BespokeSynth VS lmms

https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth

BespokeSynth takes the concept of a modular synthesizer and expands it so that the application is less just a synth and more a complete modular DAW. I've used it to create MIDI/audio workflows that I couldn't get exactly the way I wanted in Ableton or FL Studio. It also has a module for doing audio processing livecoded in Python that I'm just starting to scratch the surface of.

Video from the creator covering I Feel Love in BespokeSynth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYUgPMMpts

https://www.google.com/search?q=awesome+generative+ai+site%3... ; #GenerativeArt #GenetativeMusic

- BespokeSynth DAW: https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth :

> [...] live-patchable environment, so you can build while the music is playing; VST, VST3, LV2 hosting;

Then I realized bespoke sync is also written in C (https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth) , and I learned about the ninja build system (which is what ysfx uses to compile JSFX).

Today I'm looking at a couple open source projects that are dear to my heart: OpenParliament API and BespokeSynth. If you've followed my work last term for OSD600 you've seen me write about my work on Bespoke already, which is a modular software synth. OpenParliament, on the other hand, is a great site with easy to consume information about Canadian government, the API for which I'm taking a look at today. This is part of my work for SPO600, or Software Portability and Optimization, so expect more on that soon! For now let's dive into these repos and how contributing to them works.

In the final installment of my efforts to bring midi import and export to BespokeSynth (part 1 and part 2 here) I'm working my way through the details of handling midi in Juce, with the added layer of having some Juce functionalities handled by Bespoke.

In last week's post I discussed my plans to implement midi import and export in BespokeSynth, a modular synth making app that's built on JUCE, an open source framework for developing VST plugins. So far I've been chipping away on a few fronts: making a demo app to try implementing midi import and export separately from Bespoke, looking at examples of components from other apps that do what I want to, and looking at how Bespoke already uses some components I'll need to implement it.

For my release 0.4 I'm going to be working on BespokeSynth which is a neat program my prof showed me earlier in the semester.

So, I saw the other day the release of the ep-133, and it happens that I want to get started doing that kind of stuff (e.g., creating simple beats). I have zero knowledge about DAW/sampling and music in general (my background is in soft. engineering), so the first thing that I searched on Google is "open source daw" and I found LMMS (https://lmms.io/). I'm going through the documentation right now.

Do you know which kind of books/articles/blogs I can follow to get started in this world of DAW? I would like to get the fundamentals first and then start experimenting (e.g., not sure if the analogy is correct, but "it's like I don't want to learn JavaScript, but I want to learn data structures, algorithms and programming in general")

# Topic 2: Dasher + Guitar Hero style music theory/improvisation practice program

Back "on topic": I remember being quite enamoured/fascinated by dasher when I first encountered it. It's quite a unique interaction paradigm with the constant "forward movement" and "intelligent" pre-filtering/constraint of options with size-based prioritization.

Your suggestion to extend this interaction style for use in the music theory domain immediately appealed to me, as it intersects with some musical things I've been thinking about/playing with recently.

Over the past couple of years I've been playing around with ("rules based" rather than ML) procedural music generation primarily in the context of games.

This has been motivated by a couple of things: partly a procgen project is helpful as a driver for gaining an deeper understanding of music theory which I would like to develop for my own composition/production; and, I'm really interested in exploring ways of providing people with the experience of actually composing/creating their own music--which is something I think many people perceive as something only "musicians"/"composers" can do.

The latter is driven my own music composition/creation/education experience: I learned piano as a kid for about a year until it was "mutually agreed" that if I wasn't going to practice perhaps it would be best to stop. :D But I've always really enjoyed music, particularly electronic/dance/EDM, and wanted to also create it & not just consume it--over the years I played around a tiny amount with creating some but gravitated toward DJing as my primary means of musical expression.

Then a few years ago I started "more seriously" creating tracks with LMMS (a FLOSS DAW https://lmms.io) and while progress was slow it was still nice to be able to enjoy the results.

But I grew frustrated/dissatisfied by the fact that I didn't really know how to add more of a melodic component to my music. (I'm an Anthemic Trance guy from way back. :D )

Over a couple of years after butting my head up against Music Theory a few times and bouncing off again (not unlike my experience with Rust :D ) one day I suddenly somehow "saw" some of the (simplified) Music Theory patterns/rules that I'd not internalised/understood previously.

And then I could add melody to my tracks! :o I mean they weren't masterpieces but it sounded like music! It blew my mind. :)

Not long after I realised something I found quite profound: it felt like music, instrument skills & music theory had only ever been presented to me as a thing that you did so you could play other people's music but I never wanted to play other people's music, I wanted to create my own!

Which then triggered a period of "Why didn't anyone teach me years ago when I was a kid that you could create your own music by starting with a few simple rules & building on them? Here I was "many" years later voluntarily learning about music theory, trying to apply it and even practising scales! :o

Anyway, that experience made me wonder if other people have experienced music & its creation in the same way and what opportunities there might be (particularly within a game/casual context) to provide those people with their first taste of creating music through a "guided" experience of just playing (in both senses of the word).

So, yeah, the "Guitar Dasher"/"Piano Dasher" concept aligns quite nicely with that. :)

Not that anyone asked me. :D

Couple of related things:

* Your suggestion also reminded me of another FLOSS DAW I played around with called Helio which has a "chord tool" (https://docs.helio.fm/tips-and-tricks.html#chord-tool) which appears as a pie-menu pre-populated with chords that fit with the current scale/root. I seem to recall that there are commercial DAWs that also have a similar UI.

* While I'm not particularly happy with its current state (really need to upload the most recent version of the code, which I'm fractionally happier with) here's my first foray into music procgen for a game jam entry (with a "debug quality UI" for controlling the output), if you're interested in checking it out: https://rancidbacon.itch.io/the-conductor

* And from a different angle here's another game jam entry where the concept I was playing with was essentially using music theory concepts as the basis for creating combat interactions/patterns (e.g. "Oh, no, how am I going to harmonize with whatever that was that the boss just played?!") and it all takes place on the "Grand Staff"/"Great Stave": https://rancidbacon.itch.io/stave-off

(Unfortunately as often seems to be the case I ended up spending more time fighting with a Unicode music engraving font/standard than I did writing game play for that last one. :) )

Of course, you need some kind of DAW software in your PC that receives MIDI (from LPK), creates the audio data and sends them to Volt. If you have zero experience with this, start with some kind of simple and self-contained DAW, like e.g. "LMMS" (free download). Later you can graduate to more complex (and expensive) DAWs and separate VST plugins.

song made in lmms by me

For music making, it kind of depends on what you use normally but LMMS is a decent free DAW.

Give a try to Ardour, LMMS, MusE and Rosegarden.

LMMS