Recording in Ubuntu Linux (aka Free and Open Source Digital Audio Workstation)

Free and Open Source Software costs zero dollars, so it can't be that great...right? WRONG! All of the programs I mention in this article are of the same or higher caliber as many proprietary products that cost thousands of dollars.

This glance into the realm of recording in Ubuntu Studio intends to show off my Digital Audio Workstation : ) ...In the process you will learn about the capabilities of some of the best audio programs the Open Source community has to offer. This guide covers the basics of JACK, Patchage, Rosegarden, and Ardour, the most essential programs that I use.

Jack connects everything together, Patchage gives me more control of those connections, Rosegarden takes care of all my MIDI composition and Ardour kicks ProTools in the nuts! There are many other programs I use and have yet to learn, but these four are the foundation. There are many other programs I intend to cover in future articles such as ZynAddSubFX, a versatile softsynth.

I'm relatively new to the DAW I describe below. The information is based on my experience and style so I probably skip a lot of topics in each program that would be important to someone else. I also purposely skip things that are either obvious, overwhelming or that I'm completely ignorant about!

My Linux Distro of choice is Ubuntu. It's a great OS for both beginners and advanced users alike. After I installed Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu version 7.10), I learned about Ubuntu Studio, which is a collection of packages that are installed on top of your current Ubuntu system, or an entire DVD image that you download and install from scratch. If you already have Ubuntu, you can install whatever pieces of Ubuntu Studio you wish with apt-get or the Synaptic Package Manager. I'm a sucker for the terminal, because it makes me look cool.

Type this into your terminal and hit tab a couple times:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio

You should get a list of packages that looks something like this:

ubuntustudio-artwork           ubuntustudiolauncher

ubuntustudio-audio             ubuntustudio-look

ubuntustudio-audio-plugins     ubuntustudio-menu

ubuntustudio-default-settings  ubuntustudio-screensaver

ubuntustudio-desktop           ubuntustudio-sounds

ubuntustudio-gdm-theme         ubuntustudio-theme

ubuntustudio-graphics          ubuntustudio-video

ubuntustudio-icon-theme        ubuntustudio-wallpapers

You can now select the packages you want to install. I just installed the two audio packages. I think the ubuntustudio-desktop installs all of them. Here is what I did:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins

Now you have a plethora of audio programs ready to go!

JACK manages all of your software audio connections. It handles the drivers for your physical audio interface as well as the connections between your virtual devices like recording software, softsynths, MIDI connections, etc. I use a Presonus FirePod and the only configuration I needed was choosing the freebob driver in the Setup menu.

Routing or "patching" your audio signals to many places is essential to your FOSS DAW. Unlike proprietary software that aims to be all inclusive and trap you in one program at a time, FOSS is very friendly with other FOSS. You are likely to use many programs simultaneously. At first this creates a steep learning curve simply because you need to learn the basics in multiple programs at once. However, after you get over that initial hill your DAW is much more flexible.

You can manage all of your JACK connections through its built-in Patchbay, but there is a much better interface for this called Patchage.

Patchage grants the user a very intuitive way to make and break connections between their hardware and software. You can make a connection by clicking on an input and then clicking on the output where you want your signal sent (and vise versa). You can also right-click on an input or output to choose to disconnect all of its patches. Audio ins and outs are light blue, while MIDI ins and outs are green. Once you've rearranged your ins and outs during a recording session you can choose File >> Save Settings to make Ptachage remember your layout for next time.

In the image below you can see my Presonus Firepod inputs on the left and its outputs on the right labeled "freebob_pcm". In the middle is a block containing the ins and outs from Rosegarden, a program I will delve into later. Other MIDI ins and outs are orbiting around.

Notice that MIDI connection 6 goes to ZynAddSubFX, a softsynth. On the left above my freebob_pcm inputs, ZynAddSubFX audio outputs are routed all the way over to the main outs on my Presonus. This means that I have MIDI data written in Rosegarden, controlling ZynAddSubFX which sends its signal out through my monitors. I think you can see the possibilities...

Rosegarden has a lot of great features that make it my favorite for MIDI sequencing, although some might prefer MusE. It has the ability to record and edit audio files as well, but is very limited in this respect. Rosegarden has top notch documentation that you can access through the help menu.

Most of these toolbar buttons should be familiar to anyone that uses multitrack and sequencing programs, but the editors deserve a little extra explanation.

Editors

The matrix and percussion editors are your standard sequencer style editors. Rosegarden also has a standard, western music notation editor that you can print to pdf or postscript. In the event editor you can go into finer control of MIDI data as well as add indicators, clef/key/tempo changes and a few other things I don't understand yet! You can bring any MIDI segment up in all of these editors, so if you sequence in the matrix editor you can open it as sheet music and fine tune that for a performer.

Rosegarden allows you very fine control of sequencing in multiple formats, which is mainly what I use it for at the moment. My only criticism is that the matrix and percussion editors can only be zoomed horizontally. The sequencer boxes are very small, so it can be tedious to manipulate objects in the grid. Switching between tools (select, draw, erase, move, resize) can also be tedious. If they have hot keys, I don't know about them. The fastest way I've found is to right click and choose them from the list that pops up.

EDIT: Thanks to Gunhild Anderson and the Rosegarden Mailing List I now know that you can configure your own keyboard shortcuts under Settings >> Configure Shortcuts. That would have been obvious if I wasn't so oblivious!

Tracks are displayed in Rosegarden's main window. You can use all of the tools listed above to manipulate your audio and MIDI segments. You can open selected MIDI segments in your editor of choice. Double-clicking a segment opens it in the notation editor by default. You can change this setting in Settings >> Configure Rosegarden in the General Behaviour tab.

Segments

I used Fruity Loops before I dropped Microsoft like a sack of old doorknobs, so I'm used to sequencing within patterns and then sequencing the patterns within a playlist. "Pattern 1" can be sequenced 100 times in a song, and if I modify that pattern, it affects all 100 instances of it in the playlist. Segments in Rosegarden, however, are all unique. They can have the same names and notes, but editing one segment copied many times only changes the one you edit.

The ability to make variations like that was a pain in Fruity Loops because I needed to make a new pattern. Things got cluttered quickly and before I knew it I had over 300 patterns in a single composition! At the same time, it is very common to go back many times and make changes to a segment that you've copied and pasted all over the place. Having the ability to link segments in Rosegarden would get the best of both worlds.

Audio Segments

The audio tracks in Rosegarden are only suitable for placing samples. There are no advanced audio editing features that you would find in Ardour like crossfades or automation. Recording an instrument or vocals is going to leave you with tracks that are very difficult to edit. I'm sure someone can find a use for audio segments in Rosegarden, but I can't do anything with them.

Ins and Outs

Right clicking on a track title will bring up a menu of all possible Rosegarden outputs that it can be associated with. For MIDI, you can control 16 possible external devices with 16 channels each! Audio tracks are simply routed through the main audio outs. As you can see in the image of Rosegarden in Patchage above (way above), there are stereo outputs to monitor audio being recorded and two stereo record inputs.

Conclusion

Whereas a program like Hydrogen or FruityLoops is based on sequencing, Rosegarden has many tools that aide in composition and help me break out of the grid a bit. It handles all of the sequencing, notation, and MIDI control that I do in the studio.

If you know how to use a multitrack recording program such as ProTools, Cubase, Logic, Sonar, etc. then you already know how to use Ardour. It has all of the standards: Edit window, mix window, automation, effects inputs, sends, busses, groups, tons (TONS!) of effects plugins and too many options and configurations. This program has impressed the pajamas off me! ...what? It's a home studio!

Just about everything clickable in Ardour has a little tooltip that pops up after you hover over it for a second. They are usually good, single sentence explanations that can orient you if you are confused. I'll go over a selection of the buttons that I find most usefull.

I've been alerted to the fact that I'm using an outdated version of Ardour (v2.0). Apparently 2.1 and 2.2 have a greatly improved editing model. Since 2.0 was installed with the Ubuntu Studio package, it is probably the version you will start with, so I'll keep the following information as is. I'll post a new hub outlining improvements in 2.1 or 2.2 soon!

Notice the drop-down menu to the right of the time code. This is your transport control which can be set to either Internal, MIDI Time Code (MTC) or JACK. Internal control means that Ardour marches to its own drummer. Selecting MTC will sync the transport to an external MIDI controller. Selecting JACK will sync Ardour with the JACK transport. More on this later...

The Time Master button immediately below sets whether or not Ardour controls the tempo when synced with JACK or MTC.

If you have the Punch In/Out buttons enabled you can select any range of time on a track, right click and select set punch from selection.

Auto Return makes the playhead return to where it started playing after it stops. This isn't enabled by default and since it took me a while to actual realize what this does, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Clicking Solo toggles solo mode for all tracks. If any track or combination of tracks are soloed, the Solo button flashes red.

The drop-down menu on the far left lets you select between Slide Edit and Splice Edit modes. Slide Edit moves audio segments around without affecting other segments on the track so you can overlap them. Splice Edit rearranges audio segments on the track when you release your selection.

The next set of buttons are your editing tools: Select/Edit Objects, Select/Edit Ranges, Select Zoom Range, Draw Gain Automation, Stretch/Shrink Regions, and Listen to Specific Region.

The Time Code displays and sets the location of the Edit Cursor. The first drop-down menu selects between Normal and Magnetic. This determines whether the Edit Cursor slides around wherever you want or snaps to the grid. The only thing is that Normal snaps to the grid and Magnetic slides around anywhere. Stick with me here because this gets tricky...

The next drop-down menu sets the grid spacing (or snap distance) between many different options: divisions of bars, minutes/seconds, marks and more. Both of the menus I just mentioned affect the Edit Cursor and selected audio UNLESS you have the grid (snap) set to Edit Cursor, which will move a dragged region of audio directly to the Edit Cursor and nowhere else. This sounds more complicated than it actually is.

The inconsistencies continue as we move on to the < and > buttons and the following Time Code. These are Nudge Left/Right and the Time Code sets the nudge distance. I don't understand why they use a time display to set nudge distance and a drop-down menu to select snap distance. It takes a second to get used to the inconsistancy of these six controls, but they still give you the control you want when moving audio segments.

NOTE: Right clicking on any Time Display will bring up a menu where you can select between Time Code, Bars:Beats, Minutes:Seconds or Audio Frames.

x removes this track from view. It doesn not delete the track or the audio associated with it. It simply makes it invisible. You can recall is from the Right Hand Drawer which I explain below.

v opens a menu of visual options for the track like color and waveform display as well as--for some reason--every option from the next two buttons.

h opens a menu of track height settings.

a opens a menu of automation settings. You can easily toggle the visibility of all of your volume, pan and effects automations for the track.

p is for playlist. Every audio track is simply a very complex playlist of audio files. So far I haven't had a use for any of these options.

EDIT: Thanks to a post by Lost Highway on the ardour.org forums I now know that playlists can be set while you are recording multiple takes on the same track, making it very easy to switch between which is audible and which is hidden. I wish I knew this the last time I was recording a guitar solo!

g lets you set the group that the track belongs to. Before you can do that, however you need to create a group by using the tabs at the far right of the window...

If there is no drawer open on the far right of your edit window then there should be a grey bar with some dimples in the center that mean to say "drag me!" Click and drag it to the left to open up a tabbed drawer.

Regions contains a pool of all your audio regions.

Tracks/Busses allows you to easily show and hide tracks.

I assume Snapshots stores instances of your project to reload them incase of some disaster. You can create these in File >> Snapshot. So far i've had Ardour crash a few times but I've never lost more than a couple clicks of work. I think Snapshots are useful as a saved copy before you make some major changes.

Edit Groups allows you to add and remove groups. Use the g button on your tracks to assign them to groups.

I don't know what Chunks are...

The Mix Window is just what you would expect from a multitrack recording program. You see each track you've created as well as the master ouput on the far right.

From Top to Bottom

You can set your input(s) and toggle record mode near the top.

Immediately beneath you have your pre-fader inserts, sends and plugins. You can right click to create, edit or delete them.

Then you have your usual fader and level meter.

The button that says post below the signal meter can toggle between post, input and pre. This tells the signal meter to show you either the level after (post) the fader, the level of your input if you are recording, or the level before (pre) the fader.

The area below all of that contains your post-fader inserts, sends and plugins.

The very bottom consists of your panning controls, output and comments.

Ardour is a very in-depth multitrack recording and editing program with way too many options to cover in this article. It is a fantastic replacement for proprietary recoding software and makes the FOSS DAW attractive to anyone who thought they couldn't live without ProTools!

Getting Rosegarden and Adrour to work together is surprisingly easy. It all comes down to syncing them to the JACK transport. Once they are both synced up you can start or stop playback or recording from either program and have the other follow along from the same spot.

In Rosegarden

Go to Settings >> Configure Rosegarden. In the dialog that pops up select Sequencer from the icons on the left, then the Synchronization tab. Set Jack transport mode to Sync.

In Ardour

There is a drop-down menu next to the large Time Code display in the Top Toolbar. Simply select JACK.

All JACK enabled programs have a JACK Sync option like this and make it very easy to spread your work out among all of your favorite programs.

I hope this guide was useful and not too dry. Please help me make this guide as accurate as possible by letting me know about anything that is inaccurate or missing. Feel free to ask general questions as well, but please no technical support questions (I'm not very smart).

Look out for my articles on other great FOSS for your DAW. Good Luck!