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Sound and music

Record voices with Audacity, mix the soundtrack in Ardour, compose with LMMS, Hydrogen and MuseScore, and understand how audio works on Animux.

audiosoundmusicAudacityArdourLMMSJACKPipeWire

Program Use it to Start
Audacity 3.2 record and clean up dialogue and sound effects (easiest) audacity
Ardour 7.3 record and mix many tracks, the full soundtrack of a film, with effects and automation ardour
LMMS 1.2 compose music with built-in synthesizers, beats and samples lmms
Hydrogen 1.2 program drum rhythms hydrogen
MuseScore 3 write sheet music and play it back mscore3
Rosegarden MIDI sequencing and scoring rosegarden
ZynAddSubFX, Yoshimi, Qsynth, Guitarix, VMPK software instruments, guitar amp, on-screen keyboard menu
Sonic Visualiser, Praat look at sound; Praat analyses speech (useful for lip sync timing) menu
SoundConverter, SoX convert sound files soundconverter, sox

All are in Sound Engineering.

Audacity: record a voice-over#

Audacity. The first time it shows a welcome window with links to help; click OK.
Audacity. The first time it shows a welcome window with links to help; click OK.
  1. Plug in a microphone (a USB microphone or headset is easiest). Choose it in the microphone list on the toolbar.
  2. Click the red Record button, speak, click Stop.
  3. Clean it: select a quiet part → Effect → Noise Removal and Repair → Noise Reduction → Get Noise Profile; select everything (Ctrl+A) → Noise Reduction → OK. Then Effect → Volume and Compression → Normalize.
  4. File → Export → Export as WAV (best for editing) or MP3.

Ardour: mix the soundtrack#

The first time, Ardour runs a short setup assistant: click Forward through it (the defaults are fine).
The first time, Ardour runs a short setup assistant: click Forward through it (the defaults are fine).

When Ardour starts it asks for a session (project) and the audio system: choose JACK/PipeWire or ALSA (see below). Add tracks with Track → Add Track, Bus or VCA, import the dialogue, music and effects with Session → Import, and set levels in the Mixer window (Alt+M). Session → Export → Export to Audio File(s) writes the final mix.

To line up sound with picture inside Ardour, Session → Open Video needs the extra programs harvid and xjadeo, which are not included. The easier way: edit the final mix against the picture in Kdenlive.

LMMS and Hydrogen: make music#

The first time, LMMS asks to create its working folder in Documents: click Yes.
The first time, LMMS asks to create its working folder in Documents: click Yes.

In LMMS, drag an instrument (for example TripleOscillator) from the left into the Song Editor, double-click its pattern to open the Piano Roll and draw notes. The Beat+Bassline Editor is for drum patterns. File → Export writes WAV or OGG.

In Hydrogen, click squares in the pattern grid to place drum hits; chain patterns in the song editor.

How audio works on Animux#

Animux uses PipeWire, which plays the roles of PulseAudio (normal desktop sound) and JACK (professional low-latency audio) at once. Normally you do nothing.

  • Volume and devices: the speaker icon on the panel, and PulseAudio Volume Control (Sound Engineering → Sound Server Configuration): choose the output (speakers, HDMI, headphones) and input (microphone) on the Output Devices, Input Devices and Configuration tabs.
  • JACK programs (Ardour, Hydrogen, Qsynth…) connect to PipeWire's JACK service automatically. If a program cannot find JACK, start it with pw-jack, for example pw-jack hydrogen.
  • QjackCtl shows and changes connections between audio programs (the Graph button).

Crackling sound while recording

Close other programs. In Ardour choose a larger buffer size (512 or 1024 samples). In a virtual machine audio is often unreliable; record on a real computer if you can.

Sound for animation: tips#