If you're looking to discover the very latest music-making technology and you want to save money, Your Free Open Source Music Studio is for you. This exciting new book takes readers deep into the world of open source software---where the new, the innovative, and the affordable are key. Delve into pre-screened useable and reliable music shareware and freeware programs, beginning with shareware DAW recording software. Learn about the various multi-track recording programs that are available free of charge and how you can get your hands on them. There are also tutorials on how to use the programs. You'll then brush up on the various available plug-ins, from virtual instruments to correctional plug-ins, like compressors. The book also examines stereo audio editors like Audacity, which are a necessity for mastering; destructive edits; and more. Much of the technology the book covers is more advanced than anything you can currently purchase, but it's free! This is a must-have resource for any musician looking to save money while learning the latest technology.
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Book Description
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About Your Free Open Source Music Studio
- After starting his own company, funding it entirely on his own, author G. W. Childs realizes the difficulties faced by those just starting out. Learn more about his journey, the tools he found, when and when not to spend money, and how to do it.
"[T]he main point in writing this . . . is to let you know what's out there if you just ask."
--G. W. Childs (from the Preface) - Takes readers deep into the world of open source music software--where the new, the innovative, and the affordable is key.
- Explains how you can get your hands on free DAWs, plugins, and other useful freeware and shareware for your studio.
- Provides tutorials on how to use the various programs available.
- Fills in the gaps where you need it by detailing specific instructions for installing shareware software on multiple operating systems even when no clear instruction is provided by the developer.
Review
Introduction. 1. What is Open Source Software? 2. The Open Source DAW. 3. Virtual Instruments- Synths. 4. FX. 5. Corrective Plug-ins. 6. Virtual Instruments- Drums/Percussion. 7. Niche Plug-ins. 8. Where to find more.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
A Good General Overview of a Low Cost Computer Music Studio But Dated and Mostly Not Linux Oriented
July 27, 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This book is a chatty and general overview of how you can build an open source music studio that is essentially free and low cost. The book reads well and summarizes many different kinds of software, mixing software, studio software, fx software and synthesizer software very well. The book has, for my interests, two limitations. One is that the information is already a fair bit out of date. Many items of free and open source software are not mentioned and some of the ones mentioned have already undergone some significant evolution since the book was written. Two is that it handles a lot about Mac and PC software options, but very little about Linux option, even though Linus has strongly pioneered open source. Linux Multi Media Studio is not covered. The book, too, is almost a catalog of what you can get and some description of the features to consider. But there is nothing about how, for instance, to interface DSSI plug ins with Rosegarden or LMMS, what kinds of audio cards are most compatible with which software choices, and how well the WINE Linux program allows Linux users to use music software for a PC or Mac.
Part of my commitment as a reviewer of computer stuff is to come from the Linux angle and give a review that helps Linux users know what is going to work for them and what is best left alone to save time and money. This book has almost no advice that I feel would have been worthwhile for a person trying to set up a Linux Studio (which I have done). I use Linux Mint OS 9 (which piggy backs on Ubuntu and runs everything Ubuntu does fairly easily). I have found that people need to research which multi-core chips run best on Linux, because Music software puts the CPU through the paces and is likely to find any weakness in the chipset that can cause a kernel crash. I have found the Intel I-5 CPU to be the most stable in this regard and has plenty of smooth power to keep up with multi-track processing of audio information. I have found Audacity to be fantastic, but sometimes you do hit a glitch and it crashes. Although it is decent in recovery mode, something is usually lost with a crash. I found the crashes happen usually when playing tracks with different sampling rates. LMMS is fairly stable but also has glitches and some of the VST synths will crash the software. My favorite software synth the ZynAddSubFx is AMAZING and is not covered in the book at all. It is cross platform, free, and to me it runs better than some software that even tags at about $180. I do ambient healing meditation music and find the harmonic processing features to make this the most ambient friendly synth I have ever found. Although I found about 50 free software synths (more than the author shares in his book), this is the one I have settled on using. I notice on youtube that many people do feel the same way that I do. The Zyn can directly record to the hard drive without being a VST plug in (though there is a VST version also for use in LMMS that works very well and which can take advantage of many aspects of working in the LMMS environment. I found on a dual core or monochore that Zyn and Audacity have been all I need. The native "sound recorder" has been handy with a simple condenser mike.
In terms of hardware, there are new issues with the emergence of Windows 7 that are also not touched on at all. It seems that digital audio interfaces are needed for this OS and many old computers have analog interfaces (though Linux does not have a problem with analog interfaces or viruses for that matter).
The book also spends, in my opinion, a little too much time with Reason software and its components which is not free and not open source. Perhaps there is a free bundled version, but this is not open source and can be severely limited in its function until you pay money and unlock it. Reason is a fantastic bit of software, but it is very expensive and has no Linux presence at all. LMMS is the Linux alternative. There are a few experimental modular software synthesizers in the repository that may even be superior to Reason in flexibility and which take some time to learn and interface with the audio card. I was hoping for a review of some of them, but none of them are mentioned. Pure Data seems the most promising to me in this regard, but I am not an expert on it and have not yet gotten it to work.
In short, this book is a little too weak for people who are wanting to build on a Linux platform. The information is interesting but dated (the I-5 chip did not even come out so the strongest chip mentioned is the Core 2 Duo). It favors Mac and Windows, but does not mention Windows 7. It does not understand the difference between freeware, shareware, and open source (the latter is not only free, but means that a community can alter the code in order to improve it, not just those that hold copyright, as long as they follow the GNU public license rules). I was looking forward to reading a book that was more Linux oriented than it was and found it lacking in support. I did like what the book did say and found it worthwhile to peruse. I plan to check out some of the software mentioned. But as far as what the title suggested is the subject, it is a little weak. I still give it 4 stars, because it is an interesting catalog of short essays about making a low cost studio, but really a free one or an open source one. I did not give it a 5 star rating because of the weaknesses mentioned above. I did not give a 3 star rating, because it is a hard subject to summarize unless you are going to make a very thick book.
I wrote a little more in my review than I usually do, because I am committed to supporting Linux users and reviewing for them, and happen to have some knowledge about the subject from my own experience in setting up and using a studio. Most of the compositions on my youtube channel were done with Audacity and the Zyn, like AmbientStudy5, and they do compose very clean recordings. I wish everyone who wants to use Linux for their music platform the best and hope the extra notes are helpful.
Part of my commitment as a reviewer of computer stuff is to come from the Linux angle and give a review that helps Linux users know what is going to work for them and what is best left alone to save time and money. This book has almost no advice that I feel would have been worthwhile for a person trying to set up a Linux Studio (which I have done). I use Linux Mint OS 9 (which piggy backs on Ubuntu and runs everything Ubuntu does fairly easily). I have found that people need to research which multi-core chips run best on Linux, because Music software puts the CPU through the paces and is likely to find any weakness in the chipset that can cause a kernel crash. I have found the Intel I-5 CPU to be the most stable in this regard and has plenty of smooth power to keep up with multi-track processing of audio information. I have found Audacity to be fantastic, but sometimes you do hit a glitch and it crashes. Although it is decent in recovery mode, something is usually lost with a crash. I found the crashes happen usually when playing tracks with different sampling rates. LMMS is fairly stable but also has glitches and some of the VST synths will crash the software. My favorite software synth the ZynAddSubFx is AMAZING and is not covered in the book at all. It is cross platform, free, and to me it runs better than some software that even tags at about $180. I do ambient healing meditation music and find the harmonic processing features to make this the most ambient friendly synth I have ever found. Although I found about 50 free software synths (more than the author shares in his book), this is the one I have settled on using. I notice on youtube that many people do feel the same way that I do. The Zyn can directly record to the hard drive without being a VST plug in (though there is a VST version also for use in LMMS that works very well and which can take advantage of many aspects of working in the LMMS environment. I found on a dual core or monochore that Zyn and Audacity have been all I need. The native "sound recorder" has been handy with a simple condenser mike.
In terms of hardware, there are new issues with the emergence of Windows 7 that are also not touched on at all. It seems that digital audio interfaces are needed for this OS and many old computers have analog interfaces (though Linux does not have a problem with analog interfaces or viruses for that matter).
The book also spends, in my opinion, a little too much time with Reason software and its components which is not free and not open source. Perhaps there is a free bundled version, but this is not open source and can be severely limited in its function until you pay money and unlock it. Reason is a fantastic bit of software, but it is very expensive and has no Linux presence at all. LMMS is the Linux alternative. There are a few experimental modular software synthesizers in the repository that may even be superior to Reason in flexibility and which take some time to learn and interface with the audio card. I was hoping for a review of some of them, but none of them are mentioned. Pure Data seems the most promising to me in this regard, but I am not an expert on it and have not yet gotten it to work.
In short, this book is a little too weak for people who are wanting to build on a Linux platform. The information is interesting but dated (the I-5 chip did not even come out so the strongest chip mentioned is the Core 2 Duo). It favors Mac and Windows, but does not mention Windows 7. It does not understand the difference between freeware, shareware, and open source (the latter is not only free, but means that a community can alter the code in order to improve it, not just those that hold copyright, as long as they follow the GNU public license rules). I was looking forward to reading a book that was more Linux oriented than it was and found it lacking in support. I did like what the book did say and found it worthwhile to peruse. I plan to check out some of the software mentioned. But as far as what the title suggested is the subject, it is a little weak. I still give it 4 stars, because it is an interesting catalog of short essays about making a low cost studio, but really a free one or an open source one. I did not give it a 5 star rating because of the weaknesses mentioned above. I did not give a 3 star rating, because it is a hard subject to summarize unless you are going to make a very thick book.
I wrote a little more in my review than I usually do, because I am committed to supporting Linux users and reviewing for them, and happen to have some knowledge about the subject from my own experience in setting up and using a studio. Most of the compositions on my youtube channel were done with Audacity and the Zyn, like AmbientStudy5, and they do compose very clean recordings. I wish everyone who wants to use Linux for their music platform the best and hope the extra notes are helpful.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is a pretty ugly book, large fonts basically doubling the page count of the rather thin material, and it's extremely basic. Insultingly basic I'd say for many potential readers, if someone is thinking about employing open source software for a music studio, it seems plausible that they'd know what a synthesizer is, right? And the software lists are quite outdated.
Honestly this book should be a website with updated links to the recommended software.
Honestly this book should be a website with updated links to the recommended software.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
"Your Free Open Source Music Studio" by G.W. Childs IV is not at all what I expected. While the book tries to give a general overview of how to get going using low-cost or no cost options for your in home music studio, it really rather falls short. Much of the equipment that is shown looks like it is more retro than what most musicians - or in my case, producers, who want to make their own in-house film scores would find useful. Most photos look ca. 1980's or very early 90's at best. While the author does talk about Apple's Garage Band, it definitely looks as the example was at least three or more upgrades ago. That isn't recent enough - not when media moves so fast these days. Let's be honest: In this realm, you cannot afford to be behind the times. The information needs to be as fresh and recent as possible, and the instruments cannot look as if they came out of a pawn shop inventory ten years ago.
Other disappointing aspects of this book: The fonts are too large for the actual text of the guide and then the index font size is incredibly small. Add to this that nowhere in the entire book is there a single URL for anyone who might be interested to download the softwear. Yes, you can Google the information, but why would anyone want to do the extra step that the author should have done in the first place? Understandably, information of this type is usually obsolete before it comes off the press - but this book looks as if the authro sat on the information at least a number of years. In product manuals or how to manuals of this source, there should not only be an index, but rather a resource and contact list at the back of the book. This information would have been so essy to put in but for whatever reason, the author didn't bother. It wasn't useful for me as a filmmaker and I would not recommend it to other music producing and filmmaking colleagues or friends of mine either.
Other disappointing aspects of this book: The fonts are too large for the actual text of the guide and then the index font size is incredibly small. Add to this that nowhere in the entire book is there a single URL for anyone who might be interested to download the softwear. Yes, you can Google the information, but why would anyone want to do the extra step that the author should have done in the first place? Understandably, information of this type is usually obsolete before it comes off the press - but this book looks as if the authro sat on the information at least a number of years. In product manuals or how to manuals of this source, there should not only be an index, but rather a resource and contact list at the back of the book. This information would have been so essy to put in but for whatever reason, the author didn't bother. It wasn't useful for me as a filmmaker and I would not recommend it to other music producing and filmmaking colleagues or friends of mine either.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very Comprehensive
Childs is incredibly generous with his resources and information that will help us create music much less expensively than were we to try to research how to do so on our own. Read more
Published 1 month ago by DJY51
Helps you find instruments, but what do I do once I've found them?
This book, on its face, will appeal to anyone wanting to bootstrap their computer music career. Thanks to the information in this book, I was able to find plenty of new... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Eric P. Larue
Flawed
I am of two mind son this book. It does list a lot of Open Source stuff that you can ta into and I like that. Read more
Published 3 months ago by TastyBabySyndrome
Your free Open Source Music Studio shows that you really can create...
Your Free Open Source Music Studio presents the plethora of open source software that is available for the three main PC platforms including the Mac, Windows and Linux. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Patrick Regan
Great book
Yes, everything in this book can be found online, but it's REALLY nice to have it all together in a volume with some explanation and instruction. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Kristi G., mom of Sage
A decent book
This book is a good place to start for someone just starting out in music production on their computer. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Claire Jordan
Could be a good reference guide, if re-released yearly
I've Googled for free recording software products over the years, and most of what I found (including shareware) was included in this book. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jaime Vendera
Outdated?
I thought that the topic of this book might prove to yield a useful book for a look into software used in the music industry and for hobbyists like me. I was proven wrong. Read more
Published 8 months ago by M. Luke
Good Basics
The title of this book is a little bit misleading. Although you COULD put together a studio's worth of software, entirely free/open source, it would not really be possible to put... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Rachel B. Ramey
Rich Resource
Whether you are new to digital music production, or a seasoned veteran, this book will guide you to the free software you need to build your digital recording studio, or to make... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Eric K. Talerico
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