Qtractor 0.4.3 System Exclusive setup feature and my hardware.

One of the new features of Qtractor is a Sys Ex message that can be sent when a MIDI track with an assigned instrument is connected to its output in the connections window.

Cool, this way I can use my Korg X3 in combination mode or sequencer mode, and keep that choice remembered in the song's Qtractor session.

Here's how I've set it up:

First go to "view" > "buses" in Qtractor's main window.
Then choose MIDI master bus, your instrument and hit the Sys Ex button.

Now give your Sys Ex message a name, enter the Sys Ex in the textfield below and click on the "add" button.

Now hit "Export" to save as .syx file.

I exported a "set-combination-mode.syx" and a "set-sequencer-mode.syx", so when I start a new Qtractor session and use the Korg-x3, all I have to do is open the right syx file, hit "Add" & "Ok" and the next time I open this Session, the Korg will jump to the right mode at the making of the connection.

LMMS 0.3.0 out

From the LMMS developers list ...
an anouncement for the latest version, and it seems like worth giving a try ...

Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:45:15 +0200
Subject: [LMMS-devel] Announcement of LMMS 0.3.0
Hi folks,

I'm glad to finally announce the availability of LMMS 0.3.0. This release is a
big milestone as it brings lot of new features and (according to my
experiences and the reports of other users) at the same time probably is the
most stable version of LMMS we ever had (which is even more important).

The release had been delayed a few days as Paul and I had to figure out some
major problems with his (new) monophonic LB302-plugin which are fixed now.
LB302 still has known minor issues (which a normal user probably wouldn't
even notice) which will be fixed in 0.3.1.

Important changes:

- of course *lot* of bugs and segfaults were fixed
- added support for effects:
* LADSPA-effects (LMMS includes CAPS as well)
* VST-effects
* LMMS' own effects
- better compatibility with several platforms/GCC-versions
- better desktop-integration
- improved automation-editor
- performance-improvements
- free VST-support (via reverse-engineered header)
- new plugins:
* LB302 (powerful monophonic 303-clone)
* Mallets (STK-frontend)
* Singerbot (Festival-frontend for speech-synthesis)
* Live-Tool (control of bb-tracks at live-performances)
* Kicker (bassdrum-/kick-synthesizer)
* PatMan (sampler for Patch-files)
- obsolete PluckedStringSynth-plugin has been replaced by Vibed-plugin
- added support for compressed project-files
- rewrote parts of internal mixer-core
- added support for note-detuning
- upgrade-feature for properly opening older projects/presets
- improved MIDI-file-import
- added libsamplerate as 3rdparty-code for systems that do not have
libsamplerate
- new/improved projects in "cool_songs"-directory
- new samples and presets
- new "Recently opened projects"-menu


The download is available at

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=105168


Please uninstall LMMS *completely* before installing this version, i.e.
remove /usr/bin/lmms, /usr/lib/lmms and /usr/share/lmms (or /usr/local... ),
otherwise you could experience problems because of obsolete files that
actually do not work anymore etc.


Big thanks to all who helped making up this release!!


toby

Life-circles , an example of the "reverse" function in Ardour

This is a tune I made with Ardour on a Linux UbuntuStudio computer .
It's called "Life circles" and was made in a short time (2 days) when I felt a bit understood by someone from our official institutes .

The original drum was called "slow-ride-beat.wav" , but Max put a reversed bassline on it , and later he added pitched bass chords . I added a melodica line and made use of Ardour's "reverse" function .

If you like the music , please visit my homepage or vote for your favorite tune on soundclick.com

I want to convert a drumrecording to a midifile

This isn't a howto or tutorial yet , it's my experience with trying to get the job done.

Except for Cubase , I don't know of any program that can do this but I'm figuring it out .

A .wav to .mid converter is what I need .
The first thing I found was this package called Waon , so I went downloading it here as it didn't appear when I did a Synaptic (package manager) search .

then I opened a terminal and typed :

$ cd /place/where/I/saved/waon/
$ tar xvfz waon-0.8.tar.gz

then into the new folder , to read the installation notes (skip $ gedit INSTALL if you just want to install):

$ cd waon-0.8/
/waon-0.8$ gedit TIPS & gedit README & gedit INSTALL

to find out I need FFWT , "the Fastest Fourier Transform in the West" subroutine library . mmm , interesting :-p UbuntuStudio already has it , mmm , nice :-)

let's get on with :

/waon-0.8$ gedit Makefile.waon

to view the Makefile , edit and save it as Makefile and then at the terminal type :

/waon-0.8$ make

now I got some errors .
first thing i could read is the package fftw3 couldn't be found in a way .
so I went back to synaptic to mark "fftw3-dev" and hit apply.

to undo the first attempt to install i did :

/waon-0.8$ make clean

and try again :

/waon-0.8$ make

okay, the first error disappeared. the next is simple , just back to Synaptic and mark "libsndfile1-dev" as it is needed to compile our desired package "Waon". Then again :

/waon-0.8$ make clean

and

/waon-0.8$ make

Now I got clean output . Let's hope I can figure out in the coming days how to work with my new piece of bits and bytes called "Waon" . But now I must find my own waon in a good sleep.

Second way to go : wav2mid , by Guenther Sohler . He gives a source code package for download , so I'll have to learn compile from source . mmm , encouraging . See my writing under the title "Compiling from source : wav2mid" . (I have to finish it so there's not much to learn yet .)

HowTo play samples with LMMS

... a little easy clicking tutorial I wrote to answer a post on the LMMS users list :

(no MIDI keyboard is needed as you can use the pencil to draw your MIDI-notes , but it's a usefull thing if you want a feel and touch to play with the sound. )

Step 1: click the "instrument plugins" button in the upperleft corner

Step 2: choose "Audio File Processor" and drag-drop it where you now see "TripleOscillator"

Step 3: click on the AudioFileProcessor button to edit and then go find your sample , using the blue folder icon, also choose if you want to play the sample reversed and/or looped and set a good start and end point.

Step 4: next go click in the song editor to create a first pattern for the audiofileprocessor to play. If you want to use a MIDI keyboard to play with the loaded sample , you can choose the right MIDI in port by clicking the little piano icon. (in case you connected the MIDI keyboard out port and configured your MIDI device and so on)
To create a pattern, click once in the song editor on the AudioFileProcessor-track, then double-click on it to open it in the pianoroll editor.

Step 5: play on your keyboard or click on the pianoroll to listen how the samples are being played at the pitch you play .

There's a lot more to learn but this little howto may be a help to get you started , if anything is not clear , please leave a reply.