The
ANKLANG Manual
This is the Anklang manual, Anklang is a music synthesis and
composition program, released as Free Software under the MPL-2.0.
The manual is structured into sections covering tutorial material,
Howto descriptions, Man pages, file formats and conventions, development
details with related considerations and an API reference.
It is written in Markdown and contributions are welcome, e.g. as pull
requests or via the Anklang issue
tracker.
Program
Installation
Download and Startup
Ankang can be downloaded as binary package for GNU/Linux from its
Github release page:
https://github.com/tim-janik/anklang/releases/
To test bleeding edge versions, "Nightly" builds are also available,
but mileage may very with these. In particular stability or file format
compatibility can be affected in the nightly versions.
The Debian package (.deb) can be installed with tools
like gnome-software or via the command line:
# Install Anklang system wide
sudo apt install Downloads/anklang_[VERSION]_amd64.deb
# Start via system PATH
anklang
The AppImage package can be executed without an installation step.
Once downloaded, it needs permissions for execution and can be run right
away. This is done for instance as follow:
- Once downloaded, open ~/Downloads/ for instance via web browser →
'Show in Folder'
- Right click on the AppImage to open the file manager context
menu
- Select 'Permission' → 'Execute' → [x] Allow executing file as
program
- After that, the AppImage can be started directly from the file
manager
Of course, the same can also be done via the command line:
# Enable execution of the AppImage
chmod +x ~/Downloads/anklang-[VERSION]-x64.AppImage
# Run Anklang via self contained AppImage
~/Downloads/anklang-[VERSION]-x64.AppImage
Driver Setup
Once Anklang is started, drivers and other settings can be adjusted
in the Preferences. The 'File Menu' in the upper left includes an item
to open the 'Preferences' dialog.
Depending on the system, a number of PCM and MIDI devices can be
selected here. The "PulseAudio Sound Server" or "Automatic driver
selection" should work on most systems out of the box. On systems with
Jackd installed, the Jackd sound server needs to be running first:
# Suspend PulseAudio and run Jackd instead
# -r avoids realtime mode which requires special rights
# -d alsa uses the Jackd ALSA backend
pasuspender -- jackd -r -d alsa
The Jackd server should be running now, so in Anklang the "JACK Audio
Device" can be selected. To verify Anklang does indeed use Jackd, the
setup can be inspected as follows:
# List active Jack ports
jack_lsp
# The list should include 'AnklangSynthEngine'
# Start GUI to control Jackd
qjackctl
# Click on the "Graph" button to show connections
# The graph should include 'AnklangSynthEngine'
Manual
Pages
ANKLANG(1)
NAME
anklang - Music composition and modular synthesis application
SYNOPSIS
anklang [OPTIONS] [FILES...]
DESCRIPTION
Anklang is a digital audio synthesis application for
live creation and composition of music and other audio material. It is
released as free software under the MPL-2.0.
Anklang comes with synthesis devices which can be arranged in tracks
and controlled via MIDI input devices or pre-programmed clips which
contain MIDI notes.
The Anklang sound engine is a dedicated process which is controlled
by a user interface based on web technologies that can be run in a
special process (like electron) or modern browsers like
firefox(1) or google-chrome(1).
OPTIONS
Anklang supports short and long options which start with two dashes
('-').
- --
-
Stop argument processing, treat remaining arguments as files.
- -h, --help
-
Show a help message about command line usage.
- --fatal-warnings
-
Abort on warnings and failing assertions, useful for test modes.
- --check
-
Execute internal tests and benchmarks.
- --disable-randomization
-
Enable deterministic random numbers for test modes.
- -v, --version
-
Print information about the program version.
SEE ALSO
Anklang
Website
The Select Tool
allows selection of single notes or groups of notes. Modifier keys can
be used to modify the selection behavior.
With the note Paint Tool,
notes can be placed everywhere in the grid by clicking mouse button 1
and possibly keeping it held during drags.
With the note Move Tool,
selected notes can be moved clicking mouse button 1 and keeping it held
during drags. A copy will be made instead of moving the selected notes
if the ctrl key is pressed during drag.
When the Paint Tool
is selected, the right edge of a note can be draged to make notes
shorter or longer in duration.
The Erase Tool allows
deletion of all notes selected during a mouse button 1 drag. The
deletion can be aborted by the Escape key.