Talking about using Ubuntu Studio, Ardour and GitHub for music at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague

Lorenzo's Music talking at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague about being open-source, creative commons musicians

Lorenzo's Music doing a workshop at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague (📷 photo by Stanislav Milata)

We were asked to speak at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague. We've been a creative commons band for years.

Back in 2017 the band also switched to being a completely open-source band using only free and open-source tools to create all of our music, videos, and artwork. 

Our main operating system of choice has been Ubuntu Studio.

Eric Eickmeyer who leads the Ubuntu Studio project suggested to the people running the Ubuntu Summit that they should ask us to come and talk about how we use Ubuntu, Ardour, and GitHub for music.

Tom Ray talking at the Ubuntu Summit about "Using Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, and GitHub for music collaboration"

Tom Ray of Lorenzo's Music talking at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague (📷 photo by Stanislav Milata)

On the first day of the Ubuntu Summit, I gave a talk about "Why Ubuntu Studio is good for music and artists" and how we came up with a method to use Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, and GitHub for music collaboration.

During the talk I covered:

• The benefits of an open-source operating system for artists and musicians
• Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, and GitHub for music collaboration remotely
• How open-source software helps artists and musicians

I talked about our creative journey to Ubuntu Studio and open-source software. I also how Ubuntu Studio isn't just a Linux-based operating system but should be thought of more as a production suite.

You can check out my full talk from the Ubuntu Summit on the Ubuntu OnAir YouTube channel

Lorenzo's Music workshop: Our method for using Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, and GitHub to collaborate on music

Tom Ray, Eric Brusewitz, Rob Gugel, and Cliff Hammer of Lorenzo's Music doing a music workshop at the Ubuntu Summit (📷 Photo by Stanislav Milata)

On the second day of the Ubuntu Summit, the band did a workshop about the method we came up with to use Ubuntu Studio, Ardour, and GitHub to collaborate on music remotely.

During the workshop:

• We showed examples from our songs in our GitHub repositories
• How only using branches is the key to collaborating with music in Ardour on GitHub
• How Ubuntu Studio's environment makes it all possible to work individually

From left: Paul Davis of Ardour, Cliff Hammer, Rob Gugel, Tom Ray, Eric Brusewitz,  Tom's Wife taking a picture 📱🙂 and Erich Eickmeyer of Ubuntu Studio (📷 Photo by Stanislav Milata)

After the workshop was done we talked even more with Paul Davis the creator of Ardour (the DAW that we use) and Erich Eickmeyer of Ubuntu Studio about our process.

Which I got to say was pretty freaking awesome!

The whole thing was a fantastic and wonderful experience.

-Tom

You can see more behind-the-scenes stuff that happened and the band playing at the Ubuntu Summit here - OUR FIRST SHOW IN EUROPE - PERFORMING AT THE UBUNTU SUMMIT IN PRAGUE