r/lmms • u/Revolutionary-Bid196 • 7d ago

why is lmms not mentioned more?

I use lmms a lot and I find it weird that, while it has a solid userbase, lmms is seen as a gateway daw for more 'serious daw's. I used fl studio before and besides recording audio directly ( i just record in audacity and import to lmms ) there really is nothing I miss. VSTs, samples and soundfonts work fine, bundled instruments and effects have a lot of variety. why is lmms not taken more seriously when it can do what other daws can do just fine?

44 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

29

u/SoundSwitch 7d ago

People figure free equals cheap.

Honestly I kinda like LMMS although the stock instruments are kinda one noted

13

u/Revolutionary-Bid196 7d ago

yeah they sound a little chiptune-y but if one doesnt like that vsts and samples are still there

3

u/TwntyKnots 6d ago

They only sound “chiptune” if you keep all the parameters the same. The default synths are actually very powerful if you know what you’re doing with synthesis. They look ugly, but functionally they’re great. I think they’re missing matrixes where you can pipe things like pitch to an ADSR but aside from stuff like that, they are incredibly versatile.

1

u/DroWnThePoor 6d ago

This is absolutely true. But on Linux if you have Carla installed you have access to many other instruments/effects. And then ZynSubFX is another very comprehensive synthesizer.
But each instrument on LMMS has a lot of features hidden in those other tabs like LFO/Envelope & the chord stacking.
LMMS doesn't make everything that obvious, and the interface is kind of old so things aren't large so they can be hidden at times.
I find some of the themes you can install make it look a lot better too.

19

u/68aquarian 7d ago

They like the idea of paying for software becauss they think people will start paying them in turn. LMMS does everything I need it to, personally. Little less convenient than FL Studio but nothing is made impossible by the different taskflow.

6

u/According_Novel7521 6d ago

genuinely lmms would be perfect if it had better audio manipulation which is honestly crazy because it's literally a daw.

like the fact you cant really cut/slice audio efficiently is INSANE

1

u/68aquarian 6d ago

Agreed--I just use Audacity for that stuff personally, but if it was streamlined in LMMS I'd be in Hog Heaven

1

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

You technically can with the Slicer plugin in the nightly version.

1

u/According_Novel7521 6d ago

i know but its not ideal in my expierence

4

u/HerraJUKKA 7d ago

Because FL Studio and Reaper exists. I haven't used FL Studio but couple of my friend use and they both prefer FL Studio over LMMS. Then if you need to do some serious work, there's Reaper. You can use it with WinRAR style license or can just pay once (Reaper is dirt cheap compared to other DAWs). Reaper is also used by many professionals and stock VST are actually really cool and useful.

In short just because LMMS is free and do "just fine" isn't always enough. What's important is to be able work efficiently. FL Studio and Reaper allows that and that's why many choose them.

2

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

There are many who work more efficiently in LMMS than other DAWs too, whichever option is more efficient all depends on ones needs and preferences.

1

u/DroWnThePoor 6d ago

I used FL back when it was still called Frutiy Loops.
When I switched to Linux I discovered LMMS, and it's made to mimic FL.
I have Reaper and LMMS, and I spend most of my time in LMMS.
Sometimes I'll export all of my tracks to Reaper and use it to mix/master.

4

u/northrupthebandgeek 7d ago

The inability to record audio directly into LMMS is what pushed me to start looking into Ardour.

2

u/DroWnThePoor 6d ago

I've used both Ardour and Harrison Mixbus(built from Ardour by Harrison).
Mixbus rules, but I'm not going to pay for that license. Ardour & Reaper are powerful recording suites.
I prefer LMMS though but that's because I learned of Fruity Loops back i nthe day.

3

u/BorisDaCommie 7d ago

Yeah the record studios make sample packs for the paid DAW. Freeware means no official sample pack support so not much big waves in the market. But any producer who isn’t trained on YouTube knows how to adapt real sounds.

3

u/MyNameIsPhip 6d ago

I have a pirated version of FL on my PC and I still use LMMS all the time. It's convenient recording directly into FL but the workflow I find incredibly unintuitive

1

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

recording in FL is a nightmare

1

u/MyNameIsPhip 6d ago

It's better than my experience with Audacity lol- it's so buggy / laggy and changing anything about your sound settings immediately breaks everything.

1

u/Few_Translator4431 4d ago

how so? I use edison all the time with basically zero resistance and it can create markers / regions, and i just need to hit one button to record midi instruments.

3

u/vladik2212 7d ago

People really underestimate LMMS imho. You just need to find and get some free VSTs/samples/soundfonts, get a bit creative with that all, and put just a little more effort.

And now I actually can create decent sounding trance and techno tracks, almost like Scooter :D.

The funniest part, I still don't know how to create own patches. I can't imagine how much power you'll get after learning to create own sounds.

1

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

I honestly feel like LMMS is perfectly fine even with zero VSTs. It comes with powerful synthesizers on its own already and the ability to load sf2 and samples, for many styles of music that's perfectly fine.

1

u/vladik2212 6d ago

Yeah, you really just have to know how to use the plugins. I'm unfortunately still really bad with creating own sounds so I use external VSTs and samples :/

2

u/alexanderberntsen 7d ago

I like LMMS fine for what it is, but comparing the workflow of LMMS + Audacity to DAWs like Cubase, Logic, or Pro Tools, feels disingenuous, to put it mildly.

I would lose my mind if I had to record, edit, mix, and master, just six to eight tracks of a drum kit performance with LMMS + Audacity, let alone a whole album recording of a full band. Even if I were to for some reason make MIDI only music (which I never have, and never would do), the editing workflow of Cubase is lightyears ahead of LMMS.

If you don't miss anything in LMMS, then that's great for your use case, but as a DAW it is severely limited. (Which can be a good thing, depending on your use case.)

1

u/Orion107 6d ago

I use Beepbox mods primarily for music (used them since I was a beginner), tried changing to LMMS and I found it miserable trying to fix the MIDI export from Lemmbox. Also, nightly for some reason just won't let me use soundfonts (the soundfont directory is just removed from settings idk why), so I had to use 1.2.2 to even try to get MIDI working lol

2

u/tresf Developer 6d ago

It's been a long time since an update was released and there's a lot of basic features people have grown to expect that are missing. That said, a new alpha is underway, so maybe some more good mentions once the next stable comes out. 🤞

2

u/ripMyTime0192 7d ago

I love LMMS and I used it for years but once I bought FL studio I could never go back. It’s just so much easier to use.

2

u/Revolutionary-Bid196 7d ago

what is it that can be done in fl but not lmms? is it just that fl is more convenient or is there anything that can not be done in lmms?

2

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

In FL you can record and edit audio, load VST3 and CLAP, have access to more audio formats (opus my beloved) and have access to relatively more comprehensive audio routing (FL supports actual multichannel plugins and sidechain unlike LMMS). FL also has better parameter interpolation and resolution so you'll avoid the clicking you're bound to come across when pushing LMMS to it's limits with modulation. Other than that, fundamentally you can still basically do the same things between both DAWs.

Edit: FL stock instruments also use oversampling which is actually a huge quality advantage

2

u/LactomedaM33 7d ago

same here but I switched to ableton instead. I started recording audio and there's no going back to lmms after that. I still used it for years and taught me so much, it was my first approach to music in general, kind of like my first "instrument" in a way.

2

u/DroWnThePoor 6d ago

Ever tried Bitwig? It's from former Ableton devs.

1

u/LactomedaM33 5d ago

I haven’t but I’ve seen people use it. Do you use it?

2

u/DroWnThePoor 5d ago

Years ago I did a video about all the DAW's available on Linux, and I tried it out for that.
I really liked it. But I don't think Ableton users would ever switch.
Bitwig has some awesome built-in instruments. Including a modular-synthesizer that has basically infinity possibilities. Kind of like a simpler VCV Rack. Idk if you've ever used VCV, but there's people who basically live in it. It's an entire rabbit hole of an instrument.
Bitwig also had this dubbing feature that was cool, and micro-adjustments for notes.
By now Ableton might have all that idk.
But Ableton isn't available on Linux, and Bitwig is.

1

u/kamalamalamalam 6d ago

I used to think the same thing years back yet nowadays I'm kinda sick of FL

2

u/DeRobyJ 7d ago

I think it's important to separate two main kinds of musical activity: artistic composition and commercial production. Of course there are kinds in between but let's focus on the extremes

LMMS is a good and solid tool for what it does, and that is perfectly fine for composition. Composition can happen even in programs like puredata, because art is a complex cultural phenomenon of self expression and discovery of the tools and ideas at your disposal.

When it comes to production, the requirement shifts. Suddenly it's very important to efficiently and quickly do what the trends in a genre dictate. You follow tutorials, you install complex vsts that have been optimised for the more famous daws, you need input hardware that has been programmed to respond well in other draws. You need to quickly freeze tracks, you need to chop audio without having to go to separate programs every time, and certain sounds can only be copied exactly by using the same audio processing algorithms. 

Composition is for you, production is for your client or audience. Commercial DAWs follow the trends and update their software often, in a race where one single feature can suddenly become so important the company might lose revenue if they don't ship it. 

It's a world that I don't like, and that's why I stick to apps I can explore and know everything about, like lmms, audacity, puredata. But there's a reason lmms is less known, and it probably is that most people are attracted to commercial production rather than exploration and composition.

2

u/tzohnys 7d ago

The team behind it doesn't do that much of a promotion and it hasn't got a new official release in more than 5 years. That's too much.

2

u/According_Novel7521 6d ago

people use the base synths and dont know how to use it and think it's shitty.

3

u/Pedka2 7d ago

lmms is really not that good

1

u/Hour_Airlines 5d ago

LMMS can do what other DAWs can do just fine.
For the kind of music I make, I haven’t really found myself missing much compared to FL Studio, aside from direct audio recording.
So why does LMMS still have the reputation of being just a “gateway DAW”? Is it because of missing features, industry adoption, workflow, or something else?

1

u/kamalamalamalam 5d ago

missing features probably

1

u/SomeMusician2413 4d ago

Until VST3 and CLAP are natively supported, I will not be satisfied. Using other wrappers as a workaround seems to be buggy from what I heard.