Plug-ins or else stack TONS of instrument tracks

[brothermonk]

It's been up and down for me with LMMS, right now, down, haha.

You gotta have plug-ins, right? I've only been fiddling with LMMS for a few weeks, still learning, liking the sounds overall, trying to make freeware work for me as much as possible, music is a side-project in my life.

But, you gotta have plug-ins, right? Otherwise, you're just stacking tons of instruments in each track it seems. I'm doing kind of rock stuff, not so much electronica style, even so, if I have a kick, snare, open closed high-hat, keep it simple with maybe two cymbals, not even getting into toms, I've got like 4-5 tracks stacked up just for my drums already. Add another track for each tom. Cowbell? I'd have like 10 instrument tracks just for me drum kit (that's also still trying to keep it simple and minimal), then instruments. Even if I add a violin to play a few notes, I'm adding another track... another instrument track that gets loaded onto every Beat/Bassline track. Say I want to have a snare that does a fill... I have one snare in my basic beat (say Beat/ Bassline 1), then I have to add ANOTHER snare track (to Beat/ Bassline 2) that does something different. I add that snare to a different Beat/ Bassline, but when I add an instrument to one Beat/ Bassline, it gets added to all other Beat/ Bassline tracks, even ones I considered complete.

So are my projects going to end up with 20-30 instrument tracks on each Beat/ Bassline track? I haven't gotten to that yet, but that seems the direction it's going if I'm going to add toms or hand-percussion...

That's where it looks like you have to use plug-ins, especially ones that give you a drum kit where you can set up kick, snare, hi-hat all in the piano roll, using the piano keys all in one instrument track, right? It's going to be hard to use LMMS without plug-ins... Also, plug-ins sound good and offer more variety...

First, I'm I doing something wrong here or am I right, without plug-ins, you're going to be stacking 20-30 instrument tracks or more per Beat/ Bassline?

Or am I wrong trying to do rock-type stuff with more variations and fills? LMMS seems set up for electronica- techno, that's fine, like I said, I do like the variety of sounds and sound quality in LMMS. But it seems like LMMS isn't going to work for anything SLIGHTLY more complex than one beat repeated over and over with no variation. HOPE I'm wrong.

This is kind of a general curiosity question about how LMMS is set up, how it works.

My real question I'll post later is that yes, plug-ins seemed to redeem LMMS for me... until the project I was working on, plug-ins failed to load. Failed to load on start-up of LMMS project, then failed again when I tried to load them (re-load them) via Vestige individually... Now when I play my project- silence (none of the plug-ins are loaded)- synth, drums, orchestra...

[brothermonk]

I might just be "thinking out loud" here...
checking out the demos they have in LMMS and trying to learn from those as far as how to structure songs...
Looks like they're putting together some decent things without using plug-ins, just using built in stuff like ZynAddSubFX...
still, seems like I will ultimately want to go with plug-ins for the sounds if not for what I started this thread with- keeping numbers of instrument tracks down.

[diiz]

Well, my latest track had in the main window: 30 b/b tracks, 4 instrument tracks and 16 automation tracks, and in the b/b-line window: 16 instrument/sample tracks and 10 automation tracks.

That is 50 tracks in the main window and 26 in the bline window. And that's with using instrument plugins for everything except drums and some of the sound fx.

So, the filling up of screen estate... that's just something you're going to have to deal with, one way or another. You could maybe accept the fact that all great art is born of suffering, and that making electronic music with a computer is an activity that is suitable only for people with an exceptionally sick brain. Or, you could maybe get a larger monitor.

[raekman]

Say I want to have a snare that does a fill... I have one snare in my basic beat (say Beat/ Bassline 1), then I have to add ANOTHER snare track (to Beat/ Bassline 2) that does something different. I add that snare to a different Beat/ Bassline, but when I add an instrument to one Beat/ Bassline, it gets added to all other Beat/ Bassline tracks, even ones I considered complete.

If you need 2 different snares, that's pretty much how you do it for now. Think of the B&B editor tracks like a drumkit, all your drums are still there even if you play a beat on only bass drum, snare and the hi hat
There's talk about adding a "hide unused tracks" button to the B&B editor, which would make this a bit more bearable.

That's where it looks like you have to use plug-ins, especially ones that give you a drum kit where you can set up kick, snare, hi-hat all in the piano roll, using the piano keys all in one instrument track, right? It's going to be hard to use LMMS without plug-ins... Also, plug-ins sound good and offer more variety...

A soundfont would work, too. There has to be some decent ones around? And you could of course mix and match, use some drums from the soundfont and some from samples.

[brothermonk]

cool, thanks...
yeah, hiding unused instrument tracks would be good.
I suppose I'm gradually answering my own questions too- I see in the demos, people aren't stacking their instruments into their B&B tracks, but ... oh, I think I see now, they just add those things like Triple Oscillator (would probably work for other instr too) directly into Song Editor, then that track is just that instrument without the whole drum kit... that makes more sense.
Well, shows how much of a beginner I am to this.

[raekman]

cool, thanks...
yeah, hiding unused instrument tracks would be good.
I suppose I'm gradually answering my own questions too- I see in the demos, people aren't stacking their instruments into their B&B tracks, but ... oh, I think I see now, they just add those things like Triple Oscillator (would probably work for other instr too) directly into Song Editor, then that track is just that instrument without the whole drum kit... that makes more sense.
Well, shows how much of a beginner I am to this.

Oh, I see now... usually the melodies go on those instrument tracks. One trick that might suit your situation would be making your basic beats in B&B tracks with a soundfont and then adding your fills using the same soundfont on one track in the Song Editor.

[popeye1234]

You could maybe accept the fact that all great art is born of suffering, and that making electronic music with a computer is an activity that is suitable only for people with an exceptionally sick brain. Or, you could maybe get a larger monitor.

Hi Diiz,
Do you mean sick as in sickly/unwell/diseased or are you using the fashionable slang meaning great?

[diiz]

You could maybe accept the fact that all great art is born of suffering, and that making electronic music with a computer is an activity that is suitable only for people with an exceptionally sick brain. Or, you could maybe get a larger monitor.

Hi Diiz,
Do you mean sick as in sickly/unwell/diseased or are you using the fashionable slang meaning great?

I choose to leave it up to reader's interpretation.

[popeye1234]

You could maybe accept the fact that all great art is born of suffering, and that making electronic music with a computer is an activity that is suitable only for people with an exceptionally sick brain. Or, you could maybe get a larger monitor.

Hi Diiz,
Do you mean sick as in sickly/unwell/diseased or are you using the fashionable slang meaning great?

I choose to leave it up to reader's interpretation.

That's bad!