Audio

LV2 Plugins

There are multiple different types of audio plugins that you can use. LV2 plugins work exceptionally well on Linux and there is a large selection of free ones. The LV2 MIDI instrument I used was Dexed. Anyways, you just download the file and copy the .lv2 file to /usr/lib/lv2, at least on Linux. Obviously, you would put it elsewhere on different OSes. On opening Ardour it should be in your options for adding a MIDI instrument track.

Adding MIDI Instrument

So now you can expand the track to get a keyboard.

Expanded Track

I have used LV2 plugins on other software before and I was trying to find out how to customize the instrument. By opening the mixer window you should be able to see all the tracks.

Dexed

If you double click the name, in this case the red “Dexed”, it should open up a dashboard for the plugin where you can customize the sound. Also, you can press the keyboard symbol in the corner to allow the keyboard to act as the piano keys. This helps greatly when trying to get the perfect sound.

Instrument Dashboard

Ardour

I used Ardour for the first time the other day. Really, I have downloaded it before, but upon opening it I came to the resolution that it was to complicated as I couldn’t get any audio to be produced. It has been a year or so now, and I have come to want the use of a fully functional DAW. After some research I found out how to do basic audio routing and got sound to be produced! It turns out it isn’t really that hard. Last time I was grappling with using JACK and Ardour together, which would make it have lower latency, but it adds to a beginners confusion.

First Time Using Ardour

I only spent a few minutes, as you can probably tell with the audio clipping. Anyways, my main reason for wanting to use Ardour is the recording ability. I was previously using LMMS which is great for making synth tracks, but live music incorporation was just to much work. I was also using Audacity, but it didn’t seem to have easy incorporation of MIDI instruments. I will go over them in later posts as they are still very good applications.

After just a little bit of playing around I was able to get MIDI instruments working. I downloaded the Black Pearl Drum-kit, and was able to get it working easily.

MIDI Drums In Ardour