhere Ann asaacersaneroeces 135 dac eal ar e adma iE ee PER OE AAE PE I AE E E E E E A A E AA A ETA PEE E A T E ATTE 136 Alleditors that include a time NE rms 136 As AINE EIO A E EE EE 136 PE E E A T AAA E E E AA E 136 a A O A E ee 137 Vita pg L o go Lo ee arecicag aceeeesnen vy tsecta E 138 PIC eso ee eee 139 Be o PP dade betes dade E E 139 Co Eding the Automaton o renee d
115. ery short duration 1 48 of a note In fact as long as you use the BB Editor timeline with steps you will produce only beats even if you use melody instruments for creating these sounds In the next section we will see how to create a bassline Creating and Editing a bassline To play the instruments in bassline mode do any of the following 1 Double click on the bar 2 Right click on any step A context menu pops up Select the very first option Open in piano roll 3 Double click on any step Each of these steps will open the Piano Roll Editor with the existing pattern of beats Now you can enter new notes of various lengths and also adjust the pitch and volume of the individual notes Note that this procedure is same as what we did when changing the pitch of some beats But here we change the duration and position of the notes freely and allow the notes to cross the boundaries of individual steps LUMS senses this and changes the track from beat mode to bassline mode In the following example we have cloned the beat track and converted it into a bassline Note the difference in their timeline displays While the beats track shows on off steps the bassline track shows a piano roll Also note how the notes cross the boundaries of individual steps PAN II 2 Y VOL PAN e Note that when you convert a pattern track into bassline mode the remaining tracks are still in the beat mode they are displayed as a pattern of on
116. es on expanding When you have finished you can safely close the Piano Roll Editor window without losing the contents e Although an element spans over multiple measures it is always a single unit It can be moved copied or deleted as a single piece e You can create any number of elements in the instrument track e If you skip some measures in the Piano Editor and insert a note in the To create a note out of a recorded sound the sample sound must be of short duration If you have a long recording of the target instrument first prepare a short sample out of that long track using a audio editor such as Audacity Note that the display of Piano Roll Editor always shows the measure numbers from the starting point of the element not the absolute measure number from the starting of the song LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 45 Task Details subsequent measure all those skipped measures are treated as part of the same element in the Song Editor In an experiment while composing the melody in the Piano Roll Editor we deliberately skipped two measures to see what happens in the Song Editor The Song Editor shows this as a single 5 measure element instead of showing two separate elements on both sides of the blank measures Changing the plugin Well actually LMMS does not allow you to change the instrument plugin in a given track in a track For example assume that you have a track with Tripl
117. ese eneteetoeeoece 141 DORIA WII SAID aiii lo 143 Sample Used as a Melody Instrument rara AAA 143 A nn oe ee danauee aocenig EE 143 Creating an instrument with the Sat DS vac nccancsescaconererraaenainmesaersaaaereaxneesanreainmsdauemiriadyeineisaniaanidaamanarenpanteeiia 143 AEE E N OA EE PEENE AE A 144 Sample Used as a Percussion InStrUMeNt ooccccnnccocncocnnooonooncnnocnnoncnononnonnnononoonrnnnnnnonnnnnnnonnonnonrnnnennonnonnanos 144 Preparing Ne A a aa A a me oe eee 144 Creating the percussion instrument from the Sample coooccoccnnoccnccccnccncnoconnnnonnononnnnnnnnnnnncnnonnnnnonnnnnnnnnnanen 144 Plavna Ne Persio isis decia td il iii eiii acicate da at 144 E o A ee eee eee ee eee ere eer cee 145 Effects Created With an Automation UIVO unica 145 Effects Created with CONTTOJETS cion it ii iia lis edad 146 ale caia Me Hacks MEC aiian Dia rica oie eb neon 146 SCS Case Mougn PAN UNO arto ba idad 148 E EMNES ANAIS g Co MUS po 151 Ne A PO 5 PE REO A E 151 Mi ss o nn e Me e o A Pi 0 E 151 E T An nn e A A A O E NT 153 AO LE D e o A A nmin sano 153 A EEA ances 153 UE E O EEEE AA 153 aR Eo a A 155 LMMS User Manual gt Contents T IES a E i 159 A A i E E cee asec E E es seni ets E A ein eden totems pigecucainue teacwesesduseanicauacis 161 About this Manual This is the user s manual for the Linux MultiMedia Studio LMMS an open source digital audio workstation DAW software How to use this manual
118. ever it cannot drag the selection into another even the neighboring bar If you want to move the selection to another bar you must use the cut copy and paste method First cut copy the selection from the source bar into clipboard Next load the target bar in Piano Roll Editor Now paste the contents of the clipboard in the target bar e The selection is always pasted at the beginning of the target bar regardless of its position in the source bar So after pasting the clipboard contents into the target bar you may have to move the selection to its desired position 41 The eraser toolbar button is redundenat because when the pencil tool is selected a right click turns it into Eraser tool 42 The Select toolbar button also is redundant because the Pencil tool turns into Selection tool as long as CTRL is pressed In fact it is faster to use the Pencil tool with modifier keys rather than selecting different tools from the toolbar LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 58 To do this just select the pencil tool and drag any note from the selection to the desired place The entire selection moves as a single group Even after you paste the selection the notes remain selected So you don t have to select the pasted notes again Note Length pa 2 Last note K The current note length setting is displayed By default LMMS selects the Last Note option so if you create a new note its default length wil
119. examples 1 MEM EME gt 3 0 Enter these patterns in the BB Editor and play them to see how they sound Change the instrument and try again LMMS treats this pattern as a building block and plays it endlessly For example LMMS plays our first example pattern like this r Tf eT F rte r MA Y T 1 a F rt tt z piin pl p a LMMS plays our second example pattern like this We will see later how this stitched together sound track is actually inserted and manipulated in the main song Editing Beats You can edit the beats in three different ways 1 By changing the volume of different beats 2 By changing the pitch of different beats 3 By combining the two methods above change the volume and pitch of some beats Changing the volume of beats Each step is also a volume control The volume can be varied between 0 off and 100 on To adjust the volume of any step hover the mouse on any green gray step and roll the mousewheel To prevent the rhythm from being monotonous change the volume of some of the steps This varying volume gives the beats a natural feel The color of the step gives a clue about the beat s volume a brighter step plays louder a dim step plays softer ey A A When you click on a green on step it turns off and turns gray but it preserves its volume information So when you click on it again it will show the volume that was set in it previously loudest softest medium Changin
120. fects can be created with automation curve see Appendix C 79 Now why would you want to automate the Note length control It is used during composition not at play time Anyhow this example shows clearly how the y axis plots even mixed types of values at equal distance The Controller Rack The Controller Rack window is literally a rack cabinet where Controllers are stacked a The Controller rack button El the main toolbar of LMMS toggles the Controller Rack window e Although these controllers are stacked together they have no relationship with each other Refer to the LMMS functional diagram If any of the Automation blocks is implemented through LFO controller that functionality is provided from the Controller rack As we Saw earlier this window allows you to apply two different types of controllers LFO Controller and Peak Controller to the various controls in LMMS While the LFO controller applies a periodic signal to the target control to vary it the Peak Controller uses the value of another control to vary the target control Controllers General This section describes the common information about both LFO and Peak Controllers In the subsequent sections we will see controller specific features Adding a Controller To add a new LFO Controller click the Add button at the bottom of the sz Controller Rack Controller Rack LMMS adds an LFO Controller 4 to the rack To add a new Peak Controller you have to use a
121. ful when there are multiple tracks in the stack and you want to quickly locate the track that is responsible for a particular sound Just look for the LED that glows at that particular moment The LED is also useful in a special case If the track is muted or if another track is playing solo then sometimes you do not realize what is happening But a flashing LED will tell you that everything is well with the track VOL VOL controls the volume of this individual track The volume can be adjusted in the range 0 mute to 200 maximum The default volume is at the mid point 100 Note that increasing the volume above 100 can cause distortion in the sound PAN PAN distributes the total sound power between the left and right speakers The PAN can be adjusted in the range 100 full power to the left speaker to 100 full power to the right speaker The default value is the mid point O center Time ruler The gray strip containing E to PA is called time ruler because it marks time measures Loop start marker This marker shows the start of the loop This marker can be set anywhere on the time ruler by middle clicking e Usually it has magnetic behavior It will lock to the nearest time tick However you can slide it to any place by pressing CTRL while you drag it with the MMB Note that the LED does NOT glow for the entire duration of the note You can force LMMS to play between two
122. g the pitch of different beats You can also change the pitch of some beats Let us understand this with an example Double click on the bar EQ an This ensures that the beats are not disturbed 1 un EUU al You can also right click on any step and select the context menu option Open in piano roll The pattern opens in the Piano Roll Editor The figure shows one measure width Note that this pattern is the same as above Note also that all the beats have the same pitch 47 This is the counterpart of note volume in the Song Editor Just as keyboard expression makes the music more expressive the varying volume of beats adds a lilt to the music Note that this variation in volume will repeat itself in each measure wherever this rhythm is applied LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 65 Now drag some of the beats down or up Take care NOT to change the position or length of the beats This is critical In this example four beats are dragged down Close the Piano Roll Editor Switch to the BB Editor Moved The pattern looks unchanged in the BB Editor However if you play it in the BB Editor it sounds different as the beats have different pitches now If you toggle any note off and turn it on again it will retain its pitch To edit the pattern again double click on the bar and repeat the above procedure So far we covered beats percussion only which are essentially unpitched sounds of v
123. hardcore01 ogg A HO i MO a rave_bass02 0gg cated 6 4 y a bass_acid01 0gq o MALO techno_synth01o a ek VOL PAN basas ka hill hs baias hamai banii ka J ey ey Controller Rack Techno Synth Techno Synt a sy lacai Lai hiii Lal iai a hacia ey A LY C gt 3 E KC E FX Mixer U Project notes y EFFECTS CHAIN z MS Shell Dig 2 KIE gt LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 15 So let us understand the various controls used in LMMS we will understand the various windows in the next chapter Before you read this manual further recognize the controls for what they are and how they work Read the following description carefully and memorize it 2 Control What is it How to use it called Handle Click on it with mouse and drag it to new position The entire track moves with of a track it to a new position It can be controlled in various ways 1 Click on the knob and drag the mouse up down Lamp When a lamp is on it may appear green yellow or red In LMMS yellow red color does not signify a caution or alarm situation All lamps look black when they are off A lamp appears at the top of a functional block module in the LMMS interface It acts as an on off toggle switch for the module Click on it to toggle the module on off Pull down A pull down menu offers preset values to choose from ida Note In LMMS
124. he contextual help for this item About Shows a dialog which lists the LMMS project s version its home page its key developers translation information if you are using LMMS in a language other than English and the GNU GPL license that the software is released under Tool Bar EA P L mh The layout of the toolbar has two distinct areas TEMPO EPM 1 The left side J contains two rows of buttons Buttons in the top row handle projects music files and buttons in the bottom row toggle editor windows 2 The right side J contains music related master controls LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 31 File Controls The six buttons in the top row deal with opening and saving project music files Button Remarks The New Project button creates a new song By clicking on the drop down symbol on the right hand side of the icon you will get a list of pre set templates that can be used to fill out your new song with instruments and configure it ready for work The New Project from Template button will allow you to use a saved template to start a new project The Open existing Project button opens an existing song file in your LMMS Working Directory The Recently Opened project button allow you see and browse files that you have successfully saved recently in LMMS Tip If you have opened a file and not saved it due to a crash or other similar circumstances that file will not be in the Recently opene
125. hem to create melody bassline or percussion If you are not satisfied with the available instruments the studio gets whatever instruments you want and places them in the room Well in LMMS you have a similar scenario Its Instruments Plugins tab in the Side Bar provides a lot of instruments which you can use directly to create a melody bassline or percussion Just like real life instruments the LMMS instruments can be tuned in fact the synthesizers can be tuned to create completely dissimilar sounds You can add a lot of new instrument plugins typically having VSTi type interface Let us see the available instrument plugins in more detail LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 115 AudioFileProcessor The AudioFileProcessor plugin is used to play a recorded sample as an instrument Normally a wavetable is created by sampling the sound of a real life instrument e g piano flute guitar but it can also be created by synthesizing the waveform While the AudioFileProcessor plugin is based on the first approach the BitInvader plugin is based on the second approach Process Select a sample file and identify the portion that is to be played Adjust the amplitude e If the sample is too long you will have to use a waveform editor e g Audacity to trim the excess parts e The sample file can be in uncompressed wav or compressed mp3 Ogg etc format LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 116 u Default preset GENERA
126. hen a control point is deleted the graph uses the control point on its left and draws new horizontal and vertical lines to bridge the gap The editing of automation curve is explained further in Appendix C Draws a selection rectangle When any control point falls within the selection rectangle LMMS selects the portion of graph from this control point till the next control point on the right In the following example the blue selection rectangle has enclosed the point encircled in blue The selected part of the graph turns blue e You can delete the selected control points by pressing DEL e You can also move these selected points in both directions on the page Lets you move all selected control points and the shape of the graph formed by them You can move the selected group in any direction Caution If you drag the selection past other control points they get deleted This can change the shape of the graph drastically Clipboard Cut the selected control points to clipboard e You can select all the control points by pressing CTRL A then cut them Copy the selected control points to clipboard the original control points are not affected e You can copy and paste control points from one automation graph to another e You can select all the control points by pressing CTRL A then copy them LMMS User Manual gt The Automation Editor 91 gt Paste the c
127. here When Decay is 0 the line is vertical As you increase the value of Decay the line becomes ess steep Sustain SUST This is the length of the line segment during the sustain period segment HS e In case of some string percussion instruments this duration may be short even if the key is not released the sound dies on its own e Incase of wind instruments this duration may be infinite The sound does not die on its own unless the key is released Release REL Time taken for the volume to fall to zero after the key is released In addition to the above the amplitude AMT amount Height of the curve also can be changed A filter alters the frequency spectrum of a sound coming out of an oscillator Common filters are low pass meaning low frequencies are let through high pass allowing high frequencies through notch blocking a narrow range of frequencies and band pass allowing only a narrow range of frequencies Filters even in the digital world cannot be truly linear i e the graph of the filter s response over frequency shows a curved knee dropping down rather than a vertical line This means that a low pass filter set to 100Hz will let some frequencies lower than that through although the lower the frequency the more it will be cut The steepness of the drop in a filter is called it s Q parameter Historically some analogue filters also introduced resonance or amplification of frequencies a
128. hich is used to vary any control volume pan etc that appears in the windows listed above e Peak controllers These controllers vary the value of one variable e g volume based on another variable say volume of another track Piano roll Editor This window lets you create or edit the contents in the Song Editor melody and BB Editor percussion and bassline Automation Editor This window lets you create edit the automation tracks Project notes This window lets you attach notes to your project Such notes can be used as personal reminders or to convey specific instructions to others When LMMS is launched the first four windows shown with yellow background in the table above are opened by default Open the other types of windows when required and hide any windows that are not needed LMMS can display only one window of each type you cannot launch multiple instances of any of these windows Getting a feel of LMMS with a demo song Let us understand LMMS intuitively by looking at how it handles a song LMMS comes with multiple demo songs We will check out a demo song titled newfangled Don t worry about finer details at this moment Just pay attention to the main controls experiment with them and check 7 These are the same seven functional blocks we discussed earlier This is only a brief overview If you cannot understand this don t worry We will be seeing the working of each window i
129. hythm is composed of three tracks basedrum04 09g hihat_closed04 0gg and shaker01 0gg You can connect any of those tracks to the FX Mixer channels To sum up we would not be able to connect any of the Song Editor tracks to the FX Mixer So let us turn our attention to the BB Editor By convention we use a channel from Bank B for the tracks from the BB Editor Since the very first channel Channel 17 in Bank B is available we will use it 85 You can directly apply the same effects to Individual tracks of the Song Editor or BB Editor Therefore the only unique value of the FX Mixer is in applying a common set of effects to groups of tracks 86 There is a fourth track clap03 0gg but it is unused It does not contribute any sound Therefore we will ignore it LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 101 So here are the steps Click on the Name panel of the bassdrum04 0gg pe co OE track The instrument panel pops up Hover the mouse on the FX CHNL display and roll the mousewheel till the number changes to 17 Now the output of this track is connected to Channel 17 Of FX Mixer Close the window LMMS just remembers the new value There is no OK or Save button Repeat the two steps for the other two tracks hihat_closed04 0gg and shaker01 099 Now they too are connected to Channel 17 of FX Mixer FX Mincer A EFFECTS CHAIN 1 Switch to the FX Mixer and click on Bank B
130. ide by side and operate them interactively But A when you click inside one window it comes to the front and hides the others The stay on top option forces the window on top even when you are working in another window Automation of controls Apart from manually changing these controls we can also set them to change automatically at specified moments during the song This is done by constructing a value vs time curve known as automation curve for the target control LMMS reads this curve in real time and varies the control accordingly The following example shows an automation curve for the volume control The curve plots time along the horizontal axis and volume level along the vertical axis we will see later how to draw such curves As you can see LMMS does not show the automation curve as a line It just fills the area under the curve with yellow The example shows several different shapes of automation curve and its effect on the song 1 Initially the volume is set to zero at point I Then it is raised smoothly to full volume till point PJ This shape is used to create a fade in effect The same shape can be also used to create crescendo effect for a musical phrase 2 Between points PJ and EJ the curve is flat at the highest value we get full volume during that time The volume decreases smoothly from point KE to point El LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 17 This shape is used to
131. ied away Gate knob Threshold controls a similar parameter it sets the level of noise below which the instrument will be considered to be silent A flanger effect placed on an instrument with a very long fade out say a ride cymbal will be almost inaudible at the end of the tail of the cymbal Cutting the effect off early may reduce the CPU requirements and the chance of unwanted effect noise being heard Controls button Shows a separate window that has extra controls specific to this effect Clicking on this button toggles the window on off Note that rather than applying the effects chain to individual instrument you can apply it to an input channel Channel 1 to Channel 64 of the FX Mixer The difference is you can connect several instruments to the same input channel of the FX Mixer Now the effects chain is applied to all those instruments simultaneously To remove an effect from the stack select its context menu right click and choose Remove effect You can also change the order of any effect by dragging that effect up down in the stack 75 Some effects will also have ways to set their internal wet dry level This sometimes takes the form of a wet dry knob but also can be two knobs to set the level of the wet output and the level of the dry bypassed output LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 86 The MIDI tab uy Default preset GENERAL SETTINGS The tab contains two sections D
132. ignature and 120 BPM tempo The piece plays 120 beats per minute which means each beat lasts for 1 2 second Since the time signature is 3 4 we know that the piece has three beats per measure Therefore each measure is 3x1 2 1 5 seconds long Also since the time signature is 3 4 we know that each beat is 1 4th of a note Therefore the duration of a full note is 4x1 2 2 seconds The following time signatures are popularly used l i etc Tempo Tempo is the speed of the song defined in terms of BPM Beats Per Minute where the value Metronome A device that produces audible clicks to indicate the exact tempo of a musical piece Controls in LMMS interface At first glance LMMS interface looks intimidating with its unfamiliar controls and lots of windows Se rey isi demo3 LMMS 0 4 10 Project Edit Tools Help E k he sl P TEMPOJEPM zt A Click to enable jii mi he LA TIME SIG e cru Song Editor Beat Bassline Editor gt 0 0O a ES ap A X e 100 oO O Acid Bass A mr ts vol TT is A O A iss Cie E y e 0 defaut 2 z MN O Hardcore Beat AS VOL PAN dar 4 el 00 RoundBass Xx o FNY VOL PAN 4 e 0C o RaveBass 2 a IN VOL PAN A g 4 el 00 Sample track e J VOL Lac oe ha lacas Local Ll lll f Hardcore Baseline i Hardcore Baseline la hi PE i lamdi Leah biati Lact ae ey ey ee Acid Bass Acid Bass ps j i kosa ls hal hai Lidl Lal la ld gt Mm Lal ll Ll lia a Kick_
133. in the Song Editor with an incremented number The add automation button creates a new automation track in the BB Editor But this automation track is not associated with any control yet So the next step is to press CTRL and then drag a control of the instrument preset track onto this automation track Now you can automate this control The handle of the track allows you to reposition the track in the stack when there are multiple tracks in the BB Editor 44 We will see the other minor differences later in this chapter 45 You may create some shorter or longer patterns that are used between two rhythms of the song to change over smoothly from one rhythm to another 46 Recall that the Beat Bassline 0 track is already loaded in the BB Editor by default So the number increments 1 2 LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 63 Clicking on this button allows you to take the following actions on the track e Clone the track create an exact duplicate with all melodies as in the original track e Remove this track e Change the MIDI input and output settings for the track This is the mute unmute lamp e When the instrument is muted this lamp is off black E e The green lamp kf shows the track is active i e its sound is reaching the final output By default this lamp is ON in each track i e all tracks are active by default However you can turn off mute any track by clicking on its gr
134. in the percussion track i This application is similar to playing melodies with the sample sound see above with two differences 1 To create beats we need very short notes typically 1 16th of a note long and 2 The pitch is kept low and not varied much to resemble an unpitched instrument Physically a sample is stored as any of the compressed or uncompressed formats listed below Category File size File type Lossless Large wav aiff au flac raw Lossless Highly compact ds drumSynth Lossy Compact ogg mp3 speex voc The following sections explain how this is done Sample Used as a Melody Instrument Let us see how the complete cycle works from recording a sample to playing melodies with it Preparing the sample Record the sound using Audacity etc and save as an audio file Now edit the file to remove any defects Before using the audio editor you may have to convert the format of the file using Format Factory etc You can save the sample file anywhere on your PC Creating an instrument with the sample To use this sampled sound as a melody instrument there are two equivalent methods 1 Open the My Computer tab of the Side Bar and browse to the folder where you stored the sample Drag the sample into the Song Editor LMMS adds a new track in the Song Editor in which AudioFileProcessor Plugin is used as instrument plugin which in turn uses the sampled sound as the sour
135. ing the next note First set the Note Length to ka W setting Create a note and then adjust its length LMMS will remember this new length and create all subsequent notes with that length When you need a note with a different length go back to a previous note with that desired length Drag its right edge a little and then restore to its original length This causes the Note Length control to remember the note s length without affecting that note Now go on entering new notes Creating notes with keyboard You can also record yourself playing the notes either on a MIDI keyboard or on the computer s keyboard using the record button Your computer s keyboard can play 2 5 octaves from C3 to E5 These octaves are highlighted below and also compared with a keyboard see inset T CEE LELEL TELL 2 om all TTT ACC E EC EI CR E 1 E LLALLA Notice how the keys are selected to resemble a keyboard In each set the upper row serves as the black keys in groups of 2 3 and the lower row serves as the white keys in a continuous group of 7 When recording you will hear a metronome sound a click sound at every beat to help you stay in sync with the time signature Set the quantization control to the minimum value your piece requires so even if you play a little early or late LMMS will automatically place the note at the correct time Once you have finished recording that section press the stop button
136. ing with only a Hi Hat sound without the main rhythm Working with automation tracks The automation track contains the property vs time control curve for one or more target controls Before using automation in your song plan it thoroughly 1 Which sound needs what effect tremolo vibrato crescendo pan sweep etc Add automation only when it makes musical sense 2 The start time and duration of each effect 3 Whether you will need a hand drawn automation curve or a LFO controller 4 Whether you will use the song global option or use an automation track Based on this analysis you will know how many automation tracks and also how many LFO controllers are needed in your song Note that the rhythm composed in the Beat Bassline Editor is just one measure long and it is repeated in each measure of the song Thus if you apply automation to this repetitive pattern the automation also gets repeated in each measure In contrast automation applied to the tracks in the Song Editor does not get repeated Here are the tasks that are specific to the automation track Task Details Creating a new track To launch a new Automation track click on the button in the toolbar of the Song Editor e When an automation track is launched it has no automation curve in it You have to first associate each curve to a control located in an instrument sample track and then draw an automation curve e
137. input channels are used All sound sources loaded in the Song Editor or BB Editor are directly connected to the output channel channel 0 So any effects applied to the output channel are applied to the combined sound of all sources If you want to apply effects only to a particular instrument preset then first assign that instrument preset to an input channel and then apply effects to the input channel Now these effects will not be shared with the other sound sources Note that the sample tracks cannot be connected to input channels They are always connected to the output channel only However you can directly apply the same effects to any sample track e You can also connect multiple instruments presets to a common input channel Think of the input channel as master control for that group of instruments presets This has two advantages over one instrument per channel approach Firstly the channel s effects would 64 Recall that a sound source can be an instrument a preset or a recorded sampled sound Also note if you have applied automation to any of the controls or added an automation track their effect is included in the sound coming to FX Mixer 65 And therefore there seems to be no valid reason for not allowing the user to connect a sample track to an input channel LMMS User Manual gt The FX Mixer 76 equally apply to the entire group Secondly you can also automate the input channel s controls includi
138. ion Hardness 0 128 Force with which the mallet hits the B i J i instruments instrument e a a FX CHML OL PAN PITCH Position PLUSIM MARA A E HL allets Vib Gain Vibrato gain amplitude Hardness Position gm a e Wib Gain Wib Freg Stick Mix Marimba Pal Spread AC Vib Freq Vibrato frequency Stick Mix Spread Bells Modulator Crossfade LFO Speed The speed of vibrato tremolo effect LFO Depth The amplitude of vibrato tremolo effect ADSR Attack Decay Sustain Release sound envelope Spread Bars Bowed on off Pressure Motion Speed Vibrato Spread Note In the present version LMMS 0 4 10 the controls do not seem to change the sound much LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 121 Organic Organic is an additive synthesizer which combines the output of up to eight oscillators When a note is played in Organ the phase offsets of each oscillator are randomized separately for both stereo channels Because of this the sound is slightly different every time you press a key even when you don t change any settings This plugin is most useful for creating organ instruments and hence the name and pads Although Organic has more oscillators than the TripleOscillator it has less capabilities For example it cannot let the oscillators modulate each other Uy Default preset Each oscillator has four controls arranged in a single column The c
139. ion has six controls 1 A pull down list of chords that can be played The range in octaves over which the chord will be played The direction that the arpeggio is played This control offers the following options up down both directions first up then down and random notes from the chord 4 The time in milliseconds between each note range 25 ms to 2000 ms You have the option to synchronize the arpeggio with the tempo of your music Right click on the Time knob and from the context menu select the tempo sync option 5 The gate is defined as a percentage of the Note time mentioned above range 1 to 200 At 100 gate time each note will be played for the full time between each note At settings below 100 each note will be cut short and the rest will be filled with silence At settings above 100 each note will overlap the next note and will finish later than the start of the next 6 The mode of playing the arpeggio e In free mode an arpeggio will be started when the note starts If a second note is played later a second arpeggio will start at that later time and play independently of the first e In sort mode no matter when another note is pressed the arpeggios will be played in the same order with only one note being played at any one time For example if the key for C is played with an ascending Major chord arpeggio the arpeggio of C E G will be played repeatedly If the key for F is then held down the arpeggio
140. irectly LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 20 Comparison with a sound recording studio LMMS is a MultiMedia Studio So the best way to understand LMMS is by comparing it with a real sound recording studio Think of a musical piece or a sound track being recorded in a studio A song is created by adding different sounds 1 Vocals The lead singer s voice and chorus 2 Melody instruments violin piano flute etc 3 Bassline instruments rhythm created by playing short low pitch notes 4 Percussion drum set xylophone etc 5 Sampled sounds ocean waves thunder rain wind car engine clops bird calls animal sounds etc In a professional sound studio care is taken to record each source of sound separately The louder sources e g drums are even kept in soundproof cabins called isolation booths to ensure that their sound does not reach the microphones meant for the quieter instruments In the post recording editing phase all sounds are carefully examined for any accidental noises and mistakes in pitch and timing These problems are corrected Then special effects such as panning cross fading etc may be applied to any of the sounds Finally the sounds are mixed to create the final song Producing a song needs a lot of costly resources 1 People A musician to write the score lead singers chorus singers and musicians to play all melody and percussion instruments a conductor for the actual r
141. irst tab Plugin has an instrument specific set of controls Appendix A explains how different instruments are controlled in LMMS The other four tabs are common amongst all instruments Tab Function Env LFO Controls that dynamically change the instrument s volume and frequency content while a note is played Func Controls for making the instrument automatically play arpeggios or chords FX Chain of LADSPA effects plugins operating on this instrument MIDI Shows which MIDI channels this instrument will receive and send events on These tabs are explained below The ENV LFO tab Before we discuss the functioning of this tab refer to Glossary to understand the terms envelope and LFO LMMS controls the sound of an instrument by applying a filter e The filter is optional You can turn off the filter and let the instrument s original sound reach the output LMMS allows you to select from 8 different filters Lowpass Lets the low frequencies pass and stops the high frequencies Highpass Lets the high frequencies pass and stops the low frequencies Bandpass csg Lets only a certain band of frequencies through Bandpass czpg Lets only a certain band of frequencies through Notch Stops only a narrow band of frequencies and lets the rest pass Allpass A filter that lets all frequencies through but has the same phase shifts time delays and resonance properties as o
142. is shown below 1 2 3 4 5 6 Automation Editor Drag a control while pressing lt Ctrl gt o o a Y Bl 2118 10 mT A mo vi 7 l i 2 3 Ww F il m As can be seen the graph is not drawn with a line Instead LMMS fills the area below it with yellow color No Group Button Keyboard Function shortcut Clicking on the button toggles it between Play and Pause El Play Spacebar Plays the curve starting from the playhead marker bud 76 To simulate that the source of that sound zipped past you from one side to another LMMS User Manual gt The Automation Editor 90 Spacebar Stop playing the curve Edit This tool inserts control points and also interconnects them to form the automation graph When you draw the curve seems to lurch uncontrollably under the cursor That is because the x value of the points can be only multiple of the Quantization setting and the y axis can only have a few discrete values allowed to the control that is being automated As a result when you drag the mouse in the window the curve jumps to the nearest allowable coordinates e With the pencil tool selected press SHFT and click to produce straight lines in the graph e With the pencil tool selected right clicking turns it into Eraser tool see below SHFT D Deletes the control point on the curve that touches the vertical cross hair line of the mouse pointer W
143. itor We can automate the VOL and PAN controls in the tracks in the BB Editor Task Details Creating a new automation track Click on the EAS button in the toolbar A new automation track is launched e Anew automation track has no automation curve in it e Unlike the automation track in the Song Editor the automation track in BB Editor has a built in single element a place holder for the automation curve which you cannot delete The element automatically occupies the entire timeline e You have to first associate a control with the automation track and then draw an automation curve in it e When you add any track in the BB Editor it is always placed at the bottom of the stack The automation track also follows this rule However it is a good practice to place the automation track just below the track it automates e When a new Automation track is added it is always given a dummy name Automation track You have to rename the track typically based on which control of which track is being automated Piano Pan Thunder Volume etc 53 Note that the 16 step pattern shown here is valid only when the measure is one note long which happens with time signatures of 2 2 3 3 4 4 etc For the other time signatures the number of steps would be different 54 Ona realistic note we must note that this is not much of a benefit considering that this is not such a frequently needed operation and it does mu
144. l so that your mail does not get filtered by my spam filters A known issue is that some information is still missing in the manual Unfortunately had to leave some blanks in the manual because that information was simply not available If you have any related information please share it so that all readers can exploit the full power of all plugins Thanks in advance Basic Concepts This manual uses some terms and concepts that may not be known to you Understand them first Fundamental Terms The terms used in the discussions throughout the manual are explained here The list is not presented in alphabetical order The foundation concepts are explained first and then higher level concepts based on them are explained later More general terms are covered in the Glossary Term Meaning LMB Left Mouse Button RMB Right Mouse Button Click Press the LMB momentarily and release it immediately Right click Press the RMB momentarily and release it immediately Hover Move the mouse till the pointer is on the target object but do not click LMB or RMB Context menu When you hover the mouse pointer on various parts of LMMS interface and press RMB you get a pop up menu The options available in this menu change based on the current context combination of all applicable factors Hence this menu is called a context menu Mousewheel The scrolling wheel of the mouse located between LMB and RMB Roll the Turn
145. l l p L o pR Controls how much of the incoming left channel signal is routed to the right channel lp R o p L Controls how much of the incoming right channel signal is routed to the left channel lp R o p R Gain attenuation of the Right channel B Keyboard shortcuts This chapter shows the keyboard shortcuts used in LMMS Note In the following text a sign indicates that multiple keys are pressed together e g CTRL C means press CTRL first keep it pressed down and press C The SHFT CTRL and ALT keys are called modifier keys because they change the behavior of the basic letter key The listing follows these rules e The shortcuts are listed in alphanumerical order e Ifa keyboard shortcut is further modified by an additional modifier key e g CTRL S and CTRL SHFT S these are listed together as a group e Mouse modifiers e g SHFT drag are listed before keyboard based shortcuts Main Window anywhere in LMMS FRO Show The Song Editor FeO Show Beat Bassline Editor Key F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F11 ts IE IN A A pe mo res OOOO a If a project is already open and if any changes are not saved URE o O act LMMS will ask you whether to save those changes If a project is already open and if any changes are not saved ee PENAN EA SURO PEOC LMMS will ask you whether to save those changes CTRL S Save current project name Export current project to WAV or If a project is already open and if any
146. l gt The FX Mixer 77 SI Part How this works Volume fader Controls the volume of the channel e Adjust the relative volume of each input channel e The fader does not have separate controls for the left and Right channels of the stereo sound In other words there is no pan control here The fader of the output channel acts as master volume control for LMMS Volume meter These vertical bars of LEDs show the sound level in stereo left and right speakers When there is no sound the bars are dark When sound comes in the LEDs glow and the height of the lighted column shows the sound level The LED bar has a color gradient It is green at bottom yellow in middle and red at top When the red part of the bar flashes it means the sound level is excessive and its waveform would be clipped To avoid distortion lower the fader knob 4 till the sound level drops to the yellow green zone The Effects Chain pane When you select any of the input channels or the output channel the effects chain pane shows the stack of special effects that are applied to the selected channel By default none of the Mixer channels input or output have any effects So this box appears empty when you select any of the 64 input channels or the Master output channel To apply effect to any channel select it first by clicking on its label and then press the button in the Effects Chain pane
147. l be same as the last note that was created or edited You can also select any other value from the drop down menu Note pane You can also control the zoom level by holding down the Ctrl key and rolling the mouse wheel up or down Note Volume LMMS allows you to control the volume of each individual note so that you can create keyboard expression LMMS can record the note volume information if you are recording from a MIDI keyboard that is capable of keyboard expression However notes created with the other methods have the same default loudness To add expressions you will have to adjust the loudness of these individual notes The Note Volume pane MH allow you to do this as follows When you add a new note in the Notes pane EJ LMMS automatically adds a green vertical bar representing its volume in the Note Volume pane as shown at right You can drag the orange tip of this volume bar to adjust the note s volume A taller bar means a louder note As you drag the dot LMMS plays the note so that you can precisely tune the note s volume Instead of dragging the dot you can just click above below the dot to achieve the same effect While adjusting the volume visually check the volume in the Master volume meters in the FX Mixer window Take care that the bars do not reach the red zone otherwise the sound will be distorted In the Notes pane EJ LMMS changes the transparency of the note s bar to reflect
148. lative to the other oscillators Range 0 to 360 degrees SPD Stereo Phase Detuning Phase offset between left and right stereo channels Range 0 to 360 degrees Tip For best results set different waveforms with different chorus settings LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 127 The TripleOscillator can be set to sound like some familiar instruments Here are some recipes Instrument Settings and method synth bass Start with a fresh Triple Oscillator with the default sine wave patch Start on the PLUGIN page and change the waveforms Try some different combinations A square a triangle and a sine wave are a good combo or set them all to saw or moog saw Select the ENV LFO page Turn the filter on to LowPass 2x LowPass or Moog and turn the cutoff all the way down Your sound becomes almost inaudible Go to the CUTOFF subpage and turn the envelope on Turn Hold Sustain and Release to zero Now start tweak the resonance knob in the FILTER section If you are using the Moog filter NEVER turn the resonance past about 0 85 Now play some really low notes Electric bass This is just a basic bass without overdrive Start with a sine patch and mute OSC 1 Turn the volume of OSC 2 to 100 Set OSC 2 OSC 3 to PM Phase Modulation Turn on the volume envelope and give it a long decay very short release and an attack around 1 50 or 1 20 of a second Go t
149. le section The FX tab opens see the figure on the right Click on the Add Effect button The Add Effects window pops up Select the Peak Controller near the bottom of the list and press OK The Instrument window now shows the Peak Controller The Controller Rack window automatically shows the same controller and gives a suffix number to it e g Controller 1 Make a note of this number it will be used soon A separate window shows the settings of the controller Now turn to the Song Editor Right click on the Volume control of the melody track and select the Connect to controller menu option kickO1 ogq L kickO1 ogg GENERAL SETTINGS kickO1 0gg i eee M VOL PAN PITCH FX CHNL PLUGIN O a a aN drums kick01 ogg UE 0 2 Add effect ee VOL PAN wy kick01 ogg GENERAL SETTINGS kickO1 0g9 O VOL PAN PITCH F CHNL PLUGIN ENV LFO FUNC 33 MIDI EFFECTS CHAIN 2X BassBooster Effect LADSPA Effect 4 x 4 pole allpass LADSPA Effect AM pitchshifter LADSPA Effect Al g LADSPA Effect Al LADSPA Effect Al LADSPA Effect Allpass delay line noninterpolating LADSPA Effect Amplifier Mono LADSPA Fffect Amplifier Stereo LADSP 1 Artificial latency s delay line linear interpolation LADS LADSP Auto phaser LADSPA Erec Barry s Satan Maximiser LADSPA Effect C AmpllI Tube amp Plugin description UL kickO1 ogge GENERAL SETTINGS kickO1 ogg a
150. line Editor works The following screenshot shows the different parts of Beat Bassline Editor For simplicity only one pattern track is shown in the Beat Bassline Editor However in actual practice each BB track is made of several pattern tracks 4 Be 1t Bassline Editor Co a Beat Bassline 1 Sa E gt Oe Default preset P N VOL PAN 7 89 10 41 12 No Function The button plays pauses the currently selected BB pattern The same button changes between play o and pause ol When a paused pattern is played again it continues from the paused position The button stops playing the currently selected pattern and the playback returns to the first step in the pattern The drop down menu allows you to select the beat bassline pattern to edit It displays the current beat bassline being edited e In a new project the pull down menu contains only one option Beat Bassline 0 e When you add more Basslines in the Song Editor their names appear here as options so that you can select any Bassline for editing The button creates a new beat bassline track in the Song Editor and gives it a new number in the pattern Beat Bassline n where n is the next available incremental number As soon as you add a Bassline track in the Song Editor its name is also added in the Beat Bassline pull down menu FJ Now the pull down menu can select that track Each subsequent click on the button adds a track
151. ll editor creates and edits notes for melody and bassline tracks These notes can be placed in Instrument tracks placed in the Song Editor and Bassline tracks placed in the Beat Bassline Editor Thus the Piano Roll Editor serves as a tool for the editors and that is why it is not mentioned directly in the LMMS functional diagram You can launch the Piano Roll Editor by any one of the following methods e Inthe Song Editor double click on the timeline of any Instrument track VOL PAN in Song Editor e Inthe BB Editor double ar a 2e A click on any step or the bar z s iis VOL PAN yin Beat Bassline Editor in any Pattern track The Piano Roll Editor Interface y Piano Roll Default reset a 1 l 2 4 Volume FERRER PERES Note LMMS also allows you to launch a stand alone Piano Roll Editor by clicking on the E button in the main tool bar However this is of no use because the Editor is not associated with any track Therefore use this button only to turn the Piano Roll Editor on off after it is launched from a Instrument Bassline track The following table gives a brief introduction of each part We will discuss each part in more details later LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 54 No Group Button Keyboard shortcut Function Play record Spacebar Plays the notes starting from the playhead marker Pressing the space bar again toggles the
152. long element Part 3 Delete the non relevant parts from each track 1 Double click on the TripleOscillator track s element LMMS loads its contents in the Piano Roll Editor Now select all the notes except the first two measures and press DEL key on your keyboard Although the notes are deleted the element is not shortened It remains 16 measures long but has contents only in its first two measures The rest is completely blank now 2 Double click on the SF2 Player track s element LMMS loads its contents in the Piano Roll Editor Now select the notes in the first two measures and press DEL key on your keyboard Although the notes are deleted the element is not shortened It remains 16 measures long with its first two measures completely blank now That s it We are ready with a two track song Miscellaneous changes Here are some suggestions 1 Change the tempo of the song 98 Many SF2 files have only a few selected instrument sounds Some have sound of just a single instrument Therefore make sure you have downloaded SF2 files with the sounds you want 99 If you wish you can shorten the element to remove the 14 blank measures as the blank part does not contribute to the song anyway 100 Since the blank part is at the beginning of the element you cannot easily remove it by just re sizing the element You have to first select all the notes and move them to the left Now the blank area is at the end of the elemen
153. me amplitude of a musical note Apply a pulsating automation curve to VOL control of any track Crescendo A gradual increase in loudness Apply the increase to the Vol control of the instrument in the Song Editor or to the Vol control of a FX Mixer channel that is attached to a group of instruments Effects Created with Controllers Side chaining the Tracks Directly You can use the volume level of one track to control the volume of another track This mechanism is called side chaining Side chaining has multiple uses 1 Used by disc jockeys for ducking lowering the music volume automatically when a DJ speaks and raising it again when he stops speaking 2 Used to create a composite sound track of a movie where the volume of the background music is automatically lowered when there is a commentary 3 Used to avoid overdriving the amplifier when there is a beat sound by lowering the volume of the melody track s whenever a beat occurs The side chaining is a three step process 3 Add a peak controller to the track that has the controlling sound i e the commentary or the beat track 4 Right click on the control knob slider fader etc that is to be controlled and select Connect to controller option In the window that pops up select the controller we added in step 1 5 Set LMMS to play in continuous loop mode Play the content endlessly while you adjust the controller s settings Let
154. n created using bassline instruments a separate track is used for each distinct pattern 4 Asample track plays a recorded sound like an audio player a given track can contain several audio samples 5 An automation track automates the controls in a instrument beat bassline or sample track a given automation track can control several tracks Remember that LMMS also allows you to apply song global automation directly to any control without needing a separate Automation track A given song may have multiple tracks of each type as required When you play the song LMMS reads all the tracks at the playhead position and produces the music e It renders the notes from the Instrument tracks e It renders the beats from the Beat tracks and or the bassline rhythm from the Bassline tracks e It plays the Sample tracks like an audio player 13 Understand the difference between a sample and a sample track A sample is just a recorded sound in the form of a compressed or uncompressed file wav mp3 aac etc lt can be used in all three content type tracks Instrument track Beat Bassline track or sample track A sample track is a specialized track that contains and plays one or more samples LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 38 It varies the controls of the content tracks as defined in the Automation tracks or in the song global automation curve for any given control In the following section we will see how to c
155. n indirect method Add the Peak Controller in the Effects chain panel of the FX Mixer module or to the Instrument window of an instrument LMMS adds the real window of the Peak Controller there and at the same time it adds a dummy panel for this Controller in the Controller Rack Notice that the Controller Rack represents both the LFO and Peak types with identical dummy panels In this figure Controller 3 is a Peak Controller whereas the others are LFO controllers Deleting a Controller To delete a controller from the rack right click on the controller and select Remove this plugin option Caution Always delete a Peak Controller from its parent window i e the window where it was created The FX Mixer or the Instrument window lts mirror image in the Controller Rack gets deleted automatically Attaching a Controller to Target control Note that when a controller is added to the Controller rack it is not attached to any target control You have to manually attach each controller to its target control Since the attachment methods are different for the LFO and Peak controllers we will see them separately Changing the settings of a Controller The default setting of a new controller is rarely useful Therefore you have to change the settings of each controller 80 It is very important to note that the Peak Controller is added to the controlling source track not to the target control track 81 Unfortunately the
156. n is a customizable wavetable synthesizer Normally a wavetable is created by sampling the sound of a real life instrument e g piano flute guitar but it can also be created by synthesizing the waveform While the AudioFileProcessor plugin is based on the first aproach the Bitinvader plugin is based on the second approach Process Select a waveform or draw it by hand and then adjust sample length of Default preset Control How it works GENERAL SETTIMGS Detek prat Sd Interpolation Smoothens the curve by plotting more points between the 2 B points on original curve PAN PITCH Normalize PLUGIN MAA FUNC FX MIDI Zh BIT INVADER Set the sample length of the waveform Range 8 to 128 E Interpolation Smoothen the waveform by averaging the points on the curve The shape of the curve changes and any spikes are removed E Normalize Click on any waveform e Sine e Triangle e Sawtooth e Square e White noise e User defined shape draw your own waveform in the pane Tip You can select any of the predefined shapes and then modify it by drawing parts of the shape Special note Here sample length means the number of points on the graph When you reduce the sample length it retains the specified number of points counting from left and discards the rest permanently As a result if you increase the sample length again the graph again gets more points
157. n more details later 8 Note that the basic purpose of a percussion track is to provide rhythm to the composition Thus it is not limited to the drum set Any natural or man made sound can provide rhythm e g Instruments such as flute guitar or piano human voice clapping etc Traditionally the term FX is used to mean Effects SFX means special effects 10 The LFO signal also varies the control just like an automation curve The only difference is that while the automation curve is hand drawn the LFO signal is a periodic signal sine wave square wave etc with a precisely known frequency and amplitude LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 26 out how it changes the playback sound of the song Do not try to compose or edit a song at this stage It will only make things harder for you To open a demo song follow this procedure 1 Click on the my projects button in the side bar 2 Click on the left of the demos folder to expand it Now LMMS shows a list of demo projects cool songs demos Factory files TobyDox Crystallo mmp vonsully RaceTheBeat m beat _collection mmp demol mmp demo2 mmp demo3 mmp demo4 mmp demo5 mmp demo6 mmp lbsO2 quick mmpz loop _collection mmp newPangled mmpz some_basslines mmp a B E E E 3 Double click on the newfangled mmpz file This demo contains all the components we want to see at this stage FA My projects 4 Multiple smalle
158. nal sound Although only one pitch is recorded and digitized the playback can simulate the sound of the instrument over several octaves by reading the digital sample at different speeds to produce a higher pitch the sample is read at a faster speed The sound of some instruments changes its timbre significantly at different pitches In such cases more samples are taken at different pitches so that the synthesizer can produce realistic sound in all octaves The file that stores the table of waveforms is called a wavetable A given file may have tables for one or more musical instruments Several mutually incompatible technologies exist for creating and using the wavetables Each technology has its own file format for storing its wavetables e g SF2 GUS or GM LMMS can use all these formats using different plugins Beat A beat is a short low pitch sound typically created with unpitched percussion instruments such as the ones used in a drum kit For another use of this term see tempo Bassline A bassline is low pitched repetitive pattern played by a rhythm section instrument such as the bass guitar bass violin or a keyboard instrument piano Hammond organ electronic organ or synthesizer Use of bassline is more common in some musical genres LMMS User Manual gt Basic Concepts 13 1 Term Meaning Track A track is a unit of the GUI that displays the following 1 Controls fo
159. nds Yes Yes Control automation Yes Yes check what do the record buttons in both song BB editor do How do they affect the table here 3 The original Linux tag is no more valid because it runs on all major Operating Systems now 4 Bassline is used only in some musical genres 5 Editing includes noise removal cut out unwanted parts adjust volume change tempo and pitch etc LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 21 As shown above the methods used in LMMS are quite different from a traditional studio 1 Wewrite a musical score for melody instruments piano guitar violin trumpet flute etc inside LMMS and render the sound using wavetables of those instruments We write the beat patterns and play them using wavetables of percussion instruments We write the bassline and play it using wavetables of bassline instruments We play ready made audio tracks e g lead singers chorus dialogs prerecorded natural man made sounds We have to record and edit the audio tracks separately We can introduce special effects in each individual track We can also make a group of certain tracks and then manipulate them together as a single unit e g vibrato or crescendo This is like having sections in an orchestra string brass woodwind and percussion instruments where all instruments in a given section play in unison We will see the details when we discuss the LMMS interface LMMS User Manual gt
160. ng the controls within each effect Now all instruments and presets in the group will render various effects in perfect sync This is a powerful feature e To apply any effect to a channel first select the channel and then load the effect in the Effects Chain pane You can apply multiple effects to any input channel These effects are chained together the effects are applied sequnetially in top to bottom order e You can adjust the relative volume of all input channels For example you may want to make the lead singer s voice to be louder than the music e You can also apply multiple effects to the output channel and adjust its volume These effects are chained together the effects are applied in top to bottom order To apply any effect to the output channel first select it and then load the effect in the Effects Chain pane The fader and mute controls of all channels can be automated Further all controls of the individual effects applied to any channel can also be automated e Itis a good practice to use each rack for a specific type of track say Rack A for instruments Rack B for percussion Rack C for samples This keeps everything neatly organized The channel structure As shown above the input channels and output channel have identical structure This is explained below SI Part How this works E Channel The input channels are numbered 1 through 64 numser The output Master channel is numbere
161. ngth control to Last note Gs MESS which copies the first note s length for the subsequent notes Now click in the Notes pane to enter the first note Go on clicking to enter subsequent notes till you come to a note with different length Adjust the note s length and continue Now LMMS will use this new length for the subsequent notes So you may have to adjust the length of the next note once again There are two shortcut methods as well LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 60 Recall that the Note Length Lia control of LMMS can be set to any one length e g 1 2 or 1 4 or to Last note We will be exploiting this feature in our shortcut methods 1 Enter all notes with a standard length and then alter a few notes to make them shorter longer This method is useful when most of your notes are of one length First use the Note Length ls S control to set the length that is used the most in your song say 1 4 This is the default length now Click all the notes with this length in Notes pane You will have to be careful to enter all notes at the correct place Now adjust the length of a few notes to make them shorter say 1 16 or longer say 1 2 by dragging their right side edges 2 Change the notes length as you go This method is useful if your song has notes with widely varying lengths Placement of notes in such a song is difficult so you have to adjust the waa of each note before plac
162. no need to save the new setting LMMS remembers it drums kick0 1 09 MA Repeat the above two steps for the melody track to connect it to Channel 2 of FX Mixer In the FX Mixer click on the Channel 2 to select it when the channel is selected the label turns green In the Effects Chain pane of the FX Mixer O as press the Add Effects button The Add Effects window pops up gt Add effect PR Select the Peak Controller near the bottom of the list and press OK LADSPA Effect 4 x 4 pole allpass LADSPA Effect AM pitchshifter LADSPA Effect Aliasing LADSPA Effect Allpass delay line cubic spline interpolation LADSPA Effect Allpass delay line linear interpolation LADSPA Effect Allpass delay line noninterpolating LADSPA Effect Amplifier Mono LADSPA Fffect Amplifier Stereo LADSP Artificial latency LADSF 1 Audio Divider Suboctave Generator LADSP Auto phaser LADSPA Erec Barry s Satan Maximiser LADSPA Effect C AmpllI Tube amp 119 Note that there is nothing special about channel 1 You can use any other input channel LMMS User Manual gt E Adding Special Effects 150 Three things happen simultaneously 1 The Peak controller appears in the Effects chain pane 2 The Controller Rack also shows the same peak controller with a serially given number suffix Note this number down In this example the controller is named Controller 1 3 LMMS also pops up the controll
163. nts of all tracks The track specific nature of elements will be explained later 19 The name may be derived from tape recording era where a magnetic head records the audio signal on tape and plays it back 20 This is somewhat like using stickers on the fridge door to write messages We never write directly on the fridge door If the message is long we use a larger sticker We can move stickers around to make better sense out of the messages written on them We can discard any sticker We can copy the message from one sticker to a new one and edit it LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 42 Task Details Inserting an element in the track Select the insertion point for the element on the timeline of the track You can refer to the measure numbers KPA Once you find the measure at which the element is to be placed click on it Initially the measure itself seems to turn black or blue depending on the track type However in reality LMMS has placed the element on top of that measure and so the track is hidden below it Creating Editing the contents of an element Double click on any element Depending on the track type LMMS pops up the relevant editor window and loads the current contents if any of the element in it e The Instrument elements get edited in the Piano Roll Editor The Beat and Bassline elements get edited in the Beat Bassline Editor e The Automation elements get edited in
164. o multiple controls in LMMS The Peak Controller A Peak controller senses the sound peaks in one sound and changes the value of the target control Typically a peak controller is used to reduce the volume of the target sound ducking but may be used to increase the volume of the target sound The main window of the Peak Controller has four controls 1 The yellow lamp Jj toggles the controller on off 2 The knobs Pl are explained here Ce E A WD DECAYGATE ad Peak Controller 3 The Controls button J toggles the settings window see below 3 When the Controls button is pressed a second window pops up with a Peak Controller additional controls for the Peak Controller All these controls are explained here Dea GA BASE AMT ATTACKEDECAYT EF Mute 83 If you want to apply a controller to any knob etc you must first create a controller in the Controller Rack 84 Note that the LFO Controller has only one settings window whereas the Peak Controller has its settings split in two different windows LMMS User Manual gt The Controller Rack 96 Applying the Peak Controller Assuming that you have already added a Peak Controller 1 Add a peak controller to the track that has the controlling sound 2 Right click on the control knob slider fader etc that is to be controlled and select Connect to controller option In the window that pops up select the controller we added in step
165. o that you can adjust the note s panning to your liking You can also visually check the panning in the Master volume meter in the FX Mixer window Take care that the higher bar does not reach the red zone otherwise the sound will be distorted Composing in the Piano Roll Editor So far we saw how the controls of the Piano Roll Editor work individually Now we will see how to use them during the actual process of composition Before we see the actual composition techniques a word to the wise Save often When you save a project for the first time you will be prompted for a folder name and a project name When you save a file LMMS displays a success message at the bottom of the screen Do NOT do anything till this message appears otherwise you risk crashing LMMS Note that subsequent saves will overwrite this file So every time you create something that sounds good make it a point to save the work as a separate file with a suffix and store it separately as back up This way if you are not happy with your latest changes in it you can fall back upon the earlier version that was OK Writing Notes with mouse A typical song will have a mix of long and short notes The simplest method is to set the Note Length control to the most predominantly used length say 1 8 If you come across a longer or shorter note then first enter it with the standard length and then resize it E Last note l Another approach is to set the Note Le
166. o the FX page and add a TAP Chorus Flanger effect This adds an extra layer of richness to the sound Now go back to the PLUGIN page and decide where you want OSC 3 s volume that is the amount of phase modulation between OSC 3 and OSC 2 Finally re enforce the fundamental lowest harmonic of your sound by turning OSC 1 up just a bit This is optional Or try triangle wave Organ Real organs are basically additive synthesizers They add together a few dozen simple sine waves to form a complex tone This is pretty easy to mimic with the Triple Oscillator and LMMS s chords Start with a fresh sine patch and using each oscillator s Crs coarse knobs have them placed in three different octaves Flip over to the FUNC page and turn on chords Set the chord to Octave and set RANGE to three or four Neat eh Play different Cs They sound similar don t they That s because most of the harmonics are the same For some fun change one of the oscillators to a triangle wave You can refine the sound by changing which octaves each oscillator plays in or by adjusting their relative volumes LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 128 VeSTige This plugin is an adapter for using VST and VSTi plugins from within LMMS It simply connects the LMMS to an existing VST or VSTi plugins on your computer You can download a huge variety of musical plugins from the internet many of them are freeware e Usually V
167. o the timeline It is possible to add steps to and remove steps from the step display This simply adds an extra measures or more and puts steps in that so it does not change the tempo of the beats currently in the track or the duration of each step allows you to remove steps from the timeline You cannot remove steps so that there would be less than a measure The Context Menu in Automation Track The automation track in BB Editor has Open in Automation editor Copy P Faste FYMutejunmute lt Ctrl gt middle click if Clear Reset name Change name Open in Automation Editor Open the editor in automation editor window for editing the curve Note that you Copy Paste Mute Unmute Clear Reset name Change name can create an automation curve that is longer than the element but the rest of it will not be active Copy the element into clipboard the original element is not affected Paste the element from the clipboard The original element is overwritten You cannot paste an element on bare track only on another element Mute this element the other elements on that track are still active Unmute this element if muted previously Clear off the automation data the target control will not be automated any more Resets the label on the element now the name on it is the same as the track s name Change the label that appears on the element when you see the track Each element
168. oduces sound only during the on steps o The sounds from all tracks are combined to produce the ultimate rhythmic sound The screenshot shows just one building block This entire pattern is repeated to produce the rhythm In this example the screenshot shows the rhythm named Main Beat If you see the previous screenshot you will realize that this pattern is played throughout the song all the 14 measures Play the selected rhythm song by clicking on the o button the first button in the toolbar Note that the BB Editor plays just one rhythm at a time It cannot play the melody tracks at all Listen to the playback sound and observe how it correlates with the indicators in the window Toggle individual tracks on off by clicking on the green lamps and see how that affects the rhythm Play any track in solo mode by clicking on the second lamp the black lamp ol which turns red 8 when you click on it and see how that affects the rhythm Click on the lamp again to exit solo mode Turn the volume and pan knobs and check how it affects the rhythm Note that in this project the composer has inserted four instruments in both rhythms but used the first three instruments for the Main beat rhythm and only the last instrument clap01 for the claps rhythm However you need not follow this approach You may choose to insert only the required instruments in each rhythm When you have finished close the project by pressing CTRL Q
169. ontents of the clipboard e The selection will be pasted at the first bar displayed in the Automation Editor Therefore before you paste the clipboard contents make sure the window is appropriately located to put the points into place e After the points are placed the selection area will still be active This means you can still move all the points together using the move M tool EY Loop Enable disable auto scrolling of the track Enable disable the loop points e When the loops are enabled the button lights up e Otherwise it is grayed out Toggles the loop behavior between the following modes 1 When stopped the playhead automatically returns to the start marker 2 When stopped the playhead stays at that place E Zoom Change horizontal zoom factor Change vertical zoom factor J Quantisation Sets the horizontal spacing of the control points as you draw By default this is set to 1 16th notes E E E E E EA ES Time ruler The time ruler marks the time in terms of measures When you are in global song edit mode the ruler shows the actual measure numbers in the song But if you are editing an automation element the measure numbers in the ruler are with reference to the starting point of the element Caution Itis also possible to launch the Automation window directly from the main toolbar of LMMS by clicking on the button However
170. ontroller After you apply a controller to any control its context menu gets an additional option Connected to Controller n This tells you which controller is tied to this control so that you can edit its settings in the Controller Rack This menu option has two sub options Edit connection If you select this option LMMS pops up the Connection Settings window see above where you can select another controller e Remove connection If you select this option LMMS simply delinks the controller from this control but does not delete the controller In fact the controller may still be connected to other controls so it is wise to check its other connections before deleting it The LFO Controllers As we saw in the first chapter the LFO controller applies a periodic signal to a control of LMMS and changes its value in a periodic manner For example if you apply a sawtooth signal from LFO controller to a volume knob the knob swings continuously clockwise and counterclockwise A single LFO controller can automate multiple controls belonging to several tracks LFO Controller Settings The LFO controller settings window has three main sections LFO Controller 1 e The first section J allows you to select the shape of the waveform The target control s swing is proportional to this waveform IEN Pamira 00 508 e The second section PA defines the signal that swings the target control E A a Eon T00 BASE The
171. ontrols of all GENERAL SETTINGS oscillators are arranged in eight such columns Default preset Individual oscillator controls VOL PAN PITCH FRO A i Control Function ENV ILE FUNC Fx Wave The waveform generated by the oscillator e 0 Sine e 1 Sawtooth e 2 Pulse e 3 Triangle e 4 Moog Triangle e 5 Exponential Vol Volume of the individual oscillator Pan Stereo panning of the individual oscillator Wide De tunes an individual oscillator in the range of 100 cents to 3 100 cents 1 semitone O IE E E acc Control Function Dist Adds distortion to add timbre to the sound Vol Master volume controls the combined sound of all eight oscillators Randomise Randomizes all oscillator settings Default settings of the oscillators By design the oscillators have to produce frequencies that are different from each other only then would this plugin would sound like a real organ otherwise the combined output will be just a single sine wave For this purpose the oscillators are set to produce different pitches even if the Wide knob of all oscillators is set to zero The default settings of the oscillators are as follows Heeel fe Semitones relative to base note OOOO Gs Semitones relative to previous oscillator ia 12 LMMS User Manual gt A Plugins 122 FreeBoy This plugin is an emulator of the sound chip of the Nintendo s Game Boy hand
172. ou can safely close the Automation Editor window without losing the contents You have the option of using a single automation track for all elements or using a separate automation track for each control The Context menus in Song Editor You can access several special functions by right clicking on any of the elements Note that the bare tracks do not have any context menus The context menu is different for the element of each track type Context menu for Instrument track element Open in piano roll a Delete middle mousebutton Copy p Paste MYMute unmute lt Ctrl gt middle click f Clear all notes abReset name Change name Hb Freeze di Add steps E Remove steps Open in piano roll Opens the track in Piano Roll Editor 31 This is the only track where the element is NOT created by double clicking on the track The reason is each control has a different set of possible values For example a volume control has the range of 0 to 200 with a default value of 100 whereas the PAN control has the range 100 to 100 with the default value of 0 Thus we cannot create an automation curve before selecting the target control LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 90 Delete Delete the element same as clicking the MMB Cut Remove the element from track and place its contents on clipboard Copy Copy the element into clipboard the original element is not
173. ou compose each pattern separately or exploit the common part in them Let us see an example Our song with 4 4 time signature has two near identical patterns as follows e The main pattern P1 kick snare kick snare kick snare kick snare e The second pattern P2 kick snare kick snare kick snare kick snaresnare Further let us think of two separate cases Case 1 The main pattern and the second pattern are used in alternate measures Case 2 The second pattern is used only in every fourth measure All other measures have the main pattern So the question before us is how to create these two patterns Well here are three alternative approaches Approach Remarks Make two Disregard any common beats and make each pattern independently separate patterns So the Song Editor will have two different patterns and it will use only one of these patterns in different measures of the song as required So the Song Editor simply uses the patterns like this Case 1 Y P1 P2 P1 P2 Case 2 3 P1 P1 P1 P2 Make a base Compared to pattern P1 pattern P2 has only one snare extra serle So we create P1 and an add on pattern P2 with only one snare at the end By adding P1 and P2 we get P2 The Song Editor will contain both P1 and P2 and it will use both P1 and P2 in the measures wherever pattern P2 is required So the Song Editor assembles the patterns like this Case 1 3 P1 P1 P2 P1 P1 P2 Case 2 3 P1
174. our tracks in a new project So we get a melody track with TripleOscillator as the instrument For the time being we will work with this instrument Soon we will see how to find any other desired instrument and use it 3 Inthe Song Editor double click on the first measure of this track LAS eee 4 LMMS adds an element to the track and automatically opens the Piano Roll Editor for editing this element The entire composing work will be done here First we must set up the Piano Roll Editor Piano Roll Default preset YDpe wt E O Tre LI Witney 2 3 4 o o O O AN 7 IAEA O an Set the Note duration pull down menu to 1 4 because most of the notes are quarter notes To finish the work fast we will first compose the music using all quarter notes and then adjust the duration of some notes to make them quaver notes O The Piano Roll shows four measures by default which is sufficient to show one line of the rhyme This is convenient we will compose the song line by line Since the song has no repetitive patterns we don t have to plan about that either o The Quantization factor pull down menu e is set at 1 16 by default That means if you adjust the start end of any note it will snap to the white lined grid that you see in the screenshot above This is OK for us because the smallest note in our song is a quaver 1 8th note o Lastly decide which octave you want to use The piano keys
175. play etc To avoid such a problem the MIDI Manufacturers Association has defined a global standard for patch numbers Note that although the patch numbers are standardized the actual sound quality timbre of any given instrument e g grand piano is allowed to differ from bank to bank So the same composition played using two different banks will play the same instruments but yet they may sound different because both banks use different wavetables for each given instrument Keyboard expression Expression The ability of a keyboard instrument to respond to the dynamics of the music or change the tone of the sound in response to the way that the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard Different keyboards can have different expression mechanisms e Velocity sensitivity Responds to how hard or fast the keys are pressed e Pressure sensitivity Responds to the force with which a key is held down after the initial impact and e Displacement sensitivity Responds to how far down a key is depressed Pitch Pitch is a property of sound that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency related scale Pitches are compared as higher and lower in the sense associated with musical melodies which are coherent successions of pitches Note that pitch is a subjective and perceived property it is not physically measurable Note The term note is used in two different contexts 1 The relative duration and pitch of
176. r does not provide this facility We can only open one percussion instrument track in the Piano Roll Editor at a time never together This makes it impossible to compose a combined beat track because you can not precisely place a stroke of one instrument vis a vis the stroke of another 1 e Now we consider composing bassline directly in Song Editor you can actually use a melody track in the Song Editor actually in the Piano Roll Editor instead of using a bassline track in the BB Editor However you will have to compose that track for the entire length of the song which is tedious Using a bassline in the BB Editor allows you to define the bassline pattern for a small duration and let LMMS repeat that pattern throughout the song This avoids a lot of the copy and paste operations that would be required if you were composing for the instrument directly in a melody track of the Song Editor Q Why does LMMS sound off key when use it for Indian Chinese Indonesian or Arabic music A Because they use different intonations or temperaments Indian instruments use Just intonation and Arabic instruments use the Arab tone system whereas LMMS is based on Equal temperament which is followed by Western music When musical instruments from different musical traditions are played together they are unable to play the same pitches Thus within each octave most of their notes are offset by a few Hertz Although this is a small difference it is enough
177. r the sound typically mute solo volume and pan controls 2 Visual display of a sound against time OR an automation graph against time Here are two examples of tracks used in LMMS we will see other types of tracks soon auitar a e e nan SENS in Song Editor i a a bassdrum ogg 2 A p i r VOL PAN in Beat Bassline Editor Patch The term patch is derived from the old days of modular synthesizers when different modules had to be interconnected using patch cords short pieces of cables with connectors at both ends Different patch combinations produced different sounds People had to note down the patch configuration that produced a certain sound they liked so that they could get the same sound in the next session The sounds were so much correlated with patches that eventually each specific sound itself came to be known as a patch Patches are no longer needed with the modern day equipment but even today the term patch means any single and identifiable sound e g a piano patch a flute patch etc Bank sound bank A set of patches is called a sound bank Within each bank the serial number of patches is predetermined For example in a specific bank the piano patch may be at 1 flute patch may be at 25 etc However such arbitrary sequence creates compatibility problems If the composer changes the sound bank all the instruments would change in his composition instead of piano flute would
178. r track s pan control see PJ As a result of this curve the guitar sound is swung between the left and right speakers Automation using LFO controllers Instead of using hand drawn automation curves LMMS can apply a low frequency periodic signal to any control to vary it in a periodic pattern LMMS has unlimited number of signal generators called LFOs Low Frequency Oscillators for this purpose You can vary the frequency and amplitude of the LFO output NSININS Many types of waveforms are available sine square triangular sawtooth etc rn So for example if you apply a square waveform HUL to the volume control knob the track s sound will keep switching between a high volume and a low volume You can also make the track switch ASA SJN between full volume and complete silence by increasing the amplitude of the LFO the tremolo effect If you apply the triangular waveform W it will increase the volume gradually to its peak value and then decrease the volume gradually to its minimum value This pattern will repeat indefinitely If you apply the sawtooth waveform 41 it will increase the volume gradually to its peak value and then instantly bring it down to its minimum value This pattern will repeat indefinitely Introduction to LMMS LMMS Linux Multimedia Studio is an open source digital audio workstation DAW software You can use LMMS to produce music by synthesizing sounds arranging samples of actual musical inst
179. r windows are opened inside the main window of LMMS Check their title bars and locate the Song Editor and Beat Bassline Editor windows E B m gt utorials The toolbar buttons in the second line in the toolbar toggle the various windows on off Before clicking on any button try to guess which window it will toggle Notice that only one of these windows can be active at a time the active window has a blue title bar and the other windows have gray title bars Clicking in any window makes it active We will focus on only two windows The Song Editor and the Beat Bassline Editor So let us have a quick look at the other windows first and get rid of them 1 The Project Notes window contains a note for you from the author of the musical piece Read that and close the window The Controller Rack window is not used in this particular demo project So close it In this song the FX Mixer serves only as the master volume control All the sounds are fed directly to the Master fader in the FX Mixer The composer could have used separate faders for each of its individual sounds He could also have applied special effects to the sounds in the FX Mixer However this demo song does not use the FX Mixer for such special purposes So nothing much to learn here close this window also Now that we have closed all the inconsequential windows we are left with the two main windows The Song Editor and the Beat Bassline Editor
180. rameters but section JJ can show and adjust only one set at a time DOD DEL ATT SPD AMT FREQ x 100 pa Po T MODULATE ENV AMOUN Select the type of filter in section PA Therefore you have to select each parameter and adjust the settings of its envelope and LFO using sections KE and AN amp F amp F You can turn off any of the three LFOs using the lamp in CUTOFF RESO section KIJ Now the plain un modulated envelope works without the influence of the LFO You can toggle the filter on off by clicking the toolbar or the A LH green lamp in Section PA 7 Let us see this in more details SI How this works E Edits three envelopes volume Filter cutoff frequency and Q Factor Se of the filter Select the parameter be edited in the TARGET ba Now its envelope settings are displayed in section 71 The effect of envelopes for Cutoff frequencies and Q Factor Resolution can be seen only when the filter J is turned on 72 Note that TARGET is the label for the toolbar It is not a tab by itself LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 82 SI How this works Adjust the envelope as follows 1 Adjust the six control points on the envelope curve using the six knobs range 0 to 1 To change value of any knob hover the mouse on it and roll the mousewheel Or click on the knob and drag the mouse up down Or double click on the knob and enter a precise value 4 d
181. reate edit and render these tracks The Song Editor window 2 3 Song Editor Defaut preset de Sample track 6 VOL Beat Bassline 0 Automation track i F KIC As shown above the Song Editor window has five groups of toolbar buttons K EJ and a tracks area J The toolbar buttons function as follows No Group Button Function El Play o record l l l o Play Pause with each click the same button toggles its role o Record samples from an audio device O Record samples from audio device while playing a song in Song Editor or a track from the Beat Bassline Editor o Stop playing recording FPJ Add tracks Add a Beat Bassline track also called BB track A BB track carries the composite sound of multiple instruments a typical example is the drum kit which has six instruments playing together to create a rhythm In addition it may also have the sound of a few bassline instruments Add a sample track Add an automation track Mode a Click on the timeline elements of the tracks to select them e In any track only the selected elements contribute to the music The unselected elements are ignored 14 Note that while the other tracks actually contribute sound the Automation track contributes its effect on its target control s volume pan etc Except for this difference it plays just like a normal sound track at the playhead position
182. reverse is not true LMMS allows you to delete the dummy panel for a Peak Controller from the Controller Rack However this does not delete the actual Peak Controller from its original location either the Instrument window or FX Mixer As a result an unusable Peak Controller is left behind To avoid this problem always remember to delete the real window of the Peak Controller from its parent window and the dummy panel will vanish by itself LMMS User Manual gt The Controller Rack 94 Since the settings of LFO and Peak controllers are different we will see them separately Naming the Controllers When a controller is added LMMS automatically gives an incremental number to it Es Controller Rack The example on the right shows a rack filled with four controllers numbered LFO Controller Controller 1 to Controller 4 Controller 1 LFO Controller Controller 2 However when you have added a large number of controllers it becomes difficult to remember which controller is meant for which control of which track Therefore it is AA l Peak Gontroller best to rename the controller as soon as you add it to this window Controller 3 LFO Controller Controller 4 Ii 5 10 a LE To rename a controller double click on it ETE A Rename Controller window pops up Enter the new name for the controller and RA T RAN TE A S press OK Always name the controller after its target control and track oe TI Editing or Removing a C
183. rn track ES Open in piano rol Copy Paste y Muterunmute lt Ctrl middle click if Clear all notes C Reset name Change name a Freeze O Add steps b D Remove steps Open in piano roll same as double clicking on the bar at the top of the timeline allows you to edit the notes of a pattern in the Piano Roll Editor rather than just as steps This means you can place notes with varying lengths other than the fixed 1 16 note length when you use the steps in the BB editor pitch volume and pan Copy allows you to copy a set of steps from the current track to the clipboard Paste allows you to paste a set of steps from the clipboard The copy and paste commands together allow you to copy a BB pattern from one track to another Mute Unmute allows you to quickly mute or unmute toggle the entire instrument in all patterns Notice that when the track is muted a mute banned speaker symbol a appears at the start of the track and the LED for the track stops flashing altogether Clear all notes allows you to quickly turn off all the steps in this track at once rather than middle clicking on all green on steps individually Reset Name If you had renamed the track earlier this option resets it back to this default name Change Name allows you to edit the name of this track Same as clicking on the label of the track Freeze allows you to pre render the sound of this track Now the CPU does not have to rend
184. round the knee point in the filter this effect has been used in much electronic music and is included in LMMS To freeze a song or bassline track is to pre render its sound and play that rather than render the track in real time This allows you to render a very complex track that would otherwise take too much CPU time to play with all the other tracks in the song While a track is frozen changes to it do not take effect When thawed the changes will take effect and the track will once again be rendered in real time as the song progresses Tracks can only be frozen when playback is stopped LADSPA is an acronym for Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin API It is a standard for handling filters and effects licensed under the GNU LGPL It was originally designed for Linux through consensus on the Linux Audio Developers Mailing List but works on a variety of other platforms It is used in many free audio software projects and there is a wide range of LADSPA plugins available Oscillators whose usual frequency is in the 0 1Hz 10Hz range i e from one beat every ten seconds to ten beats every second Above this frequency the oscillator is generating frequencies in the audible spectrum and the low frequency prefix is not used LFOs are typically used to control things such as filter sweeps and amplitude oscillation vibrato The LFO has settings just like the envelope curve Part Abbreviated Description
185. ruments or even your own voice and recording a MIDI keyboard and then using those sounds Any recorded sound can be further modified by combining the features of trackers sequencers and synthesizers LMMS also supports plugins with LADSPA and VST interface which means you can use almost any plugin available on the net many of them are free LMMS is available for Linux Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems Features An editor for composing melodies An editor for creating beats and basslines A 64 channel sound mixer with special effects that can be chained Editor for automation of properties volume pan filter etc MIDI keyboard support Built in instruments and effects Triple Oscillator Organ like synthesizer Organic Sampler AudioFileProcessor Wavetable Synthesizer BitInvader Kick amp Bassdrum synthesizer Kicker Monophonic simulation of Roland TB 303 LB302 Tuneful percussion synthesizer Mallets Emulation of GameBoy APU FreeBoy Emulation of Commodore 64 chips SID Vibrating string modeler Vibed Multiple ZynAddSubFX presets Compatible with many standards SoundFont2 SF2 Player Use high quality sampled sounds of real life instruments VSTi VeSTige Huge number of instruments and effects LADSPA Huge number of instruments and effects GUS patches PatMan Can play songs on the Gravis UltraSound cards MIDI LMMS can import MIDI and FLP Fruityloops Project files d
186. s Vol control to it We will create an automation curve such that during the first two measures the volume is kept low and then for the rest of the song it is high However realize that we have already applied the song global automation to the Vol control in the last experiment We will have to remove that influence on the control first otherwise two separate automation curves will be simultaneously acting on the Vol control 1 To remove the effect of the song global automation right click on the Vol control of the Default preset track and select Edit Song global automation option LMMS pops up the Automation Editor You have to set a flat horizontal line at 100 mid point Now the song global automation is still applied to the Vol control but it is set to the default value 2 Now press and hold CTRL key and then drag the Vol control and drop it on first measure of the Automation track Once you start dragging you can release the CTRL key ee IS ee E O ee ee ee A Te Default preset VOL PAN LLU O l Beat Bassline 0 cael aoe Automation track po o II WOL A new element is created on the automation track and linked with the vol control of the Default preset track Drag its right edge to expand it so that the element becomes as long as the song 93 On the other hand if we are preparing a projet where the source of sound is walking towards us the loudness of the sound should gradually grow 94
187. s of resources Samples and presets LMMS User Manual gt LMMS Main Window 33 The Instrument Plugins Tab The Instrument Plugins tab provides different instrumental sounds including some synthesizer sounds MIDI SF2 wavetables and VSTi sounds Instrument plugins Drag an instrument into either the Song Editor the Beat Bassline Editor or into an existing By default the plugins appear as rectangular buttons When you instrument track i instrument track hover the mouse on a button it expands to show some details Instrument plugins AudioFileProcessor simple sampler with warious settings A for using samples e g drums in an Instrument track E You can use the plugins in two different ways 1 Drag and drop the button into the Song Editor Now it acts as a melody instrument 2 Drag and drop the button into the Bass Bassline Editor You can also double click on the plugin button Now it acts as a percussion bassline instrument See Appendix A for more details about each plugin The My Projects folder holds your LMMS projects LMMS also provides some ready made projects to serve as demos tutorials and examples This is very useful for newbies demos tutorials T DAA O E a The pane shows you a folder tree including the subfolders you r e eee inete e orae iE created during saving the project files Ln e I i O 1 LL Loading a project is simple Just double
188. se LMB e As you drag the right edge horizontally the length of the bar increases in incremental steps The size of this step is decided by the quantisation control e Note that only the right edge can be dragged independently You cannot drag the left edge in a similar manner To achieve that end result you have to follow a two step process First move the entire bar to its new position and then resize it to bring the right edge to its original position LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 57 Function Details Delete notes With the pencil tool selected right click on any note to delete it Pressing RMB turns the Pencil tool into Eraser tool e To erase multiple notes press the RMB and drag the mouse across the notes to be erased Release RMB when done Selecting i With the pencil tool selected press CTRL to turn it into Select tool a multiple notes When you release CTRL the tool turns into pencil tool once again Now drag any one of the notes and the entire selection moves as a group This trick lets you select multiple notes and move them easily Duplicate a With the pencil tool selected drag the selected note s while pressing SHFT noteleelecton This moves a copy of the selection The original notes are not affected The eraser tool EA lets you delete a note by left clicking on it To erase multiple notes press the LMB and drag the mouse across the notes
189. section we will see features that are unique for each type of track The following screenshot shows the first track with the time ruler over it 2 4 gt OF WW amp E o o VOL PAN 587 Default preset 14 E No Item Function EJ Handle Drag the handle with your mouse to move the track upward downward in the stack 15 LMMS shows the playhead position while the track is played However once the playhead position goes beyond the right edge of the screen you cannot see what is being played LMMS has auto scroll mode in which the track is scrolled automatically to keep the currently played position in view 16 You can force LMMS to play between two markers start marker end marker placed on the time ruler You can also force LMMS to play endlessly within this range endlessly As soon as the playhead reaches the end marker it jumps back to the start marker and continues to play This is why it is called the loop It is typically used to review a particular part of the song LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 40 17 18 No Item Function Actions Clicking on this button allows you to take the following actions on the track e Clone the track create an exact duplicate with all melodies as in the original track e Remove this track its contents are also erased e Change the MIDI input and output settings for the track Lamps There are two lamps on
190. sequent chapters explained the sub windows of LMMS Then we edited the same demo song in LMMS and finally we composed a well known nursery rhyme Baa baa blacksheep in LMMS So at this point you can use LMMS confidently However this is also the most critical moment What you do next will decide whether you will follow a path to success and self fulfillment or give up LMMS altogether in frustration or disinterest Your skills at this moment are in fact NOT enough to create good music You must pick up knowledge about music theory Let me explain It is easy to enter notes in LMMS and play them But the trick is in knowing which notes to enter In other words you must know music theory such as harmony counterpoint etc It is even easier to create beats Just add percussion instruments and click on the steps in the BB Editor However you will soon lose interest if you limit yourself to such aimless exercises To get a much more fulfilling experience you must know the underlying drumming techniques and how rhythms accentuate the song In fact you should have the habit of forming the music in your head first and then using LMMS to give expression to what you have in mind Not the other way round Remember LMMS is just a tool Real music comes from within Fortunately a simple Internet search will give you a lot of websites that provide free lessons on basic music theory 1 Some lessons are a combination of text audio
191. song Click on the lamp again to exit solo mode 6 Turn the volume and pan knobs and check how it affects the song Notice that the beat tracks do not have volume and pan knobs because these controls are already provided in the Beat Bassline Editor which we will see next 7 Note that up to measure 6 only the Main beat rhythm plays But from Measure 7 onwards the song plays two rhythms simultaneously Main beat and Claps Turn them off one by one and see the effect We are not going to check the other features of the Song Editor window so this exploration is enough Now check out the Beat Bassline Editor As described earlier this wndow is used to compose rhythms Beat Bassline Editor Main Beat a Ta Pe bessdrumt4 ogg VOL PAN hihat_closed4 09q 2 lt VOL PAN la VOL PAN E clap03 099 o VOL PAN shakerdl ogg amm ME 1 Before doing anything notice the salient features in this window o The two different rhythms Main beat and claps are selectable from the pull down menu in the toolbar You can see and edit only one rhythm at a time in this window o The right side of the window shows the musical content against a timeline LMMS User Manual gt Introduction to LMMS 28 6 o Keep in mind that the entire timeline is generally one measure long and is divided in 16 steps beats The green steps are the on steps and the gray steps are the off steps The track pr
192. t To remove this blank area resize the element by dragging its right edge Finally re position the element on the track it should now begin at measure 3 LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 107 Vary it between 120 and 200 and see which tempo feels more natural A good method is to play the song in loop mode endless play and then change the tempo You do not have to stop and restart the song to change its tempo As soon as you change the tempo the change takes effect on the fly Play with the note volume area at the bottom of the Piano Roll Editor By default all notes are entered with the same volume Adjust the volume of some notes and see if it improves the song 3 Change the instrument to a MIDI voice In the Side Bar click on the very first Instrument plugins button el Exporting the Song When you work on the song the composition is saved in the project file After composing the song you have to export the file so that it can be played on other computers 1 Select the File gt Export menu or just press CTRL E A window pops up titled Select file for project export Navigate to the folder where you want to save the song file Use the file type pull down menu at the bottom of the window to specify the file type to be saved wav or ogg etc Click on the Save button The wav extension is analog so the exported song file will be large On the other hand the ogg ogg vorbis format yields
193. t amount as compared to the equivalent tone used in the equal temperament Although the difference in frequencies is very small a few Hertz two instruments tuned to different temperaments would sound out of tune So you will not be able to mix a pre recorded sample track created with other musical traditions with melodies created in LMMS The different temperaments are explained here Depending on which temperament is used by your musical tradition you may find LMMS to be incompatible to some extent Limitations of Percussion In LMMS we make building blocks of percussion pattern These building blocks are repeated in the song to generate the rhythm So if your musical tradition uses percussion where the combinations of mnemonics keep changing throughout the song then LMMS does not work well In other words LMMS does not allow you to create an open ended track of rhythm as in a drum notation software For example in Indian classical music both Hindustani and Carnatic the percussion played with Tabla Pakhavaj Mridangam etc is intricate and keeps changing its strokes throughout the musical piece To be able to create such music the BB Editor would have to cover the entire length of the song and also have facility to apply expressions by stretching some beats and changing their pitch a little Clearly the present design of LMMS is not meant to create this type of music So this is another area where you may feel that
194. tes that vary On the other hand this does not allow you to take out notes that are already in the base pattern e Consider breaking down the rhythm into common sections and their variations e The one instrument per pattern method is harder to compose but easier to combine them in various ways in the Song Editor The timeline in BB Editor The BB Editor s timeline KE and KEJ shows one measure when LMMS is launched Adding Steps to Timeline If your repetitive pattern is longer than one measure you have to make the timeline longer to accommodate the entire pattern This is done by adding more steps to the timeline To add steps right click on any step in the timeline and click on the Add steps option Select the number of steps to be added e In some cases the pattern is not integral multiple of a measure e g it may be 1 5 measures long In such cases the BB Editor shows integral number of measures and leaves some blank space on the right Original timeline 1 measure 16 steps long After adding 8 steps timeline is 2 measures 32 steps long with a gap of 8 steps on the right 59 Perhaps the reason is that many repeating patterns are one measure long LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 71 Effect of Time Signature on BB Editor s Timeline The exact length of a measure depends on the time signature setting according to the following formula time signature ratio x 16 number of
195. the Automation Editor So now we have two editor windows running together The Song Editor and one other editor You can create edit the element contents in that other editor window e All changes are instantly reflected in the element in the Song Editor e When you have finished simply close the other editor window there are no Save or OK buttons Closing the other editor does not affect the contents of the element e In case of instrument track if you add more contents to the right the element widens automatically However the elements of all other types of tracks do not expand automatically They have to be resized manually Notice that we did not talk about the sample track because LMMS does not provide any editor window to edit samples You can only insert an audio file in the element A double click on the element will pop up a Open audio file window Just browse through your file system and select an audio file wav mp3 aac etc Alternatively just drag n drop an audio file from explorer onto the element Resizing the element Note that the content of an element plays only for the duration of the element If the content stretches beyond the right edge of the element that part will be just ignored it does not contribute to the song at all However if you expand the element the content becomes active again and contributes to the song You can use this trick to create some content and then hide it awa
196. the instrument tracks 6 Baer 2 Compose notes for the bassline tracks Compose beats for the beat tracks only if you want to use pitched notes with varying lengths as beats Beat Bassline 1 Create composite beat patterns using multiple percussion instruments Editor l l a 2 Create composite bassline patterns using multiple bassline instruments Automation Editor Edit an automation track Controller rack This is just a stack of independent controllers Each controller can be applied to the volume or pan controls of any melody track or sample track in the Song Editor or a pattern track in the BB Editor One controller can be applied to multiple controls at a time Any controller can be applied to an input channel of the FX Mixer also which in turn is connected to multiple sound sources Project Notes Editor Enter notes about the project The Piano Roll Editor owes its name to piano roll which is a roll of paper with perforations rectangular slots punched in it The length of the roll represents time and its width represents pitch Therefore the position and length of each perforation slot defines the pitch and duration of the note to be played on the piano To reproduce the music recorded on a piano roll you need a player piano pianola or a reproducing piano Piano rolls were used to store and distribute musical pieces much like the MIDI files are used today The display of the Piano Roll
197. the manual is simply the LMMS s version number followed by a serially incremented number For example the number 0 4 12 2 means the second manual released for LMMS version 0 4 12 The manual will carry its version number on the front cover so that you can easily find out whether you have the latest manual What s new The latest changes in the manual is provided in the Appendix I If you have read the previous version thoroughly you can simply go through these changes to understand what has changed in both LMMS and manual Copyrights J00 gms his manual is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivs 3 0 Unported License Due care is taken to use non copyrighted material in this manual If you notice any copyright infringement please LMMS User Manual gt About this Manual 10 bring it to my notice and will correct it immediately Acknowledgments The cover and the LMMS logo are designed by Prasun Banerjee Feedback This section refers to feedback about this manual only To provide a feedback about LMMS bugs feature request or support requests please visit the LMMS site You are most welcome to give any suggestions to make this manual more accurate and comprehensive In future versions will be adding more music related text so any suggestion or contribution in this aspect are also welcome Please send a mail to raindrops fromsky gmail com Please begin the subject line with the words LMMS manua
198. the pull down menus do not have the traditional look Different icons are attached to the left side of the pull down menus and the options are in different formats percentage text fraction etc The values can be selected in multiple ways 1 Click on the arrow to view the full list Click on an option This is the best method if you are not familiar with the options 7 last note 4 2 Hover the mouse on the option labels and roll the mousewheel This method is better if you know the options well 3 Click on the option label area The control switches to the next option in the list Right click to go upward in the list Fader Changes volume It can be controlled in various ways 1 Drag the knob with mouse along the length of slider 2 Hover the mouse anywhere on the slider and roll the mousewheel 3 Click anywhere on the slider The knob will jump to that position 4 Right click anywhere on slider and select Reset option to bring the knob to middle 5 Right click anywhere on slider and select Copy value option Now right click anywhere on another slider and select Paste value option The second slider will assume the same position as the first Slider Similar to a Fader see above but meant for other variables Knob Changes a variable within a specific value range 2 Hover the mouse on it and roll the mousewheel 3 Double click on the knob A dialog box pops up Enter the desired value in it and press ENTER or click on the
199. the volume The softer notes become transparent and louder notes are shown in bright green In this example the first note has default volume Note how the transparency is changed to reflect the volume The second note is almost invisible because its volume is very low 43 This is an interesting twist Even if you edit the duration of any note anywhere in the notes area LMMS copies that latest value and applies it here LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 59 Note Panning When you add a new note in the Notes pane EJ LMMS automatically adds an orange dot in the center of the Note panning pane GIT This signifies that the note is exactly centered in the stereo field i e played with equal loudness from the left and right speakers To change the pan property of this note drag the dot up which gives more sound from the right speaker or down which gives more sound from the left speaker Now the dot turns into an orange line The farther you drag it from the center the more off center the note sounds Instead of dragging the dot you can just click above below the dot to achieve the same effect As shown in the three examples at right LMMS shows a color gradient in the note s bar to reflect the panning The brighter green side shows the louder side left or right Compare the green gradient in the notes with the direction of their pan lines As you drag the dot LMMS plays the note s
200. ther filters Moog A variation of the Low pass filter used in Moog synthesizers 2x Lowpass A low pass filter with twice the Q factor Further LMMS applies control envelopes to 1 The instrument s volume envelope 2 The Cutoff frequency envelope of the selected filter 3 The Q Factor envelope of the selected filter Further LMMS provides three LFOs which can be applied to these envelopes As a result the selected filter changes its characteristics dynamically even as the note is played from the press key instant till the sound dies after the key is released Why use LFOs Well imagine that instead of straight line segments the envelope is made of rope and you are shaking that rope to set up waves in it Imagine further that you can change the shape of these waves to sine wave triangular sawtooth Square or any shape of your choice You can change the speed frequency of these waves and also their amplitude This will change the envelope s shape from instant to instant e If the LFO is applied to the volume envelope it will introduce a tremor in the track s sound If this track has the singer s voice in it it will sound as if the singer s voice as emotional tremors in it 69 Note VSTige and ZynAddSubFX instruments won t respond to anything on this tab 70 Afilters Q factor is the measure of how steep the filter s shape is Higher the Q the more steeper the filter s curve A filter with steeper curve can do a
201. this down to make the piece play at a lower pitch and vice versa This can be useful if you have to render the composition in a different key for example if the singer is unable to match notes that are too high low or to match your compoisition to another existing composition Wave and CPU Usage Display Button Remarks The Wave CPU Display displays the current waveform being played during playback and the current CPU usage of all the LMMS instruments effects and sequencing Clicking on the display toggles it on off The Side Bar The Side Bar is permanently attached to the left hand side of the LMMS window It provides easy access to the resources saved LMMS projects instruments presets and samples that you will use in LMMS to compose your music Where do these resources come from Well LMMS comes with several resources of each type You can also create and save your own resources for your projects When LMMS is launched the Side Bar is in collapsed mode When you click on any button the side bar expands and shows you the contents of that section To use a resource in you project select it from the Side Bar and drag it into the main interface or double click on it Click on the button again to collapse the Side Bar 11 The original idea was to prevent loading of weak PCs But in practice this display does not seem to affect the CPU usage 12 We will see how to create two different type
202. to another track by CTRL dragging even if the target track is of the same type To copy an element to another target track use the context menu of the element Deleting elements Middle click on an element to delete it The element vanishes and the blank track below it is revealed Note that when an element is deleted the content placed on it is removed only from the track but the file is not deleted from the disk Note that an entire element always gets deleted as a single unit you cannot selectively snip away parts of an element You will have to edit the contents of the element as described below This completes the common description of all types of tracks Next we will see the unique properties of each type of track Keep in mind that except for these unique properties all types of tracks behave identically as described above 23 If you drag the element first and then press the CTRL key you will enter the fine placement mode So remember to press the CTRL key first and only then start dragging 24 Did you notice that we used CTRL twice in a single drag operation The first time was to copy an element and the second time to overrule the snap to measure LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 44 Working with Instrument tracks This type of track contains melodies created using sampled sounds of real life instruments Such as piano guitar violin trumpet flute oboe harp saxophone etc
203. tor earlier In this section we will take a detailed look at its window A sample BB Editor window is shown below Beat Bassline Editor h ride02 0qq 6 NO O 0 Oy batsdrum i oggq TU Je e iG clap0i ogg lt O Un I F ey ty Q TD P Fai crash02 099 ug E hihat_closed05 0gg oD En e LG a hihat_opened03 ogg 5 x m m pE LE J A E E kickO1 ogg The pull down menu lets you select the BB track all the BB tracks listed in the Song Editor appear here This area shows the composition of the selected BB track This figure shows that the BB track named Beat Bassline 0 was created by using seven percussion instruments It also shows their beat patterns Each percussion instrument has its own pattern track LMMS User Manual gt The Beat Bassline Editor 62 Structurally the BB Editor window is similar to the Song Editor window except for three major differences The timeline has steps instead of measures and elements Unlike the elements these steps cannot be shifted or resized Each step has a fixed duration of 1 16 note The timeline is much shorter here Most BB patterns are usually just one measure long This example shows a timeline with 16 steps As we will see later timelines can have any number of steps A much shorter sound sample less than 1 16 of a note is sufficient to create a rhythm How Beat Bass
204. track has multiple elements they can have different labels Change color You can change the color of any particular element This allows you to attract attention etc Context menu for Sample track element a Delete middle mousebutton Copy J Paste 2 yMutefunmute lt Ctrl gt middle click set clear record Delete Delete the element same as clicking the MMB Cut Remove the element from track and place its contents on clipboard Copy Copy the element into clipboard the original element is not affected Paste Paste the element from the clipboard The original element is overwritten You cannot paste an element on bare track only on another element e Note that you can paste an element into another track only if it is of compatible type Mute Mute this element the other elements on that track are still active Unmute Unmute this element if muted previously Set record Clear record 34 Thus before pasting an element you must create a blank new element at the target position and then paste the content of the clipboard 35 Thus before pasting an element you must create a blank new element at the target position and then paste the content of the clipboard LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 92 Context menu for Automation track element Open in Automation editor a Delete middle mousebutton Copy P Faste
205. truments in the BB Editor is actually just one measure long Thus it lasts for just one measure of the Song Editor However the first element in the Song Editor s Beat Bassline 0 track is five measures long So the Song Editor repeats this pattern five times Similarly the Song Editor repeats the pattern three times in the second element of this track This example is similar to the one described above J except that the pattern created here is used for another track Beat Bassline 1 The Song Editor repeats this pattern three times for the first element and two times for the second element This example is shown specifically to emphasize that each BB track can use its own combination of instruments and rhythmic patterns Observe that both the BB tracks Beat Bassline 1 and Beat Bassline 1 are completely independent The Add beat Baseline button adds a new BB track in the Song Editor But the BB Editor also has a similar button f which allows you to add a new BB track in the Song Editor Now this is surprising Why should a button act inside another window but do nothing in its own window Well when a new BB Track is added to the Song Editor it automatically appears in the pull down menu of the BB Editor This means you never need to leave the BB Editor to create a new BB track and work on its pattern tracks Thus this button actually saves you a round trip to the Song Editor Using Automation in the Beat Bassline Ed
206. ts are chained together The output of the first effect is passed on to the second effect and so on Note that these are the same effects that can also be applied to an individual instrument plugin directly The Instrument Window The instrument used in LMMS are actually synthesizers which are capable of changing their sound substantially based on their settings In this section we will see how to change these settings to achieve the desired sound To launch the Instrument Editor click on the instrument s label in either Song Editor or the Beat Bassline Editor Default preset The nstrument windows for four different instruments are shown below as examples L Default preset LL Default preset a Default preset uy Default preset GENERAL SETTING GENERAL SETTING GENERAL SETTING GENERAL SETTING Default preset Default p Default pre o a mic o 0 o r H ie o 0 pa VOL PAN PITCH F CHNL OL PAN PITCH CASTAN OL PAN PITCH FX CHNL OL PAN PITCH FX CHIL PLUGIN BSS E a a PLUGIN BSS E a 8 PLUGIN Ma os em A 8 LAAM ENV LFO t tr ik le lt on mynper ERR Vol Pan Crs FL FR e Uni Ban COTA M A DAS As you can see all the windows have similar structure They are all divided in three parts SI Description EJ General settings for the instrument e Name of the instrument Highlight the dummy title and type a new name e Basic sound controls Volume pan pitch Adjust the levels to yo
207. tually a toggle switch Clicking on it toggles the display in pane KIT between Note volume and Note pan Now we will discuss some of these parts in more detail 37 LMMS shows the playhead position while the track is played However once the playhead position goes beyond the right edge of the screen you cannot see it i e what is being played LMMS has auto scroll mode in which the track is scrolled automatically to keep the currently played part of the track in view 38 You can force LMMS to play between two markers start end placed on the time ruler You can also force LMMS to play endlessly within this range As soon as the playhead reaches the end marker it jumps back to the start marker and continues to play This is why it is called a loop This is useful to review a particular part of the music 39 Hold the key down to play the note for a longer time This is useful when the instrument s sound characteristics changes with time e g in a Sitar or has a decay dying of the note 40 Two octaves are sufficient for most musical pieces LMMS User Manual gt The Piano Roll Editor 56 Editing Toolbar buttons The pencil tool a is a multipurpose tool that allows you to create move resize and delete notes Function Details Create a note With the pencil tool selected hover the mouse in the notes pane EJ A horizontal gray line appears at the tip of the mouse pointer This line points to a Pi
208. udioFileProcessor playing audio files BitInvader simple and dirty wavetable synthesis Kicker drum synthesis LB302 a monophonic implementation of the TB303 sound Mallets a struck instrument synthesizer Organic an additive organ synthesizer FreeBoy an emulator of the sound chip of the Nintendo Game Boy PatMan a GUS compatible patch instrument SF2 Player the official SoundFont2 player SID an emulator of the sound chips used by the C64 Singerbot a singing sound synthesizer TripleOscillator the standard subtractive synthesis module VeSTige VSTi hosting plugin allows LMMS to play a huge number of VSTi plugins Vibed powerful vibrating string synthesis module ZynAddSubFX A powerful hybrid synthesizer Effect Bass Booster Peak Controller Spectrum Analyzer Stereo Enhancer Stereophonic Matrix Controller LFO Controller MIDI Controller Peak Controller In this appendix we will see the controls of each plugin in more detail Remember the following terms These waveforms are commonly used in many of the plugins Waveform Symbol Details Sine The purest sound with a single frequency Useful for creating flute and organ like sounds Since a sine wave has a single frequency filters have very little effect on sine wave signals Triangle A triangular shape with symmetrically rising and falling edges Similar to sine although a lot less
209. ur liking e Channel number of FX Mixer to which this instrument s output is connected By default it is connected to channel 0 output of FX Mixer Change it as required Save the new settings as a preset file Use this saved preset as a resource You can copy this file to other PCs as well FJ Controls that create the instrument s unique sound Piano keys While fine tuning the instrument to your liking you will need to check out the effect of your latest tweaks Click on the piano keys to play a few notes and judge the effect When a track is played in Song Editor or Piano Roll Editor you can open the Instrument window to see its keyboard in action it appears as if an invisible hand is playing the keyboard As the piano key s are played they are grayed to simulate the pressed state The first part is self explanatory We will now see the other two parts in detail 67 Always name your instruments such that you can later understand its origin Once the new name is saved the window s title bar will show that name 68 Give a meaningful name to the file so that you can recall the name easily LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 80 Instrument Sound controls Section The Instrument Sound Controls section PA has five tabs at the top ENERO FUNC FX MIDI When you select any of these tabs the section shows different sets of controls and the selected tab gets highlighted The f
210. ures below show the first four measures of the song in the score sheet and in LMMS Piano Roll Default preset YRDp et A woe e ive If you did not get this shape on your own just copy this pattern to create your notes Just go on entering the notes till the end of the song the Piano Roll area goes on expanding as you enter new notes The ruler located just below the toolbar shows the measure numbers for your convenience Adding Rhythm 1 Adding percussion instruments In the Side Bar click on the My Samples button Look for samples under the Drums node As you click on the different samples listed here LMMS will play the instruments If you like a particular sound double click on that sample to add it to the BB Editor Repeat this to add other percussion instruments Making the pattern Since this is a 4 4 time measure the default timeline in the BB Editor has 16 steps as explained here A wide variety of choices are available You can make it quiet like a lullaby or loud and energetic A very quiet version may look like this just a tiny tic tic sound pe c EI Jg clap i ogg PI PI a VOL PAN O O ann OL PAN i a rimllogg 2 ee TT 4 OL PAH a E P bord 1 ogg e 2 A p YOL PANH crash l ogg Notice that most of the on steps happen to be at the start of each beat The rhythm has 4 beats per measure which start at the 1 5 9 and 13 step So these steps
211. urrent view window Move play point to start of song Does not move current view window Automation Editor Action Remarks SHFT Left Click Draw a straight line between this point and the previously clicked point Mouse wheel up or down Move view up or down CTRL held while mouse wheel up or Zoom in or out horizontally i e show more or less down time Up and down arrows Move the window up and down Left and right arrows Move the playback position left and right 110 The new track must be of same type e g you cannot drag an element from an instrument track to an automation track al held while mouse wheel up or Move animan MI LMMS User Manual gt B Keyboard shortcuts 139 O EI O O A IA O CT O CI O O CI O E A iS O IS A O 1 A O O Project Notes A A Tomi Lan CS a r A a N IS ooo eras fregest CTR fosen cra CC A a A A CTR poy A A E File Browser in Side Bar SN AA C Editing the Automation Curve When you edit an existing automation curve with Pencil or Eraser tool it seems to behave erratically and spring up new shapes in unexpected ways This mystery is solved if you understand how it is built vertical lines side First remember that the graph is not a continuous smooth curve It is actually defined by control points that are interconnected by horizontal and The control points look like yellow sign as shown here KI to EJ To connect these points LM
212. us understand this with our third example where the beat volume reduces the melody volume For the demonstration we will have to set up a new project as follows Start a new project in LMMS press CTRL N In the Song Editor enter a single long note in Default preset ee a melody track Any pitch will do VOL PAN In the BB Editor enter a 4 beat pattern P kickOd o gg In the Song Editor EJ Enter two beat elements as shown FJ Set the end loop marker where the long EEGEN note ends DC Daba prec 2 e Activate the loop mode Beat Bassline 0 Ok now we start the side chaining process 112 Remember that vibrato and tremolo effects produced with a controller will have a finer control compared to a hand drawn automation curve 113 The first two applications are similar except that the DJ s voice comes live whereas the commentary is in a pre reccorded sound track 114 With short notes and quick changing music you won t notice the ducking easily 115 Notice that a plain beat sound was selected so that the ducking can be noticed 116 During the gaps the note plays at its normal volume 117 This endless loop play setting is only to let you experiment with the controller settings later LMMS User Manual gt E Adding Special Effects 147 In the BB Editor click on the beat track s name button The Instrument window of the beat track pops up Click on its FX tab in the midd
213. use the FX Mixer for both these purposes First let us recall what we learned about the FX Mixer It has 64 identical channels The main value of these channels is in being able to handle groups of tracks from the Song Editor or BB Editor Although all the 64 channels are identical conventionally we use separate banks for the Song Editor or BB Editor Accordingly we will be using the Bank A channels 01 to 16 for the Song Editor and Bank B channels 17 to 32 for the BB Editor Let us start with the Song Editor Immediately we notice a major problem This project has very few tracks and so it is virtually impossible to form groups If a project uses a large number of instruments like an orchestra it would be much easier to form groups of those instrument channels e g all string instruments in one group all wind instruments in another group and so on So for example we can apply a common vibrato signal to all the wind instruments So in this project there is no point in combining a rhythm track with a melody track or a bassline track and applying common effects to these dissimilar tracks Can we group the two rhythm tracks Main Beat and Claps Well it turns out that they are composite tracks so they cannot be directly connected to the FX Mixer The FM Mixer can only be connected to individual instruments of the rhythm which are accessible from the BB Editor For example if we look at BB Editor we find that the Main Beat r
214. will play C E G F A C one after the other the arpeggio for C then the arpeggio for F e Insync mode any notes held down at the same time will play a chord arpeggio in that interval To take the above example when F was held down the arpeggio would play CF EA GC repeatedly the notes C and F simultaneously then the notes E and A then the notes G and C The FX tab uy Detault preset GENERAL SETTINGS Default preset a MOL PAN prrcH F CHL PLUGIN ENV LFO FUNC MIDI f EFFECTS CHAIN This tab allows you to add several effects Most of these are provided by LADSPA effects eye g Controls These effects control the sound of an instrument These can vary from simple ma b AE effects like delays and echos to complex phasers distortion and reverberation You can also create a chain of multiple effects to produce very complex sounds f EFFECTS CHAIM To toggle the entire effects chain on off click on the lamp e This button is useful to compare the sound of the instrument with the effects also called the wet sound and without the effects also called the dry sound To add a new LADSPA VST effect click the Add effect button Usd A dialog box pops up As you browse through the list each effect is described in the bottom pane LMMS User Manual gt The Instrument Window 85 gt Add effect 2 X lt BassBooster Effect CO E A ee ee ee LADSPA Effect Amplifier Mono LADSPA Effect
215. will use two different instruments for them The original track will serve as the boy s voice For the sheep s voice we will add a SF2 Player track with Trombone sound patch loaded in it To save time and effort we will clone the entire song on the new track and then delete the non relevant notes from both tracks The step by step procedure is as follows Part 1 Launch a new track with SF2 Player plugin 1 Inthe Side Bar click on the Instrument Plugins a button Drag the SF2 Player plugin into the Song Editor This adds a new track 2 Since this track now represents sheep s voice let us rename it as Sheep So double click on its Name panel and enter the new name Sheep Double click on the Name panel of the TripleOscillator track and rename it as Boy 3 Click on the name panel of the SF2 Player track to open the Instrument window of the SF2 Player plugin 4 Inthe Instrument window click on the E button and load an SF2 file that has Trombone sound 5 Click on the IM button and select Trombone 6 Close the Instrument window of the plugin Part 2 Clone the song from the TripleOscillator track to the SF2 Player track Right click on the element and copy it to clipboard 2 Inthe SF2 Player track s timeline click in the first measure This inserts a dummy measure which we will need in the next step 3 Now right click on this dummy measure and select Paste The dummy measure is replaced by our 16 measure
216. y snap to the measures However if you want to place the element somewhere between measures press CTRL after you start dragging the element If you release CTRL the element will again exhibit magnetic behavior e When you are dragging an element its movement is not blocked by the adjacent elements You can drag the element across the neighboring elements e You can move an element to overlap it with another element partly or fully LMMS plays both elements simultaneously in the overlapped part e You cannot move an element to another track by dragging even if the target track is of the same type To move an element to another target track use the context menu of the element Copying cloning elements Sometimes you need copy of your music or an automation effect at another place in the song You can achieve this by creating a copy of an element and then moving the copy to another spot in the song To create a copy of an element first press CTRL and then drag the element As you drag LMMS shows a large image of the element as a tooltip with LI overlay as shown in this example The mouse pointer shows where this copy would be pasted e Once you start dragging you can release CTRL Release LMB when the copy of the element is positioned correctly The copy of the element always snaps to a measure You may have to fine tune its position by pressing CTRL while you drag it e You cannot copy an element
217. y by making the element smaller To resize an element drag its right edge While you drag the edge the mouse pointer turns in a all double arrow and LMMS shows a tooltip to let us know the A M following ne 1 The duration of the element lo 2 The start point of the element on the track 3 The end point of the element on the track all figures are in terms of measures not seconds By default the edge snaps to the boundary between measures To finely adjust its position press CTRL while dragging 21 As noted elsewhere even the automation track plays in real time i e has effect on some control of a content track 22 Did you notice that we used CTRL twice in a single drag operation The first time was to copy an element and the second time to overrule the snap to measure LMMS User Manual gt The Song Editor 43 Task Details Moving the Each element can be individually moved to a new location within the track elements Drag the elements horizontally within the track As you start dragging the cursor turns into a four arrows symbol LMMS also shows the current position of the element Current position through a tooltip In this example the tooltip shows that the 6 0 element has reached 26 measure from the start point of the song Release LMB when the element is placed correctly e By default the elements have magnetic behavior when they are moved the
218. y the edited content by clicking on the CJ button 1 Select the pencil tool and drag some notes up down 2 Click anywhere within the first measure to add some new notes 3 Click on the Eraser tool and delete some notes LMMS User Manual gt Editing and Composing Songs 100 4 Change the duration of some notes by dragging their right edge 5 Change the volume of some notes by dragging the orange dots up down 6 Click on the Note volume square It switches to Note Panning control Now change the pan of some notes Repeat these six steps with the melody track After each step play the edited content by clicking on the o button Experimenting with the Beat Bassline Editor Conduct the following experiments with the BB Editor 1 Click on any of the steps this toggles it on off See how that changes the rhythm 2 Hover the mouse over any step and roll the mousewheel This changes the volume of that step Effectively you are sounding some of the steps softer louder than normal Check out how this changes the overall impact of the rhythm Experimenting with the FX Mixer As we saw earlier the newfangled project uses the FX Mixer like a master volume control Sliding the Master fader channel 0 changes the volume of all the four tracks in the Song Editor equally No other channels are functional in this project Secondly the project does not use any special effects on any of the four tracks In this section we will
219. yed only for the first few seconds like this The remaining part of the track is shown with a green flat line even when audio content is present in the track e You can place multiple elements each with a different audio file on the same sample track as shown below PE et y Sample track If some elements overlap they will play simultaneously e You can also use a separate sample track for each audio file Sample track Sample track Sample track Sample track This figure shows the same content spread over multiple tracks Editing the LMMS cannot edit this track at all e g trimming slicing or scaling it to fit with the bars in contents your music You have to edit the track beforehand using an audio editor e g Audacity Working with Beat Bassline tracks The purpose of the beat bassline track is to repeatedly play a rhythmic pattern that is typically one measure long The elements in a Beat Bassline track define the durations during which a specific beat bassline pattern is to be played The Beat Bassline track contains repetitive rhythmic pattern Therefore when you expand its element the expanded part of the element will be filled up with the same pattern You cannot extend the instrument tracks in a similar way because they do not have a repetitive pattern e If your song has four different beat patterns LMMS will have four different beat bassline tracks to play them Each

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