Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. It runs on Linux using the JACK audio system. Rosegarden can be used to record and arrange audio and MIDI compositions with effects and instrument plugins. It supports LADSPA effects and DSSI instrument plugins natively, and hosts VST effects and instruments through the DSSI-VST wrapper plugin.

Some of Rosegarden's features are:

• 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 effects and instrument support via dssi-vst.
• LADSPA audio effects plugin support.
• JACK transport support for synchronization 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.
• Clear, consistent and polished user interface.
• User interface translations for Russian, Spanish, German, French, Welsh, Italian, Swedish, Estonian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, as well as UK and US English.
• Help documentation available substantially or entirely translated into German, Swedish and Japanese as well as English.

Related Hardware:
To record audio you will need an Audio Interface: See our review of USB Audio Interfaces here.

New in v14.02

• Various bugs fixed

New in v13.10

• "Joie de Vivre" version
• Added a few minor features
• Support LilyPond 2.14.
• Improved selection event filter
• New interpretation toolbar
• Option to export fingerings via LilyPond
• New option to instruct Rosegarden not to start JACK automatically at startup
• Various fixes for bugs

New in v13.06

• Improvements on the pitchbend sequence dialog
• Easier to place and arrange controllers
• Easier to create beat tracks
• Support for Segment figurations and parameter chords
• Inspect and edit Ornaments
• Various other improvements
• Multiple bugfixes

New in v13.04

• Choose among 0db, -3dB, -6dB panning laws for audio.
• Don't export certain properties in MusicXML that MusicXML can't handle.
• Fix #1387; export text events (e.g. lyrics) to MIDI.
• Fix #703; auto-beaming no longer does an extra unselected bar.
• Bugfix for minor notation layout issue.
• Bugfix for notation scrolling problem.
• Bugfix for FreeChannel.

New in v13.02

• LilyPond export now inserts \RemoveEmptyStaves
• “short label” property label for Tracks
• Use 64 for “dumb” NoteOff velocities, not 127
• Made InternalSegmentMapper handle RealTime segment delays consistently
• SortingInserter now sorts stably, fixing a noteoff race in MIDI export
• Bugfix for old code that never worked, making Rosegarden export LilyPond staff names that include transposition information
• Bugfix for crash when changing the number of audio submasters (Tim Munro)

New in v12.12

• New controller commands in Notation view
• Various bugfixes details here

New in v12.04

• Code cleanup, commenting, and simplification.
• Extensive reworking of certain aspects of the track editor to enhance performance, improve reliability, and reduce bugs.
• BugFix for bug #3466912.
• BugFix for a crash when adding a track after going from record to stop.
• BugFix for a crash on add track, undo, redo, load RG sequence.
• BugFix for a track label clobbering bug.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes.
• BugFix for a bug where icons were not appearing on the instrument popup menu.
• BugFix for a bug where two tracks with the same instrument could be armed at the same time.
• Added some missing GPL license text.
• BugFix for a static init order bug that would cause playback to not work for some users.
• Handle tempo ramps during MIDI export.
• Handle ornaments during MIDI export.
• Handle repeated segments during MIDI export.
• New logical instruments that allocate channels on the fly.

New in v11.11

New
• Improved performance of VU meters
• Linked segments
• Segment create Anacrusis automates the steps needed to start pickup notes at precisely the right timing.
• Linked segments can be used to create repeats with 1..n alternate endings
• “Turn Links into Copies” at the segment menu
• Automatically hide redundant clefs and keys
• Display repeated segments in the notation editor in many ways
• New tab for controlling preceding features
• SegmentSplitcommand ensures that two new split segments would be selected when a segment is selected before being split.
• FitToBeatsCommand takes a beat track and adjusts tempo to put real time and beats exactly on the given notes
• Added codes to make it safe when there are existing tempos and time signatures when using PasteConductorDataCommand
• ExpandFigurationCommand lets you define a bar of figuration and expand it for every block chord in a segment
• EraseTempiInRangeCommand

  Fixes

• Bugfix for B#/Cb octave export problem
• Bugfix for problem with segments repeating
• Bugfix for the settings amnesia problem with the main window parameter area
• Bugfix for the solo buttons in the transport toolbars in the notation and matrix editors
• Bugfix for a bug where events beyond the end marker of the first segment in a join would appear in the joined segment
• After joining segments, the newly created segment is now selected
• Pitch tracker now tracks pitches when they are in octaves
• Pitch tracker honors “ignore octave error” flag
• Flats were not cancelled on a C-maj key change
• Default pitch tracker settings are no longer stupid
• Rulers in notation were desynchronized when a segment was deleted while some zoom factor was in use
• Bugfix for the “anacrusis problem”

New in v11.06

New
• Expose the instrument alias to external plugin GUIs so that plugins are easier to identify in applications like FLAM
• Export LilyPond code using any of LilyPond's supported languages

  Fixes

• A commonly-used time entry widget has been worked over to improve its functionality, and solve some usability problems
• Fixed undo after copying/pasting a range
• When adding marks to a selection that includes a mixture of notes and rests, avoid applying meaningless marks to the rests
• Insert Range now preserves the loop/range
• Fixed a nasty LilyPond export bug that was causing problems with human performances where the notes had a physical start time that significantly preceded the bar line

New since v10.10 (v11.xx)

New
• The matrix editor represents tied notes with a different fill pattern
• The split-and-tie long notes option has been made the factory default once more, in light of the vastly improved handling of ties in the matrix and notation editors

  Fixes

• Track numbers are no longer cut off
• The notation and matrix editors now treat a series of tied notes as though it were a single unit, which fixes several problems that have been outstanding since as far back as 2002
• Resizing a segment via click and drag near the edge or with the resize tool now leaves that segment as the selected segment
• When attempting to select a note by clicking toward the extreme edges of the note head, it is less likely that you will move the note instead of merely selecting it
• Insertion / Playback pointer correctly advances in Notation editor when entered notes are split and tied.
• Progress dialogs tweaked to fine tune their behavior
• Alt+PgUp and Alt+PgDown now highlight the events in a segment in Notation view consistently

New since v10.04

• Several fixes to behaviour of track program/bank change sends in save/load and in interaction with percussion check-box.
• Permit shift-click on a track header to toggle selection of segments on that track without effecting other selected segments.
• Improve key highlights in matrix view so as to reflect current segment properly.
• Add support for basic LADISH level 1.
• Substantial fixes to audio file handling code to fix a number of problems with the wrong audio clip being played.
• Fix crash in some cases when opening file dialog if not using default Thorn style.
• Fix incorrect behaviour of frequency-range parameters in LADSPA and DSSI plugin editors.
• Fixes to missing-audio-file location logic.
• Shorten the factory autoload, removing the duplicate sets of tracks at the bottom so that all tracks initially are visible.
• Fix MIDI recording from devices in which note-on and note-off are not always cleanly paired.
• Fixes to positioning of playback pointer in matrix.
• Several substantial fixes to step-recording in matrix and notation.
• Several fixes to Lilypond export.
• Numerous fixes to segment editor corner cases that previously could introduce zero-length segments.
• Several fixes to corner cases that previously could introduce zero-length events or ranges.
• Fixes to unpredictable behaviour in certain operations involving copying segments.
• Numerous fixes to behaviour of editing operations in cases where segments overlap with the end of the composition.
• Make behaviour of Paste Range more predictable.
• Improvements to chord database and several fixes to fretboard editor.
• Fixes to avoid zero-duration note events in files.
• Fixes to toolbar visibility in editing views.
• Fixes to regressions in action availability.
• Fixes to updates in notation view, event list editor , matrix editor and rulers.
• Restore progress dialogs.

New in v10.04

• Fixes to crashes and incorrect updating in the notation editor.
• Restore duration-change shortcuts in notation forgotten in 10.02.
• Various small efficiency improvements.
• Fixes to LIRC support.
• Fixed to configure process to permit user override of CXXFLAGS and improve platform compatibility.
• Minor improvements to desktop file definition.