A 'Basic concepts' tutorial

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As a newbie to music and electronic music, I realize I have a lot to learn.

I downloaded LMMS and have begun playing with it. I found that the documentation seems to assume that I instantly know by looking at each element of each window that this is an instrument, this is a preset, this is a factory preset, this is your user defined preset, etc.

I don't. And the software behavior isn't helping. I may have a bug, but I don't have the terminology to briefly state a problem.

For example, in the Song Editor, I see a number of 'line items' -- tracks? channels?

I have two such line items in which I'm trying to make beat tracks. I have named the first name thingie in each line item Beatola1 and Beatola2. These are examples of what type of object?

When I try to edit them, I find that they each have listed a - what? instrument? preset? I started them both with Kicker, twiddled some values, and saved them as MyKicker1 and MyKicker2. I then defined some - what? bars? blocks? in the piano roll sections, and defined some beats, as well as setting the whatever-it's-called note length thingie indicated by a quarter note symbol. For one, I chose 1/16, for the other, 1/64.

Beatola1 and Beatola2 keep interacting. The note sequences in the piano roll section remain unique to each, but changing the note-length thingie or preset thingie in the Beatola1 line change it to the same value in Beatola2. And, when I drag MyKicker1 or MyKicker2 over as the new -- preset? -- , the name 'Kicker' still appears, although the twiddled values are correct for each. Why do I have to manually rename it to MyKicker1? (And when I do, it appears as such in Beatola2).

I made two other tracks with name thingies based on 3OSC, and they don't seem to interact at all. Either I've got a bug (I just downloaded the latest beta for Win7/32 bit), or I don't understand the hierarchy of objects I'm dealing with--which are parts of what, which are inherited, which are unique clones, etc.

A simple text-only tutorial that named and described all of these entities, and clearly defined how they relate to one another, how they interact, etc., would shave many hours' frustration off my learning curve. I'm sure LMMS will be a snap and a pleasure to use once I get over this hurdle.

Thanks in advance for either a pointer to such a tutorial, or megathanks for taking a cut at it yourself.
I think you are in part correct. Some 'knowledge' of how piano-rolls and song-editor windows are structured and working in almost any music program, like lmms, is presumed -And from this post, i can understand, that the asumption was wrong.
I will make one.
But as you wait for that, you meight like to see this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMPH5prCMv4
Its in 4 parts, and shows how i like to work with lmms.
(lots of other lmms videos on the channel- btw)
Im not sure i will have time to make a 'basic-how-to' video today, but i will post here, if and when its done.
Many thanks, musikbear!!! I will definitely study your videos soon!! :D

And, if I can get good handles on all this, I'll be happy to write a tutorial on music software structure and LMMS practice, as well. I am a former technical writer, among other things.
cravendrover wrote: I am a former technical writer, among other things.
Great - we can always use new stuff in the wiki:
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
I have made a beginners guide, that adresses some of the things you wrote about. If you need more help, just ask here
link:
http://youtu.be/hcUCFfQ3wn8