3d ago

I'm a Professional Game Composer now using entirely Open-Source tooling

johnoestmannmusic.com Open-Source Tooling - John Oestmann Music

I believe that Open-Source is one of the strongest cultural movements towards diffusing power structures. I now use Open-Source tooling throughout the entire production of my works to clearly show that it is possible + effective. Currently in my Workflow Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) – OpenMPT, Fu...

29 comments

Crazy, for the first time blender is not mentioned! ;-)
- I have used and would recommend Blender. I just don't use it regularly :)
  
  Now I imagine someone building the soundwaves in Blender polygon by polygon.

Nice! I'm not a composer, but I just started playing with LMMS the other week and thought it was cool and intuitive—even encouraged me to finally pull the trigger on that Kurzweil keyboard with midi support I've been eyeing for some time! I bookmarked this and will take a look at OpenMPT and Furnace too.
Open source FTW ✊
- Latest release is 2020 it says on the GitHub page, is that incorrect information? I started using LMMS in 2022 but I recall ditching it because I thought it was a dead project..
  
  Yeah I asked about that on the LMMS Discord too, and said I had the same assumption. Apparently it is still under active dev, but you need to scroll down to the nightly builds.
  I don't know why they don't update the Git Releases..
- Yeah LMMS is decent, and its Piano Roll is actually really really good. However, IIRC I renamed some folders and it completely broke project links to my samples and was not easily fixable.
  
  LMMS doesn't seem to pack the samples and soundfonts into the project file when you import, so you're live referencing them in your folders, which means renaming the folders will break the links. I also learned this the hard way, and now tend to copy soundfonts I use into the project folder of each project, so if I need to move or send over files to someone else, I can copy the folder without breaking anything.

This is cool. I had no idea about most of these.

Ardour is another great open source DAW along with Linux Studio Plugins
- I've gotten pretty far in using it, great tool with plugin integrations.
- Just started exploring Linux Studio Plugins last weekend! I've heard Ardour is good, but I'm sticking to $0 options if I can help it. That way people don't need access to credit cards, etc, to use the software
  
  it's open source so you can build it yourself (pain in the ass) and it comes pre built with many Linux distros but yeah that's totally fair. I paid because I wanted to support the work and I'm a windows pleb

This is really dope. I try to do open source music and this is an amazing list of resources.
- My pleasure :)

Ooooh nice going! Saved this post because once in a blue moon I come up with short jingles, and I've been wanting a software that can record MIDI stuff without lag.
- Hahah yes, MIDI lag can be tricky, depending on setup. If the tracker-style DAWs I've listed don't work for your style, try LMMS, Helio, or Zrythm
- Sounds like you need asio4all (or linux), and maybe an audio interface.
  
  I've so far not had success with my Akai EIE Pro on Linux.

There's some great videos about this on PeerTube

Awesome, thanks for sharing and making this effort! Bookmarked for later when I can listen to your work.
How do you feel about Audacity?
- I was using Audacity for quick Normalization and other edits to my samples, but I've since learned I can do that inside OpenMPT (and save those edits back to file). Audacity does lack any form of "midi-esque" sequencing though, which is how I primarily work.
  Having said that, Audacity has come a long with VST support, etc, since Muse Group got involved. But unfortunately, they also allegedly enforced data tracking in a way that didn't respect the community that had supported it up until then. I actually don't know what the latest is (someone else feel free to reply with the update), but it hasn't been crucial enough in my workflow to keep up with.
  
  Tenacity is a community-run fork of Audacity, started after Audacity's privacy fiasco.
- audacity isn't much more than an audio editor (a good one at that), nowhere the capability of a daw

I'm not a composer but Kimai is indeed a very good time tracker. Beats the trash we use at work.

29 comments