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LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production
LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production

LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production:

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LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production

Your computer is the control center of your studio. A computer will impact not only how music is made but also how it is performed. This means major decisions like desktop or laptop, to minor decisions such as deciding which audio effects will save your computer's processor from working too hard.

If you are using a desktop or laptop, you need a Windows or Linux compatible PC. An Apple Mac will also work for LMMS. LMMS is efficient and can run on all kinds of computers. The basic specifications are: 1 GHz processor with at least 512 megabyte of RAM

LMMS plays nicely with older CPUs and is very efficient. But it's still ambitious to think that you are going to rock the house with a single core processor and roughly half a gigabyte of RAM. You'll hit the wall pretty quickly when using software instruments and effects.

A better bet would be a multi-core computer with at least 2 gigabytes of RAM. Multiple processors means more plugins and tracks. You also need enough RAM for the operating system as well as the application you are running. In the electronic music world, more CPU power and RAM means more tracks, more instruments, and speedier handling inside LMMS, as well as your other applications.

The operating system you choose will be determined by your own personal preference, and what other applications you wish to run on your computer. LMMS works on the following:

Stability is key when making electronic music. The more stable your system is, the more work you'll get done. If you don't plan to perform with LMMS, get yourself a desktop. If you need portability for performance or creating music on the go, a laptop would be the better fit. Windows and Linux seem to be the most stable operating systems to run LMMS on as far as operating systems are concerned. The OS X version is a port of 4.1.0, at the time of writing this book and is slightly less stable.

Now this could be considered 'optional', but as a general rule, you should always have an external drive for music projects. Hard drives are inexpensive these days and will ensure that your internal hard drive, whose responsibility is to run your operating system, remains less cluttered and fragmented from electronic music production.

Your external hard drive should meet these optimal specifications:

Your external hard drive needs to spin fast so that it can play many samples and audio files concurrently. Having an external drive also means easier transport if you'd like to take your sessions to other studios.

LMMS works with any active audio output that your computer has. It can use a headphone output or a more expensive external audio peripheral that hooks up to speakers.

If you would like to use a piano keyboard controller to enter notes into LMMS, there are many manufacturers that have products on the market. Simply install the appropriate driver that comes with the MIDI controller and LMMS will be able to see the device.

LMMS installers can be downloaded from the following link:

http://lmms.sourceforge.net/download.php

For those of us who would like to try LMMS on OS X:

The OS X version is currently 4.1.0 and is fairly stable. It is a port, however, and is not available directly from the folks at lmms.sourceforge.net. Use at your own risk!

To install LMMS, simply drag the downloaded application to your applications folder.

The LMMS application is fairly self-contained, but there are many pre-defined areas that LMMS looks to for its resources.

When we open up LMMS for the first time, we can see where LMMS is looking for its resources by opening the Edit menu and selecting Settings, followed by clicking on the folder icon on the left-hand side of the menu:

LMMS resources or where's my stuff?

This will show us where LMMS is currently pointing to for its resources.

Here's where all those paths are looking:

With the exception of the WORKING directory, we can use all of the other directories in their current locations to get up and running.

As for that WORKING directory, we should point that to our shiny new external drive we have. This is the best place to have all of our projects running. Again, please get an external drive!

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Key benefits

  • Create the dance music you wanted. An experienced guide shows you the ropes.
  • Learn from the best in dance music; its history, its people, and its genres.
  • Learn the art of making music: from the way you set up your equipment, to polishing up your final mix.

Description

You've scoured the forums, watched the tutorial videos, and done everything you can to learn the secrets of the art of making dance music. Everyone is saying something different about how to get into producing your own projects. This book will help connect the dots and lay a solid foundation of knowledge so you can get beats banging out of LMMS.This book will show you the ins and outs of making Dance music with LMMS. Do you make house, trance, techno or down-tempo? After this book you'll be able to make a song that stands out from the masses, using time honoured tricks of the trade. From inception to conception, this book will help give you a workflow to channel your muse using LMMS.Readers will be given a brief lesson on the best of dance music history, then learn how to recreate it using the Open Source digital workstation - LMMS. The reader will be guided through creating a project from start to finish. By the end of this book, the reader will know how to create a full dance track in LMMS and make it ready for distribution.Along the way, readers will take short stops into music theory, song arranging, recording, and other related information to give them a good foundation for making dance music with depth as well as power. Reading LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production will not just teach the reader how to use LMMS, but also how good dance music is crafted. The reader will not just be taught how to make decisions in LMMS, but when and why. After devouring this book, the reader should be able to focus on his or her creativity, with LMMS as a co-conspirator in the process of making great dance music.

Who is this book for?

You have a computer and a love for dance and electronic music. Maybe you've been to some clubs, and the energy of electronic dance music has you completely under its spell. You see a DJ spinning, and everyone is dancing. It's infectious. You want to make music that affects people that way. Today the open source community has offered you LMMS. Read this book, and you'll be shown a process to creating great dance music. This book is going to connect the dots if you have already started making dance music, and provide a very solid foundation if you are just getting started ñ no matter what your skill level is.

What you will learn

  • How to install and navigate LMMS
  • How to create compelling bass lines and loops
  • How to create a sample library of custom-made sounds
  • How to use the LMMS editors to create and edit your music
  • Explore the instruments included in LMMS
  • How to use the Song Editor to arrange a song
  • How to mix and use effects
  • How to export a mix from LMMS so that it can be shared with the world
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Product Details

Country selected
Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Sep 21, 2012
Length: 384 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849517041

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Product Details

Publication date : Sep 21, 2012
Length: 384 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849517041

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Table of Contents

14 Chapters
1. Gearing Up: A Preflight Checklist Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Getting Our Feet Wet: Exploring LMMS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Getting Our Hands Dirty: Creating in LMMS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Expanding the Beat: Digging Deeper into the Art of Beatmaking Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Making Spaces: Creating the Emotional Landscape Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Finding and Creating New Noises Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Getting It All Stacked Up Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Spreading Out the Arrangement Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Gluing the Arrangement Together Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Getting the Mix Together Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Getting into Instruments Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
12. Where to Go from Here Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Pop quiz—Answers Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.8
(5 Ratings)
5 star 80%
4 star 20%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Andrey Dvornikov Feb 26, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
The only book about LMMS. Not a bad one. :)
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Heinz-Peter B. Jul 19, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Ich arbeite mit diesem freien Musikprogramm. Hätte das Programm viel lieber in deutscher Sprache beschrieben bekommen, ohne die übliche Übersetzerei.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Tres Finocchiaro Nov 07, 2012
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
There's some things you'll learn by clicking through them, then there's LMMS. LMMS has a lot of features that have become expected in a music studio, but without a clear understanding of how to find them and what they actually do (i.e. Envelope) it's just a game of turning knobs, clicking buttons and *hoping* things sound good.The book starts with an introduction to the equipment LMMS (as well as other music software) mimics and ends with some very cool automation stuff such as dynamically changing tempo, volume and some advanced techniques used in music creation.Don't be fooled into thinking this is just a crash course on the LMMS software. The author takes time to explain microphones, keyboards, synthesizers, distortion pedals and much more which is important in an era where many musicians have never touched the physical equipment they are so eager to use electronically.What I found most valuable from this book is the explanation of the Triple Oscillator. This instrument often seen as "Default preset" is easily overlooked but can create sounds such as a bass guitar, electric guitar, and many others! Also, the detail about each instrument plug-in (such as Kicker, LB302 and ZynAddSubFX and taking advantage of that yellow star (instrument presets) was excellent. This book was enough inspiration for me to take LMMS a step further from a hobby to a great free production tool. I'd highly recommend purchasing this book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Brett L. Markham Feb 11, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I do most of my audio work on Linux using Ubuntu Studio with KXStudio extensions. Included in these packages is the free (yes FREE) LMMS software. LMMS is one of the few great Linux audio packages that also works on Windows, giving Windows users an excellent choice over some of the much more $expensive$ proprietary options. As a bonus, even though originally designed in Linux, LMMS allows access to VSTs under both Linux and Windows, which opens a world of opportunity.Every DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software package has its strengths and weaknesses. LMMS is custom made for dance music, but unfortunately the available online documentation leaves a bit to be desired. I got this book both because I am interested in making dance music AND because I wanted to learn LMMS. This book delivers on its promise. Certainly, there's no such thing as a truly *complete* book on any musical subject, but in terms of its core competencies of showing you how to use LMMS and explaining how dance music is constructed, it is excellent. This book takes you step-by-step through putting together a cool piece of dance music. The author explains every step clearly, gives examples, asks you review questions, etc.If you know absolutely nothing about music, this book will not make you a serious composer. It gives a bit of an introduction to things such as musical scales, chords and keys which is enough to get started. I have a hard time judging this as I've been involved with music for three decades. It's hard to put myself in the shoes of someone with absolutely zero knowledge of music and ask: would this be enough? I think it is, though just barely, and would recommend if you are seriously interested in music composition generally and need to learn music theory, you should get a supplemental text on the subject. It would also be helpful if you actually know how to play an instrument -- any instrument. This is not, IMO, a shortcoming of the book. I'm glad the author covers what he does and hopefully it will whet some readers' appetites.The author shows you how to use every feature of the software, including features such as the Beat/Bassline editor that make LMMS unique. He shows you how to use effects as both inserts and sends, how to use the mixing panel, how to use automation to work with practically any control, and more.The author also explores dance music construction including its beats, tempo, syncopation and more. He discusses the ideas behind synthesis and gives an introduction to using external instruments with MIDI.There is one shortcoming to this book. In several sections he tells the reader to "reduce/increase volume by X db." The problem is that the knobs are calibrated in percentages rather than decibels and unless someone knows how to correlate db and percentages, there will be a bit of head scratching. To make this easy, a signal is cut in half for every 6db. So a volume control at 100% would be reduced to 50% when turned down 6db.Overall, this is a really great book. It is accessible in that it is written for laypeople, is very clearly written with good illustrations, and really explains its subject matter. It talks to the reader but never down to the reader. I like this book a lot, and wish more authors who address complex subjects could do so with this author's clarity.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Oct 26, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
The author is clear in his explanations on how LMMS functions. I use this book as a valuable aid in my Digital Music course. The only real issue I have is that an older version of LMMS is covered and there have been significant changes to the program since it was published. Of course, this is not the author's fault, but simply a consequence of the rapidly evolving technology age we live in. Just realize, it will be up to the reader to discover how the many new LMMS features work and how to apply them. I eemphatize with the author because I am also an author of technology books and well aware of how rapidly things change once your book is published. That's why I constantly focus on unchanging fundamental principles and less on the current technology issues, which I know will change rapidly.Oh! how I envy fiction and historical authors.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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