I am very new to midi. I did once follow a tutorial for opening a .midi file in Rosegarden and using zynaddsubfx to produce the sound, and apart from hooking up my midi keyboard and changing a few notes on the piano roll, I didn’t get any further, not having the time to experiment.
I’m hoping there are going to be lots of Ardour3 articles in the various Linux magazines shortly and I expect to see some midi tutorials aimed at my level, but I’d appreciate it if somebody could provide a high level summary of what the new Ardour 3 midi capabilities allow me to do, preferably not in terms of other DAWS or sequencers since I have no experience of using them, apart from struggling with Ableton for a for weeks and not really getting anywhere.
For example, is a separate sequencer needed or can Ardour3 provide that? And do I still need a separate drum machine, e.g. hydrogen to create even the most rudimentary of drums tracks or can A3 do that as well?
My personal opinion regarding MIDI drums specifically is to still use Hydrogen and lock the transport together, however depending on your workflow and expectations this may not be necessary. if you are a ‘visual’ person then having the ability to draw velocities like Hydrogen employs is much more intuitive for drums especially, if you are a ‘numbers’ person and don’t mind a (computer) keyboard driven workflow then you will appreciate what Ardour 3 has to offer.
For drum loops Hydrogen is very good… and quite intuitive to use, so I agree with GMaq…
For MIDI sequencing Ardour has a good workflow developing but it is still not very mature… One other alternative is to use the MusE sequencer which has been moving at a very fast pace lately… MusE is also a DAW type software but it’s background is as a MIDI sequencer for which it is very strong but not as mature in audio, it’s MIDI interface is very much like some of the older commercial DAW’s which also started out as MIDI sequencers (i.e. good piano roll editor, drum editor and list editor). … It also can sync to JACK… Linux audio being what it is this gives you a lot of freedom… You can use Hydrogen for drum loops, MusE for MIDI and Ardour for audio… - this is only one suggestion…
SEQ 24 is also a very good sequencer but works in a less linear fashion, as is non-sequencer (although doesn’t play well with MIDI clock so not good for me). These all require some form of sound generator - softsynths or samplers … so could take a but more learning - but might be worth it…
I would suggest playing with hydrogen and also learning how to sync it to ardour… as a first port of call… just to get some instant satisfaction - but don’t discard any of the others…