The most useful effects (for me so far)

1. Reverb. When you are trying to do realistic instruments with freeware, its crucial to tweak them. I quickly found out that with reverb everything sounds better. The amount of reverb you need vary greatly from instrument to instrument, it can be overdone and it is a little more difficult to master with reverb. There are already different kinds of reverb plugins in LMMS. My favorite is "2x2plate" but isn't always what one need. "Calf Reverb" is the one I recommend. "TAP Reverberator" is very interesting with its comb filter, but does only fit in rare occasions.

2. Amplifier. For you new users out there. This is an effect which works like the volume. Instead of adjusting each tone volume, then set the instrument volume to 200%, then set the FX-volume to 200%, you can just decide to amplify the signal with 6. There are already amplifiers in LMMS.

3. EQ. Producing the desired tone, that tone you have in your head, isn't easy at all. When you almost have the perfect instrument you definitely won't ruin it by randomly tweaking every knob and see what it does. Sometimes adding a simple equalizer is all you need to make the tone crisper, softer, hollower, shallower or whatever you like. I like to use "C* Eq2x2" a stereo 10 band equalizer. When you are going to master "Spectrum Analyzer" also comes in handy.

4. Peak Controller. When you want more punch in your beat or have reached the stadium of mixing, the "peak controller" effect is what you need. It automatically lowers a sound because of the levels of another. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wVQOVCzVrc

5. Stereophonic Matrix. The big secret. Panning is crucial to make your song alive and hear like a high quality song. For placing instruments in the 360 degree sound field around your head I often use the "stereophonic matrix". I also use it to spread sound out, make it wider.

6. Wideners. "StereoEnhancer effect" is perhaps the simplest. I consider all the different chorus effects as wideners too. Phasers pan sounds forth and back like a lfo in addition to giving the sound some kind of depth. "Calf Phaser" is the one I use the most. "Tap Stereo Echo" is the best widener after my opinion. When you activate Cross Mode and/or Haas Effect and turn the delay enough down it feels both in right and left ear, everywhere!

Robert M. Zimmer (LMMS Artist)

Listen to Robert M. Zimmer

Silently sneaking in on me from USA and suddenly hitting me in the head with this amazing glitchy electrosong. That's perhaps the best glitching I have heard in LMMS! His songs feels somewhat similar to the lmms artist greippi, probably because there are so much different sounds in Zimmers songs which I personally aren't used to hear LMMS produce. That's also why I find his songs enjoyable.

In addition to the always surprising sounds, instruments and beats, the buildup vary a lot. There are a lot of repetition though, so it continues to be highly interesting. He often build his songs with fascinating drums and really (really, no kidding) catchy melodies (really catchy after my opinion...) on top of a simple but also captivating baseline. You must like raw and hard synths, and mechanical and repetitive melodies to fully enjoy Zimmers electronic music. The tunes might sometimes border the line between electro and hardstyle after my opinion. You could also call it groundbreaking, I guess. What is a hard fact is that you now got 21 more songs to hear!

Robert M. Zimmer on Soundcloud

LMMS workarounds

Comment with your workaround and I will update the post!

• Stopping reverb in the middle of a song sounds like a sudden cut/stop. Fix: Automate the W/D knob to 0 over time.

• Automating an instrument track on/off doesn't save for the next time. The connection becomes broken. Fix: Automate an FX-channel on/off instead or the instrument volume. If it is crucial to you, remember that you don't have to redraw the automation curves, just CTRL + drag the controls to the automation.

• VST effects stop working properly. Fix: Save and quit LMMS. In Windows go to the task manager Ctrl + Shift + Esc. End all the processes called "RemoteVstPlugin.exe". Open LMMS and then your project again.

• Pops and/or clicks in the beginning of a note. Set the attack value higher. 0.1 for example. For the VSTs pops and clicks, Tres wrote a script to automate the "high priority" setting, which could help considerably. http://tresdev.blogspot.com/2013/03/fixed-vst-popsclicks-in-lmms-win7-x64.html

• Too little CPU crashes LMMS. Fix: 
1. Export instrument tracks as wav and put them in again with the sample track.
2. Automate the VST effects off when not in use.
3. Buy more ram and put it in your computer.

• LB302 plays a long tone when detuning. Fix: Add a very short tone just after the detuning, you won't hear it.

• The GLAME highpass filter glitches when the automation reach 0. Fix: Turn it off in that exact moment by automation.

• When exporting some of the automations turn all yellow. Fix: Save project and open it again.

Entropy v. 1.0 (Not my theme)

UPDATE: New version available: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/lsp/index.php?action=show&file=4605

I want to give a shout out to the theme Entropy v. 1.0 by Vesa V (diiz). Go to the download site by clicking on the image.

Image of Entropy by Vesa V (diiz)

I think it is the best theme for LMMS so far. It is really well made. All the icons seems to be made from scratch and it all fits very well together. It is clear that a lot of work has gone into making this theme. Although it is the best theme, it can be easily improved on some points. I admit that this is the first theme I will give constructive criticism to, but only because it is the first theme I actually think can turn out better than the default one.
- The text size is too small, even smaller than the default theme. It doesn't save so much space for small screens, and for large screens it is nearly impossible to read.
- The blue numbers are too dark (bpm-number)
- The Beat&Bassline editor pattern field is too dark. There is really hard to differ the light grey patterns from the dark grey.
- Hard to understand when the the loop-point-button and the auto-scrolling button is on.
- The blue level lights in the FX-mixer have too narrow space. It feels like less width than the default theme. Watching the levels is crucial, and the FX-mixer window cannot get any larger, so we need to have nice and broad level lights.
- The icons could be left unchanged, just thought I would mention that i don't think the save button look as a floppy disk at all. That is a world standard. The icon now is after my opinion too complex.

artlu (LMMS artist)

Listen to artlu

OH MY! Artemis-Daren Clark Austin is a genius. Chiptune, dubstep, house, electro. He is a gamer and label his songs "game" 90% of the time, but who cares what genre it is as long as it sounds amazing! I really like that it seems to be a hidden melancholy in all of his songs, it is beautiful. There is nothing hard style with this. It is plain awesomeness. I guess it sometimes could be too calm and beautiful for some people, but the good drumbeats complete the tunes in a such way that it just has to be interesting for most people.

The atmosphere in his songs seems to describe a barren, hostile, deserted environment in outer space. A lot of nice echo, long tones from background pads, a very cool arpeggio sound sometimes sliding (I think he use Nexus VSTi for this now), sharp and rough synths (often glitching), other mechanical sounds and then he tops it with the drumbeat which never fails. Although it seems like very calm music, it is made in a very creative way and actually pretty exciting. Mastering and mixing could sometimes be better, at the same time he is so much better than me... AMAZING

artlu on Soundcloud