Open source your music!

So, you're using all this open source software to make music and you're intrigued by the philosophy behind it. The idea of sharing it with anyone you can freely and legally. Well, why not do it with things other than software? That's where Creative Commons comes in.

I license all my work under a "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License". This means people are allowed to freely share it with anyone they like and are allowed to create derivative works (remixes, etc) as long as they share everything under the same license. It also restricts commercial use of my work to be only with my permission. For full details, just check the link.

Think about the advantages and disadvantages yourself. In a world of mp3s and P2P sharing, if people want to share your music for free, they will, so why not let them do it legally? If people like it enough, they'll be willing to pay for it in other ways (paying for CD copies, coming to gigs, buying merchandise, etc). And it can never hurt to have as many people as possible know who you are, right?

Things like Creative Commons are what could bring about the downfall of traditional record companies and draconian copyright legislation.

Just a few thoughts. Something to think about. Have fun!

-Andy

"Upgrade" to Ubuntu Studio.

So, seeing as it gets asked in the forums a lot, I thought I'd stick a guide here on how to "upgrade" from regular Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) to Ubuntu studio. This gives you the option of converting your regular Feisty install to Studio (meaning you don't lose any configuration, etc that you would doing a fresh install) or it's for if you don't have the option of burning the Studio .iso to DVD (either you don't have a DVD burner, you can't manage to download the .iso or you just don't want to waste a whole DVD on 900MB). So here goes.

First add the Ubuntu Studio repositories by running these two commands:

# sudo su -c 'echo deb http://archive.ubuntustudio.org/ubuntustudio feisty main >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
# wget -q http://archive.ubuntustudio.org/ubuntustudio.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

Then use your preferred method (synaptic, apt-get, aptitude, etc) to install these packages:

ubuntustudio-desktop
ubuntustudio-audio
ubuntustudio-audio-plugins
ubuntustudio-graphics
ubuntustudio-video
ubuntustudio-artwork
ubuntustudio-gdm-theme
ubuntustudio-icon-theme
ubuntustudio-look
ubuntustudio-session-splashes
ubuntustudio-sounds
ubuntustudio-screensaver
ubuntustudio-theme
ubuntustudio-wallpapers
usplash-theme-ubuntustudio
wired

If you just want to copy and paste, chuck this (yes, the whole damn line) into a command line:

# sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-desktop ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins ubuntustudio-graphics ubuntustudio-video ubuntustudio-artwork ubuntustudio-gdm-theme ubuntustudio-icon-theme ubuntustudio-look ubuntustudio-session-splashes ubuntustudio-sounds ubuntustudio-screensaver ubuntustudio-theme ubuntustudio-wallpapers usplash-theme-ubuntustudio wired

Or if you just want audio stuff (no themes, etc):

# sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-desktop ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins wired

Though it would really be a hell of a lot simpler just to fire up Synaptic and do a search for "ubuntustudio" and then "wired".

This is adapted from ep2011's post in this thread.

I also recommend checking out LMMS, it's a programme similar to Fruity Loops and is pretty simple to use and can yield some great results. It's not in Ubuntu's simplified "add/remove programmes" app, you have to either get it via synaptic or do a "sudo apt-get install lmms" (or aptitude or whatever). Also, when it installs, you won't get a menu entry made for you. You'll have to right click on your "Applications" menu and hit "edit menus" and add a new launcher there (this is assuming you're running GNOME, which you probably will be if you're running Ubuntu Studio. If you use KDE, I'm sure you know how to edit the menus. If not, ask on the forums). A graphic you can use for the menu icon can be found here.

-Andy

A couple of articles

So, I thought I'd post a few interesting Linux/recording articles.

Let's start off with what got me to try Linux in the first place:

What's so bad about Microsoft?
What alternatives are there to Microsoft?

Then there's this article about using a solely open source set-up in a recording studio:

Using Linux for recording and mastering

Finally an article by Keyboard magazine talking about Linux as a musician's OS and various music-orientated distros:

Linux: It's not just for computer geeks anymore
Linux as a musician's OS? (Slashdot thread)

The first event of the mUbuntu project is taking place this Wednesday. I'm gonna be installing Ubuntu 7.04 on some old iMacs borrowed from DMU and introducing some BTEC Leicester college students to the wonders of Linux. A report and pictures, etc. will follow soon. Wish me luck!

-Andy