LMMS is a curious beast - which has been recommended in some other places, but not appreciated in others.
It is open source software, and I assume has been developed by volunteers. There are only a few people working on it, so some things are limited - maybe. Some people have a seemingly idealogical preference for Open Source software and/or an aversion to commercial (paid for ) software.
What it's good at:
It's reasonably good at providing a multi-track environment for electronic music and synthesisers.
There are several synthesisers built in - though perhaps not as good as the software synthesisers built in or
available in some other DAWs.
Some synthesisers can be imported, depending on the version of LMMS - for example as VSTs.
It's not clear that this is always possible - for example some versions of LMMS for Mac may not have been able to support VSTs.
What is seems less good at:
It doesn't do audio editing directly (currently), so audio tracks have to be imported, and typically they would be edited in an external editor.
This isn't always such a limitation, but it may be. This is something I'm investigating. Accurate track timing is a possible problem.
It is easy to download and install?
This is very questionable. LMMS was primarily developed for Linux, but most of us don't use that regularly, or have a dedicated Linux machine. I think the Windows versions are the next best supported. Support for Mac seems patchy. There are quite a few "gotchas" regarding getting this working on Macs, and it's taken me a long while to get anything reliable. I'm reluctant to abandon my current install, as I might find it difficult to get another one to work.
Some of the issues are simply due to some quirky user interface (UI) issues, and generally limited documentation. I think the UI issues are real, and may be context dependent - so different versions behave differently - not always helpful. The quirkyness could be easily overcome with better documentation. There is a documentation Wiki, but it seems to be frozen in time, and not currently updated. There is a user forum and responses are helpful.
Is it easy to use and learn?
There are quite a number of tutorial videos, but most of these deal with electronic music, such as EDM and making Beats.
If that floats your boat, it's OK. If you want to do anything different it may be a tedious process scanning through lots of videos and other tutorial material in order to get things to work - even approximately - as you might want.
If you want to work with audio, since LMMS doesn't have a sophisticated editor built in, it's necessary to use an external editor, such as Audacity. It's possible that Audacity will do everything that's required, without "coming into" a DAW, such as LMMS. Generally a fully fledged DAW such as Reaper or Logic will be a better option than Audacity, but Audacity is really rather a capable audio editor - more so than many people know about - look at the documentation and tutorial videos.
However, for a tool such as LMMS which doesn't quite deliver on audio, there are decisions to be made about how to do anything including audio.
There are possibly some irritating bugs - but they may not always affect what's being done.
Like many tools, it gets easier when you know how! It can be very obscure.
Experiences
I was going to give up in great frustration with this "DAW", but then I finally got more of it working after I upgraded my Mac to Catalina - which in itself was a tedious exercise. As a result I now have a more than 20 track rendition of "Anything Goes" - with different instruments, and I'm now trying to get more of a handle on Mixing.
Other tools such as Ableton or FL would perhaps be better, but these are commercial tools and LMMS is free.
I do have a low end version of Ableton, but this could not do the particular piece I'm playing with, because of the limitation on the number of tracks. For comparison, I use Logic - also a paid for piece of software, but I decided to buy that one because I can use it on several machines. Logic costs around £200 - so again, it's not a totally fair comparison. I have versions of some pieces which are in both Logic and LMMS.
I do also have Reaper, and sometimes I create versions in that one as well. Reaper would also not have any significant limitation on number of tracks. I haven't done a direct comparison of Logic and Reaper for the latest work, though I may return to that later. I probably will - but I don't have time for everything.
So far Logic clearly wins (for me) for anything involving audio tracks.
There is a tutorial/demo for LMMS which shows it being used to render a version of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. I adapted that process for Logic. I have slight reservations about that, but overall as a "proof of concept" it works. https://youtu.be/EHcHruq4opg
I don't really want to remain "stuck" on this technology, but I feel I've got to get to grips with it to be able to make further progress with things I really want to do. There is a certain amount of pleasure to be got from repeated listening to Cole Porter's song, with different instruments and different balances between instruments - so a strangely "therapeutic" way to pass one's time!
If I gain greater mastery of these things, I will move on.
PS: Why does the thread title and the post header not show up in Capitals? Is this a feature? I typed in uppercase.
It is open source software, and I assume has been developed by volunteers. There are only a few people working on it, so some things are limited - maybe. Some people have a seemingly idealogical preference for Open Source software and/or an aversion to commercial (paid for ) software.
What it's good at:
It's reasonably good at providing a multi-track environment for electronic music and synthesisers.
There are several synthesisers built in - though perhaps not as good as the software synthesisers built in or
available in some other DAWs.
Some synthesisers can be imported, depending on the version of LMMS - for example as VSTs.
It's not clear that this is always possible - for example some versions of LMMS for Mac may not have been able to support VSTs.
What is seems less good at:
It doesn't do audio editing directly (currently), so audio tracks have to be imported, and typically they would be edited in an external editor.
This isn't always such a limitation, but it may be. This is something I'm investigating. Accurate track timing is a possible problem.
It is easy to download and install?
This is very questionable. LMMS was primarily developed for Linux, but most of us don't use that regularly, or have a dedicated Linux machine. I think the Windows versions are the next best supported. Support for Mac seems patchy. There are quite a few "gotchas" regarding getting this working on Macs, and it's taken me a long while to get anything reliable. I'm reluctant to abandon my current install, as I might find it difficult to get another one to work.
Some of the issues are simply due to some quirky user interface (UI) issues, and generally limited documentation. I think the UI issues are real, and may be context dependent - so different versions behave differently - not always helpful. The quirkyness could be easily overcome with better documentation. There is a documentation Wiki, but it seems to be frozen in time, and not currently updated. There is a user forum and responses are helpful.
Is it easy to use and learn?
There are quite a number of tutorial videos, but most of these deal with electronic music, such as EDM and making Beats.
If that floats your boat, it's OK. If you want to do anything different it may be a tedious process scanning through lots of videos and other tutorial material in order to get things to work - even approximately - as you might want.
If you want to work with audio, since LMMS doesn't have a sophisticated editor built in, it's necessary to use an external editor, such as Audacity. It's possible that Audacity will do everything that's required, without "coming into" a DAW, such as LMMS. Generally a fully fledged DAW such as Reaper or Logic will be a better option than Audacity, but Audacity is really rather a capable audio editor - more so than many people know about - look at the documentation and tutorial videos.
However, for a tool such as LMMS which doesn't quite deliver on audio, there are decisions to be made about how to do anything including audio.
There are possibly some irritating bugs - but they may not always affect what's being done.
Like many tools, it gets easier when you know how! It can be very obscure.
Experiences
I was going to give up in great frustration with this "DAW", but then I finally got more of it working after I upgraded my Mac to Catalina - which in itself was a tedious exercise. As a result I now have a more than 20 track rendition of "Anything Goes" - with different instruments, and I'm now trying to get more of a handle on Mixing.
Other tools such as Ableton or FL would perhaps be better, but these are commercial tools and LMMS is free.
I do have a low end version of Ableton, but this could not do the particular piece I'm playing with, because of the limitation on the number of tracks. For comparison, I use Logic - also a paid for piece of software, but I decided to buy that one because I can use it on several machines. Logic costs around £200 - so again, it's not a totally fair comparison. I have versions of some pieces which are in both Logic and LMMS.
I do also have Reaper, and sometimes I create versions in that one as well. Reaper would also not have any significant limitation on number of tracks. I haven't done a direct comparison of Logic and Reaper for the latest work, though I may return to that later. I probably will - but I don't have time for everything.
So far Logic clearly wins (for me) for anything involving audio tracks.
There is a tutorial/demo for LMMS which shows it being used to render a version of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. I adapted that process for Logic. I have slight reservations about that, but overall as a "proof of concept" it works. https://youtu.be/EHcHruq4opg
I don't really want to remain "stuck" on this technology, but I feel I've got to get to grips with it to be able to make further progress with things I really want to do. There is a certain amount of pleasure to be got from repeated listening to Cole Porter's song, with different instruments and different balances between instruments - so a strangely "therapeutic" way to pass one's time!
If I gain greater mastery of these things, I will move on.
PS: Why does the thread title and the post header not show up in Capitals? Is this a feature? I typed in uppercase.
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