Keywords: documentation

Subsections

- A brief history of computer audio and MusE
- Definitions
- Getting up and running for impatient people
- Getting up and running
  - Installation from binaries
  - Installation from source
  - Hardware
  - Launching
  - Audio preconditions
  - Running MusE
  - Midi only
  - ALSA midi with Jack
- Beginners tutorial
  - Midi Setup
  - Soft synth test
  - Missing sound
  - Recording Midi
  - Recording Audio

# Introduction

## A brief history of computer audio and MusE

To quickly summarize over a decades open source development: in 1999 Werner Schweer released the first version of MusE, muse-0.0.1.tar.gz, in it's first few releases (actually not few, Werner relentlessly churned out new releases) MusE was only a midi sequencer. The target was to create a fully fledged midi sequencer for the Linux operating system. Over the years audio was added among with other things implemented and sometimes abandoned. Today MusE is a stable and feature rich music creation environment which strives to encompass most of the music recording process, creation, editing, mastering.

## Definitions

CTRL refers to the control key on the keyboard, e.g. CTRL+C means to press and hold the control key while pressing the c key. Make sure you know where you have it so you won't accidentally lose control (bad jokes are the best jokes, so say we all!).
SHIFT refers to the shift key on the keyboard, see above for usage
ALT refers to the alt key on the keyboard, see above for usage
`$>` is used as a generic definition for a terminal prompt. When the manual lists a command that shall be typed, the prompt is not part of the command.
Keys are always referred to in bold uppercase, e.g. A. For instance SHIFT+A for the key a pressed together with the shift key.
Sometimes terminal examples are written tabbed in with a fixed font to visualize more closely what something looks like on the screen. E.g.
`$> muse2`

## Getting up and running for impatient people

Install MusE from the repository of your chosen distribution. To get decent performance start http://jackaudio.org/Jack with the following command in a terminal:
`$> jackd -d alsa -d hw:0 -p 256`
Or, if you prefer, use the launcher utility http://qjackctl.sourceforge.net/QJackCtl to get some help starting Jack. After this, start MusE from the menu or fire up another terminal and type

`muse2`.
If this didn't work out read on for the slightly more complete route for getting things started.

## Getting up and running

### Installation from binaries

There are several ways to install MusE depending on your situation. The most convenient way is to install a prepackaged version from your chosen distribution. The drawback of this is that it may not be the most recent version, though often there is a more recent package from a private packager.

### Installation from source

Building MusE from source is not hard, there are a number of prerequistes that must be met but the actual building should be painless (ha, famous last words).
Please follow the README in the source package and/or read the instructions on the homepage: `http://muse-sequencer.org/index.php/Installation`

### Hardware

MusE on the Linux platform supports midi through ALSA and Jack-midi and audio through Jack. For information on what hardware is supported there are some convenient places to check:

- Alsa soundcard matrix at `http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main`
- `http://FFADO.org` for firewire devices.

Also, as is often a very good approach for Linux and open source, the various forums available on the internet often contain good information. Chances are someone has already tried your configuration and/or had your specific problem and the solution is already written down.

### Launching

After installation the binary muse2 is installed on the computer. If MusE was installed from a distribution repository the binary may have a different name depending on the distribution policies. Most distributions do however install a menu entry so MusE should be conveniently available from there.

### Audio preconditions

In the standard case MusE expects to find and connect to the Jack audio server `http://jackaudio.org`. Make sure jack is installed (if MusE was installed with a distribution-package Jack will very likely already be installed) For Jack to run with best performance your system should be sufficiently tuned to allow it to run with realtime capabilities. The realtime configuration is configuration of the operating system and roughly consists of two parts.

1. By default on most distros only the superuser lets applications setup realtime capabilities. Please see the APPENDIX for setting up realtime
2. Maximizing performance. A standard linux installation may not able to reach the performance required by a power user. This requires exchanging the linux kernel for a so called lowlatency kernel, this is also covered by the realtime APPENDIX.

### Running MusE

Find MusE in the menu or open a terminal and enter muse2.

`$> muse2`
A splash screen should pop up followed by the main application window and you are off!
If an error like the screenshot below pops up the Jack audio server is either not running or started as a different user than what you are trying to start MusE as.

Figure 2.1: Jack server missing

### Midi only

MusE can be started in Midi-only mode where MusE does not have any external dependencies apart from ALSA midi. In this case start MusE from a terminal: `$> muse2 -a`

### ALSA midi with Jack

If Jack is running, by default MusE will not use ALSA devices, preferring Jack midi instead. To force ALSA devices to be used as well as Jack midi, start MusE with the -A option: `$> muse2 -A`

## Beginners tutorial

To get a quick grip of what MusE can achieve please follow this beginners tutorial.

### Midi Setup

First off, fire up MusE as was described in the previous chapter, making sure that the jack audio server is started with sufficient configuration to allow for audio output without breakup. Also make sure your system can make sound.

### Soft synth test

With MusE up and running right click in the Track-pane (see Fig. 2.8) and select Add Synth > MESS > vam soft synth. A Soft Synth track called vam-0 should appear as well as a separate GUI for the synthesizer.

Now right click once more in the Track-pane and select Add Midi Track. Another track appears called Track 1, and its track list Port column should show it is bound to the synth that was just created vam-0. If it is not, click on the Track 1 Port column to open a drop-down list of available devices and choose vam-0.

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Now select the drawing tool icon from the toolbar, alternatively press the shortcut key D. Move the mouse over to the arranger canvas as referenced in Fig. 2.8 and point at the midi track, the mouse should have changed to a small pencil. Draw a Part along the midi track using the mouse. For this exercise it is not important where or how large the drawn Part is. When you are done double click on the drawn part. This will open up the Piano Roll editor. To the left of the Piano Roll there are piano keys in a vertical line, try clicking on the keys in this virtual keyboard each click should be rewarded with a synth sound (maybe of questionable quality, a sound nevertheless)

Figure 2.2: vam synthesizer

### Missing sound

If you got sound from the previous exercise you can carry on to the next, or keep reading for further enlightenment in case you come upon trouble later on. If there is no sound we need to do some fault hunting. First off, click on Arranger window once more and select the vam-0 track in the track-pane.

Figure 2.3: Midi editor view

Now bring back Piano Roll window and align the windows so you can see the piano keys as well as the Meter on the Mixer Strip (see the 5 Function by function chapter for more information on these windows). The result should be something like the following:

When pressing one of the keys on virtual Keyboard the Meter on the Mixer Strip should light up in green to visualize that the Synth is making sound, if it is not try to trace back your steps and and see if you did anything differently than described. Now, if the Meter lights up but there is still no sound we need to check the routing between the tracks. Click on the Arranger window again and select the Out 1 track, this is the predefined output which MusE by default loads at startup, at the bottom of Mixer Strip there are two buttons looking like tele- jacks, these bring up the inputs and outputs of the track, click on the right one, the output and make sure that it is connected to some valid outputs on your system.

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Click on the outputs to select them, if you did changes here go back and try clicking on the Piano Roll keyboard again, hopefully it helped. If there still are problems make sure your system actually can make sound through Jack, this is however getting outside the scope of this manual.
This might be the time to bring up the concept of community support. Open source software could never be what it is without the support given by individuals on forums and mailinglists, if the information given in this document is not enough, try googling your problem and/or get in touch with one of the online forums for MusE or Linux audio in general. See some pointers in the Support chapter.

### Recording Midi

TBD

### Recording Audio

At this point we'll make a slight detour into full on audio recording. Getting audio out of MusE has already been covered in the previous chapters so we will concentrate on the additional steps needed to record onto an audio track.
When MusE is first fired up, the output track has already been created (more about this in the chapter about templates), to proceed with audio recording we need to add two additional tracks, a wave track and an input track.
When MusE is first started right click in an empty space on the track view

Figure 2.4: Add track

and select Add Audio Input. Right click again and also select Add Wave Track. Two additional tracks are now visible in the Arranger, "Input 1" and "Track 1", bring up the mixer with F10 and you should see the following configuration.

Figure 2.5: Mixer with one input

Note the buttons on each mixer strip. hover over them to see their functionality. For more information on all the buttons see coming chapters about the mixer. For now lets just do what we must.
1. click on the stereo symbol over the slider to change the input to a mono track.
2. do the same for the wave track (optional)
3. click on the Mute (gray speaker) icon on the input track to unmute it.
4. click on the input routing button (see the tooltip, it looks like a tele plug) on the input track and select an appropriate connection from your system.
5. click on the output routing button on the input track and select Track 1
Already after the meter on the input track should be able to display that there is incoming sound from your sound source. If there actually is sound coming from your sound source, that is.
We are now nearly ready to start recording. First we need to select a location to store the files. MusE does not use a centralized storage of soundfiles but uses the path of the song-file (extension .med) as guidance as to where the audio files should be placed. Now as it happens MusE will prohibit us from starting a recording until the songfile has been stored. So lets take advantage of this behaviour and just go ahead and try to record. Let's get started.
In the mixer click on the red record dot on the Audio Track to arm it for recording (or enable if you will). Now when there is audio coming into the input it will also show up on the Audio Track. Also note that all the input and output routing buttons on the tracks now have the same gray color, this means that all of the tracks have a proper connection.

Figure 2.6: Mixer buttons

All fine and dandy. Now bring up the arranger window and find the round, red on white record button and click on it. This is your queue to MusE to prepare for recording. However since we have not saved our song we are presented with a dialog to do just that.

Figure 2.7: Save song

Note the check box for creating a project folder, when working with audio this is very much recommended or you may soon loose track of what audio files belong to which song.
Finally we are ready to start recording! The process is completed by clicking on the Play button in the Arranger. If all went well MusE then starts to record a wave file from the Input Track placed in your song directory.
When you wish to stop recording press Stop in the Arranger, now the resulting waveform should be visible in the Arranger. After rewinding the Play position and pressing Play again the resulting sound should be audible through the connected output.