QJams, the Quad Cortex inspired Linux practice and recording tool is live and free to use!

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Hey everyone,

As a Linux user and a Quad Cortex guitar player, I’ve always found it frustrating to fire up a full, heavy DAW just to jam over a backing track, loop a riff, or record a quick video of a take. I wanted something lightning-fast, rock-solid, and designed specifically for how we actually practice but still featuring easy to use audio editing functions.

Since I couldn’t find it, I built it.

I’m excited to announce the Beta 1 release of QJams, a completely free, ultra-lightweight practice and recording application built from the ground up for Linux. It’s written entirely in C/GTK4 and interfaces directly with JACK and your webcam, meaning latency is practically non-existent when using the QC as your USB audio interface.

What it does:

  • The “Car Radio” Workflow: Drag and drop your backing tracks and recording session canvasses and bind your favorite setlists to the 1-0 number keys on your keyboard. Instantly load up your practice sessions without endlessly clicking through folders.

  • 12-Layer Multi-Track Recorder: A blank canvas that lets you lay down a rhythm track, loop it, and stack up to 12 more takes over it on the fly.

  • Synchronized Video Capture: Hit record, play your part, and hit stop. QJams uses FFmpeg and V4L2 under the hood to automatically mux your mixed audio and webcam feed into a perfectly synced MIXed and RAW.mkv file, ready to share and edit in any audio editor.

  • Zero Install: It’s packaged as a universal .AppImage. Just download, double-click, and start playing.

This is a passion project built by a musician, for musicians. The Beta 1 is live right now, and I’d love for the community to put it through its paces.

You can grab the download, inspect the C code and check out the quick-start guide here: QJams: Unleash yourself!

Let me know what you think, how it handles with your specific setups, and what features you’d want to see next. If you encounter bugs, please use the form on QJams or GitHub.

Cheers, Rob

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Hi All. I have just released Beta 1.1 with an improved playlist and session picker, full scale timeline editing and much more.

New in Beta 1.1:

  • Shortcuts for Copy, cut, paste, global paste, delete, ripple delete, fade or cross-fade (blend) selected parts of your tracks.
  • All previous inconsistent icons (e.g. the scissors) have been removed.
  • The new editing functions work on any or all selected tracks.
  • The code has been partially refactored to allow for multi track selection editing.
  • QJams has been further optimized for performance.

Grab it here: Release QJams Beta 1.1 · robw-nl/QJams · GitHub

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