Ubuntu Studio 16.04.3 LTS

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Halloween will soon be here, so I figured I’d get with the spirit of the season and do something scary!

Yes, that’s right, venture out of my comfort zone and take the long and twisted path through the spooky digital dark woods of lonely Linux distributions.

In a world where Mac OS and Windows dominate the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) world, Linux offers some impressive potential. That said, it’s time I put a little effort into actually doing something with all that potential.

My favorite DAW has been Logic Pro X on a MacBook Pro. I’ve even used it on a Mac Air with some success. I’ve never been too impressed with using a standard Windows laptop for a portable DAW, but let’s see what I can do with a somewhat low powered laptop and Linux.

To build this “Frankenstein” I chose Ubuntu Studio 16.04.3 LTS.

(Xenial Xerus) 64-bit. I’m using an old Thinkpad (Intel N2940 @ 1.83 GHz) with 4 gigs of ram. This is not a powerhouse by any means, but it might be closer to what some Linux users have available if they are on a budget.

“It’s Alive!” Well, it’s running. I installed the Distro, ran apt update & apt upgrade – then went right into LMMS 1.1.3.  For a basic DAW LMMS is pretty straightforward. The built-in samples are solid, and the Beat+Baseline Editor is easy to use with the Piano-Roll. Audacity 2.1.2 is a very good sound recorder/editor. This is probably the most useful software for what I would use. There are a lot of audio utilities and effects. As far as a software studio, Ubuntu Studio packs a lot in the audio production selection. Add these tools to the provided Graphic Design and Video production selections and you have a lot of tools to leverage with some creativity.

I’m going to try to explore as much of this Distro as I can in the coming weeks and see what I can do with all these tools. Maybe I’ll learn a few new tricks along the way. I might even treat myself to some play time on some of these software synths.

Check out our blog post on Music Production with a home studio!

 

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