Rosegarden is a
free software digital audio workstation program developed for
Linux with
ALSA and
Qt4
Qt (pronounced "cute") is cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems wit ...
. It acts as an
audio
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to:
Sound
*Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound
*Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum
*Digital audio, representation of sound ...
and
MIDI sequencer
Sequencer may refer to:
Technology
* Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically
* DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...
,
scorewriter and
musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
and editing tool. It is intended to be a free alternative to such applications as
Cubase.
Software synthesizer
A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the sam ...
is available as a plugin, and it is possible to use external MIDI
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
, hardware or
software (such as
FluidSynth
FluidSynth, formerly named iiwusynth, is a free open source software synthesizer which converts MIDI note data into an audio signal using SoundFont technology without need for a SoundFont-compatible soundcard. FluidSynth can act as a virtual MID ...
or
TiMidity++) in order to make any sound from MIDI compositions. Recent versions of Rosegarden support the
DSSI software synthesizer plugin interface, and can use some Windows
VST VST may refer to:
* Vancouver School of Theology, a theological graduate school in British Columbia, Canada
* VST, Stockholm Västerås Airport in Sweden (IATA airport code)
* Vehicle safety technology
* Virtual Studio Technology, Steinberg's stand ...
plugins through an adapter.
History
The current Rosegarden program was originally named Rosegarden-4, to distinguish it from a previous program by the same authors called Rosegarden 2.1, which is now known as X11 Rosegarden. X11 Rosegarden is very limited, but is stable on a wide variety of
Unix-like operating systems and other platforms such as
OpenVMS
OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Ope ...
. In contrast, because Rosegarden(-4) uses the Linux ALSA system, it only runs in a very limited manner on non-Linux systems.
The Rosegarden project was started in 1993 at the
University of Bath. Rosegarden 2.1 (X11 Rosegarden) was released under the
GPL in 1997; Rosegarden(-4) began in April 2000. Version 1.0 was released on February 14, 2005, and version 1.2.4 on July 14, 2006. In 2010, The version numbering was changed to reflect the release year, starting with 10.02.
Developers
Rosegarden was developed up through 1.0 by Chris Cannam, Richard Bown and Guillaume Laurent. Since then, each release has been developed by a different mix of core and contributing project members, including, but not limited to D. Michael McIntyre, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas, and Heikki Junes. Bown has retired from the project, while Laurent has left to pursue his interest in porting to Mac OS X via
Cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
in an as yet unnamed spinoff project.
Features
*
MIDI and audio playback and recording with
ALSA and
JACK
*Piano-roll, score, event list and track overview editors
*
DSSI synth and audio effects plugin support, including Windows
VST VST may refer to:
* Vancouver School of Theology, a theological graduate school in British Columbia, Canada
* VST, Stockholm Västerås Airport in Sweden (IATA airport code)
* Vehicle safety technology
* Virtual Studio Technology, Steinberg's stand ...
effects and instrument support via dssi-vst
*
LADSPA
LADSPA is an acronym for Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API. It is an application programming interface (API) standard for handling audio filters and audio signal processing effects, licensed under LGPL-2.1-or-later. It was originally de ...
audio effects plugin support
*
JACK transport support for synchronisation with other software
*Ability to build and run without JACK, for MIDI-only use
*Score interpretation of performance MIDI data
*Shareable device (.rgd) files to ease MIDI portability
*Triggered segments for pattern sequencing & performable ornaments
*Audio and MIDI mixers
*MIDI and
Hydrogen file import
*MIDI,
Csound,
LilyPond and
MusicXML file export (including
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...
and
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
output file generation of score)
*User interface translations for Russian, Spanish, German, French, Welsh, Italian, Swedish, Estonian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Catalan, and Finnish, as well as UK and US English
*Help documentation available substantially or entirely translated into German, Swedish and Japanese as well as English
See also
*
Free audio software
This comparison of free software for audio lists notable free and open source software for use by sound engineers, audio producers, and those involved in sound recording and reproduction.
Players
Audio analysis
Converters
DJ software
...
*
Linux audio software
The following is an incomplete list of Linux audio software.
Audio players
GStreamer-based
* Amarok is a free music player for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Multiple backends are supported (xine, helix and NMM).
* Banshee is ...
*
GNU LilyPond
LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.
LilyPond is cross-pla ...
*
MusE
*
MuseScore
*
Hydrogen
*
Ardour
*
NoteEdit
NoteEdit is a defunct music scorewriter for Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems. Its official successor is Canorus.
NoteEdit is written in C++, uses the Qt3 toolkit, and is integrated with KDE. Released under the GPL-2.0-or-lat ...
*
List of music software
References
External links
*
{{Digital audio workstations
Audio software with JACK support
Digital audio workstation software
Free audio editors
Free audio software
Free music software
Free software programmed in C++
KDE
KDE software
Scorewriters
Audio editing software that uses Qt
Scorewriters for Linux