Monthly 2026, 03 - LMMS with an AKAI MPK 261
DAWs are a little bit intimidating to me, as someone who has only ever had access to Rosegarden - and Audacity, if you wanted to use a very loose definition of DAW. I'm also a little stingy when it comes to spending money on software that I primarily use to play around with, and while I've seen someone work on a Mac with Logic X Pro, which seemed like it worked fine, and I've been told that Ableton Live would be able to do what I needed, but I didn't really have the appropriate hardware to start working with either, and so I wasn't going to start the project by spending the better part of a thousand Euros.
LMMS is supposed to take the input of a MIDI controller (or a MIDI keyboard) and translate them into audio with the appropriate patches in real time with low latency. It comes with a few patch libraries pre-installed, which I suspect will have more or less what I need for now. I'm not angling for crazy synths or specific electronic sound effects. What somewhat confuses me is the way I'm supposed to connect the whole setup to an audio interface, so I can route the output through XLR - and eventually into a stage box at which point it won't be my problem anymore.
The goal I have here is to have as little latency as I can. I think I can route audio directly into the computer via the MIDI channels and into the USB-C, and route the output into the interface, also via USB-C. It's the second part that I'm a little iffy on, because I don't usually think of USB-C on an audio interface as a data-channel, although, obviously it is, and it has to be. I'm on a Steinberg UR22, which has 6.35mm AUX stereo outputs, which I think will be fine, though I'm not entirely sure we have enough of those. From the manual, it looks like the user is meant to connect the MIDI controller to both the MIDI ports of the interface, and the computer to the USB separately, which I find a little unintuitive, but is the first variant I'll try, considering I really have no idea what happens inside the interface, and without a BUS diagram, I'm not sure I ever will.
A brief buying spree for MIDI cables and USB2-USB-C wires later, I have it all connected, and the input just kinda magically works. I can't say I'm not eternally glad I don't have to fiddle about with ALSA settings, because historically that has been somewhat difficult. It's also been a while since I've done that. Either way, now I have a working setup (kinda), and there's no latency as far as I can hear. LMMS comes with a bunch of sound presets, but most of them sound like electronica, which I can't really use for this project. Apparently I'm supposed to be able to connect a sustain pedal to the switch ports, which I'll have to try. The expression port definitely only ever does expression. Still, at this point I will have to think about what sounds I actually want to model on the thing, and for that I get to go through my score. Basically, since I'm not going to have amazing patches here, I'll only use it for small parts that I'm too lazy to program on the other keyboard. I figure that with a MIDI control, I can just switch patches on/off in sequence, which isn't going to be fun to program exactly, but can be done entirely on a machine I can have in my lap in bed, and not at the actual keyboard setup. Some of these are going to be highly optional, but I'll list my "xpf shopping list" here, and cut down to the things that are doable or necessary as I go on. I'll mark the important ones with an asterisk to paint a picture
- Tremolo Strings
- Trill Strings
- Harp w/reverb *
- E-Guitar Plucks *
- String Hamonics
- Pizz Strings
- Xylo (But could be harp)
- Celeste (Could be Harp)
- Many Bones... whatever that is
This luckily isn't that long a list, and I really mostly need the harp and the E-Guitar.
| Patch | Found |
|---|---|
| Tremolo Strings | X |
| Trill Strings | (Actual trill on the Pizz Strings) |
| Harp w/reverb * | X |
| E-Guitar Plucks * | X |
| String Hamonics | X |
| Pizz Strings | (X) |
| Xylo (But could be harp) | X |
| Celeste (Could be Harp) | |
| Many Bones... whatever that is |
This is my yield for sounds. I could try to make Many Bones out of the xylo, I think, if I have enough time, but I only really need it once. The Celeste, I could make out of the harp, but probably won't for the same reason. I don't actually see myself using the Trill-Strings as they are, because just holding down the key and sustain pedal is just too comfortable.
More pressing is the question of how I'm going to be switching between patches. That's not really something that LMMS seems to be made for, but I might be able to get a similar result by setting an instrument to solo, and beforehand making sure that they take MIDI input. That should be all from the software-side for now, but it's probably not a solution for more intensive scores. On the hardware side, I should start investing in a small collection of DI boxes, because I need to clean up the signal of just about everything I have, no matter whether it comes with a pre-amp or not.