PLUG-INS, Midi and SOUNDFONTS

While your package manager is open we recommend installing just about every audio plug-in available (search for LADSPA, DSSI, VS, and LV2) – and you should install jack-keyboard if you plan on recording MIDI without an external device.

Every plug-in you install will augment your system’s functionality. While we would normally be selective about what to install, plug-ins aren’t massive, so unless disk space is at a premium you may as well install each one you can find!

Note that MIDI by itself doesn’t have any sound; MIDI is merely a set of standardised instructions for what sounds to play and when. Therefore, if you try to run raw MIDI on your system, you will be greeted with silence. Midi-based hardware such as keyboard synthesisers use internal recordings of instruments captured at specific pitches to create a whole sound spectrum.

In the modern audio world we use soundfonts: audio files of recorded instruments that can be used by your sound card, played according to MIDI instructions. Some soundfonts are tiny, whereas others can be elaborate recordings of multiple gigabytes.

However, Soundfont (note the capitalisation) is a commercial term for a file format that is supported in hardware by products like Creative’s Sound Blaster range. Popular software synthesisers like Fluidsynth bypass the need for such dedicated hardware, allowing you to run general soundfonts through any sound card. If you would prefer to avoid soundfonts entirely, Yoshimi comes with its own set of sounds. For a list of free soundfonts and plug-ins, see: https://lmms.io/documentation/useful_resources.