LMMS is a music production software. I use it on my PC. Is it good as an alternative for paid DAWs?
I have used LMMS for quite a bit. It’s fairly stable, and I really like the UI and the general experience, plus, it comes with basic samples and plugins with presets, which is nice.
The biggest drawback in my opinion at the moment is the lack of native support for lv2 and vst3 plugins, which limits the access to some usefull plugins like Surge. That and the lack of a record audio tool.
I tried Ardour which is much more complete. It’s alright, but i’m not a fan of the user experience and it is far more complex.
ZRythm is very promising, but is not really stable right now.
So yeah, LMMS is defintely a good FOSS option and a good DAW despite the lack of some features in my opinion
I haven’t tried LMMS, but I stumbled across Bitwig a while back, and I started using that when I decided to pick up music making again. I love it. I tried using Ardour for a while, but I found it overly cumbersome.
Lmms is a good Foss replacement for FL studio.
Ardour is a decent replacement for ProTools. As others have said, it can be daunting or cumbersome but if you’re looking for a complete DAW it is worth taking the time to learn.
If you want “just basics,” lmms will work for programmed sounds & you can use audacity for a more robust live recording interface.
I use LMMS with simple soundfonts instead of VSTis, and it sounds just as good as the garbage I made with FL Studio back when I pirated it and didn’t have to care about publishing.
If you don’t want to pay, LMMS is the best option in my opinion.
I am not an audio professional and I personally am not in love with the interface in my limited use of the thing – though my basis for comparison is only much-simpler software packages – but I have consistently seen Ardour recommended as a DAW under Linux.
If you have not considered it, I’d probably at least have it on your list to look at.
How would you improve the interface?
Yeah as someone who’s been producing for 6y I haven’t looked into LMMS a lot but that’s also because I did not really like what I saw particularly. Ardour looks a bit more robust.
There’s the argument that you can make every type of tool have the same effect if you use it properly, but imo it’s a big difference in the end. So plugins will always be a bit of a struggle for compatibility in Linux (I’m sorry Linux power users, but I’ve been there and had to go back). Otherwise it might be a viable option.
I find it pretty basic and it doesn’t support VST3 plugins, but you might find that the limits help you to become more creative. I’ve also heard of Ardour which is more comparable to other high end DAWs like Ableton when it comes to features. It’s technically free since you can attempt to compile it yourself but you can get an installer for cheap.
