LMMS is a digital audio workstation that allows you to produce instrumental songs. LMMS stands for Linux MultiMedia Studio. The software was originally created for the Linux operating system, but then later re-programmed to work with Microsoft Windows (hence the name). This presentation will walk you through the process of creating a very basic song. There are many components of the program that won’t be covered in this tutorial, but it should be enough information to get you started. What is LMMS?

The Basics The Project menu will allow you to open projects, save projects, create new projects, etc. These icons open up the various LMMS editing windows in case you accidentally close one The tempo window controls how fast or slow your song is (the wheel on the mouse moves the setting up or down) The master volume setting controls how loud your song will be

The Basics Both the My Samples (green music note) and My Presets (yellow star) icons contain various sound samples that you can use to create your song.

The Basics The Song Editor Window controls each track that is used to make up your song. This is the most important window in the program. We will look more closely at this window when we begin creating our song. All of the tracks (pieces of the song) shown in this window will play together to make up the final song.

The Basics The Beat/Bassline Editing Window is used to create the beat for our song. Once the beat is created in this window, we can add it to our final song in the Song Editor Window that we just saw.

Creating Your First Song We’re going to start by creating a beat for the song, so drag your Beat/Bassline Window to the left so you can see the whole window.

Click on the My Samples icon on the left side of your screen Click the square next to the drums folder (this will expand the folder so you can see all of the sounds that it contains) Hold your left mouse button down (don’t double click) on any of the sounds in order to hear them

Left click and drag bassdrum01.ogg over to the Beat/Bassline Editor. Drop the file in the gray area underneath of Default preset.

Left click and drag hihat_closed01.ogg over to the Beat/Bassline Editor. Drop the file in the gray area underneath of bassdrum01.ogg.

Use the left mouse button to add the following patterns into the Beat/Bassline Editor. o If you make a mistake, click on any green mark with the left mouse button and it will be removed

Click the play button in the upper left hand corner of the Beat/Bassline Window to hear your beat. Click the stop button when you are done.

Click the Add Beat/Bassline button (it looks like a checkerboard with a green plus sign) in order to add a new Beat/Bassline track to the song

You can now use the pull down menu in the Beat/Bassline Editor to switch between the two Beat/Bassline tracks.

Make sure Beat/Bassline 1 is selected in the pull down menu, and drag clap01.ogg into the editor

Make sure Beat/Bassline1 is still selected and use the left mouse button to add the following pattern into the Beat/Bassline Editor.

Now we are going to add our Beat/Bassline into our actual song. In the Song Editor Window, use the left mouse button to add the following patterns for Beat/Bassline 0 and Beat/Bassline 1. o If you make a mistake, press down on the mouse wheel to delete an entry.

Use the play controls at the top of the window to listen to what you have so far.

Lets take a moment to save the project. As this is the first time we have saved the project, select Project  Save As…. Navigate to your H: drive, name the project, and click Save

Let’s add a track to the Song Editor Click the square box next to TripleOscillator in the My presets tab.

Scroll down until you find SpaceBass.xpf and then drag it into the Song Editor Window. Double click the first grey square in the Space Bass track in order to open up the Piano Roll.

The Piano Roll lets you customize the way the track will play. Clicking on the piano keys will allow you to hear what the track sounds like in a particular pitch. Use the left mouse key to add the notes shown above into the Piano Roll. The left mouse button allows you to add, resize, and move notes. The right mouse button removes the notes. Press the play button at the top when you’re done to listen to your track. Make sure the pencil is selected before you start.

Close the Piano Roll when you are done to return to the Song Editor.

Take notice that there are now squares filled in within the Space Bass track. The orange lines represent the notes that you added within the Piano Roll.

We don’t want this track to begin playing right when the song starts, so use the left mouse button to drag the squares to the right (as shown above).

In order to lengthen our Space Bass track, hold the Ctrl key down, left click on the squares you already added, and drag them to the right. Repeat this process until your track looks like the one shown above. Press the Play button to see how your song sounds at this point.

If you ever decide to delete a track that you have added you can left click on the wrench/screwdriver symbol to the left of the track and select “Remove Track” to get rid of it. Also, if you need to adjust the volume of a particular track, you can hover your mouse over the “VOL” symbol and use the wheel on the mouse to adjust the volume of the track.

Now let’s add an effect to our song. Begin by clicking Add effect. Select Mono phaser from the list that pops up, and then click OK Try listening to your song again to hear the difference that the added effect made

Now that our very simple song is done, we want to convert it into a file that anyone can listen to. We need to click Project  Export…

Select the folder that you would like to save the exported song to. Make sure Files of type: is set to WAV-File (*.wav) Make sure the file name has “.wav” at the end of it Click Save

Click Start

Your song is now ready to play!