lmms VS MuseScore

Compare lmms vs MuseScore and see what are their differences.

lmms

Cross-platform music production software (by LMMS)

MuseScore

MuseScore is an open source and free music notation software. For support, contribution, bug reports, visit MuseScore.org. Fork and make pull requests! (by musescore)
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lmms MuseScore
206 146
7,559 11,500
2.0% 2.2%
9.3 10.0
2 days ago 2 days ago
C++ C++
GNU General Public License v3.0 only GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

lmms

Posts with mentions or reviews of lmms. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-11-26.
  • Studio One 6.5 is now available as public beta version for Ubuntu Linux
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Nov 2023
  • Ask HN: Getting Started with DAW?
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 24 Nov 2023
    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")

  • If you're interested in eye-tracking, I'm interested in funding you
    11 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Aug 2023
    # 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. :) )

  • Midi I/O vs USB
    1 project | /r/midi | 25 Jun 2023
    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.
  • touhou 23 gameplay real !!!!(🚨🚨🚨🚨)
    1 project | /r/touhou | 20 Jun 2023
    song made in lmms by me
  • Is LMMS still being developed?
    1 project | /r/lmms | 17 Jun 2023
  • Linux for Video Editing and Photo Editing and Music DJ: Some idea?
    5 projects | /r/linux4noobs | 4 Jun 2023
    For music making, it kind of depends on what you use normally but LMMS is a decent free DAW.
  • My dual boot with windows 11 won't boot past intro screen or even into bios after failed attempt to fix frequent Kerbal panic.
    2 projects | /r/debian | 27 May 2023
    Give a try to Ardour, LMMS, MusE and Rosegarden.
  • Can't drag and drop instruments at all
    1 project | /r/lmms | 4 May 2023
  • Resources and such
    2 projects | /r/LinuxArtists | 29 Apr 2023
    LMMS

MuseScore

Posts with mentions or reviews of MuseScore. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-04-30.
  • This happens when I tried to open my file (musescore 4) idk i searched everywhere on how to fix this?
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 21 Jun 2023
    In that case, please ask for help on the official Support forum on musescore.org where you can attach the score itself and people should be able to take a look.
  • I keep having this issue where apparently it plays unhearable tone at max and i can't hear anything in program, anyone knows how to fix? Reinstalling didn't help
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 31 May 2023
    If you continue to have trouble, best to ask for help on the official Support forum on musescore.org and attach your score along with precise steps to reproduce the problem, so we can understand and assist better.
  • When Musescore 4 becomes operational software, release it again, and let me know
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 22 May 2023
    Is this what also led to https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/17663? If so I definitely urge you to spend the couple of minutes to test with a nightly build so we can known it is truly fixed for your case and not illustrate the other case that had been reported. As mentioned, testing nightlies is simple; they don’t interfere with normal installations at all.
  • Why can't I download Musescore?
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 17 May 2023
    Sorry, I don't know what "both buttons" means. There are buttons on the home page of musescore.org, buttons on the Download/Software page - both with and without Muse Hub - buttons for older versions, buttons for nightly builds, buttons for mobile apps, buttons within Muse Hub, probably others too. Please describe *exactly* what you are doing, step by step - the URL of the page you are on when you see the button, the text on the button you are clicking - and the exact text of the error you see.
  • [QUESTION] Looking for a free and easy tab maker online
    1 project | /r/Guitar | 4 May 2023
    Musescore seems to be the new standard
  • How do you use a chromebook?
    2 projects | /r/chromeos | 30 Apr 2023
    Not that I need to prove anything, but for anyone curious, here's a composition I created using the music notation software I help develop and support on my Chromebook. If you hit the play button on the composition, you'll hear the multitrack recording I created on my Chromebook as well, with my students singing the various parts. The piece was created for my online course teaching counterpoint, developed completely on my Chromebook. Here is a video from my most recent - the video is done from the Chromebook and the software managing the multicamera layout and screen share is software I developed on my Chromebook. And here is the online community I manage from my Chromebook.
  • Quick question about playback
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 28 Apr 2023
    I actually filed a github feature request for this exact thing yesterday, link here. On the principle that someone with more skills that me can get interested sooner than I can get good enough at C++ to do it myself.
  • Muse Hub malware-like behavior and dark/shady patterns on windows 11
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 25 Apr 2023
    Muse Hub is used by programs other than MuseScore, so it really doesn't make sense to offer it from there directly. Plus musescore.org was never designed to act in that way - downloads are pretty much always hosted elsewhere. Beyond that, I don't know all the ins and outs of how specific domains might be chosen, but I assume someone intelligent enough to set that up onows a ton more about it than I do, so I don't worry about it.
  • How to play along with MuseScore?
    1 project | /r/Musescore | 22 Apr 2023
    Unfortunately, MuseScore 4 seems to be missing that feature.
  • Crash when attempting to place a note in place of, or simply select, a particular rest.
    2 projects | /r/Musescore | 19 Apr 2023
    Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Definitely, we'd need the MSCZ file to be able to investigate. Normally we ask that people first post to the official Support forum on musescore.org to get confirmation before opening an issue on GitHub to report a bug formally, but it sounds like you've got things pretty well figured out in terms of having precise steps to reproduce the crash reliably, so I would encourage you to just go straight to the issue tracker on GitHub - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues

What are some alternatives?

When comparing lmms and MuseScore you can also consider the following projects:

muse - MusE is a digital audio workstation with support for both Audio and MIDI

LibreScore - The open source (GPLv3), serverless (IPFS-based), offline-first, and totally free alternative to musescore.com

ardour - Mirror of Ardour Source Code

ebsynth - Fast Example-based Image Synthesis and Style Transfer

overtone - Collaborative Programmable Music

helm - Helm - a free polyphonic synth with lots of modulation

alda - A music programming language for musicians. :notes:

seq66 - Seq66: Seq24-based live MIDI looper/editor. v. 0.99.12 2024-01-13. NSM support; Linux/Windows/FreeBSD; PDF user manual. Help access to tutorial and PDF. Beta code in portfix branch.

react-native-windows - A framework for building native Windows apps with React.

Tenacity - Tenacity is an easy-to-use, privacy-friendly, FLOSS, cross-platform multi-track audio editor/recorder for Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems. Project currently on an indefinite hiatus.

csound - Main repository for Csound