The linux DAW thread

[ford442]

I just spent like a year and a half trying to produce under LINUX. I had a lot of fun, but I was never able to load up DIVA, ACE, or any windows VST.

In the past 15 years I have tried LINUX a dozen times. Each time I get to a huge stumbling block. It used to be the video driver situation, but it has never been a stable workstation OS for me..

[glokraw]

Hi. A 32 bit Diva-linux recipe using pclinuxos,
but also should work in most linux, with a tweak or two.

use synaptic (or default package manager) to uninstall
pulseaudio and it's utilities (libpulse itself might be
required to keep, as removing it can in some distros,
take 90% of your system away, as a depencency.
And then install wine, wineasio, alsa-tools, and qjackctl
from the same package manager.

Choose and configure your soundcard using qjackctl gui

commands:

root user: modprobe snd_seq (sets up alsa sequencer support)

regular user:

winecfg (this opens a simple config panel, and builds
the .wine folder)

install reaper demo in /home/you/reaper
wine reaper471-install.exe

regsvr32 wineasio.dll (this activates asio on linux)

wine Diva101Winstaller.exe (accept the defaults)

You'll get both a u-he, and a VstPlugins folder in
/home/you/.wine/drive_c/Program Files.
Launch reaper, and have it scan that VstPlugins folder
using it's menu/options/preferences/VST panel.
You should then be able to use Diva.
Pray for your cpu

The rest of the wonderful U-he herd also work.
Only Podolski scatters some files about in odd places,
but I figured it out...quite possibly after user error.

Shouldn't your nik be oldsmobile 442
Post again, if some problems persist
Cheers

If you have 4 gig ram, you could probably do that all from
a livecd session. Pclinuxos has a few cd sized versions to use.
I use this one:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.ph ... 856.0.html

[glokraw]

I tried out the Podium Free version 3.21 in linux,
and it seems to run at about 6% lower cpu, than reaper,
based on glancing at qjackctl's cpu gauge. I don't think
it's an accurate gauge, like htop would be, but it gives a visual
frame of reference, which if consistant, shows somewhat better
results for Podium. I was able to use Diva and other U-he synths,
although Podolski got quarantined. I recorded a track using
a reaktor ensemble, and a TAL reverb, without needing
the manual, so it's a least easy enough for a dinosaur.
But I'll need it if I want to dig deeper, as I'm
used to reaper, but not used to manuals

And the gui in the new version of Synthmaster now works
smoothly in my linux setup, so it's on the piggy-bank list.
The sounds in the player are really quite fine, and most
are not horribly jazzed up beyond musicality.
A happy evening indeed! The Bluejays are waking up...

[glokraw]

http://libremusicproduction.com/article ... d-guitarix

This guide documents the features and use of Guitarix, a full featured linux app,
that is likely under the typical musicians radar. It offers a wide range of tone,
in an interface that you can control from minimal-onstage-preset choice,
to fully expanded, to adjust the minutia that can keep things fresh and
energized.

Hardware pedalboard to support Guitarix, is also on the horizon,
here are some example sounds:

http://portalmod.com/social/plugin/?htt ... 23GUITARIX

[glokraw]

Went for the $15 Cakewalk Dimension Pro sale, the installer ran fine in wine/linux,
as did the expansions installer. The standalone and Reaper hosted plugin
showed no gui lags, and the sounds are as commonly reported, a few dogs,
but lots of bread&butter, and some really nice custom sounds.
Several pianos around 230 meg, which are quite nice, and many smaller
variants. A few accoustic guitar sounds will be fun to use the fx on.
Some thumping good drum loops, too.

The gui has lots of clickable parts with visual feedback, which will be helpful
in understanding how the sound designs work. The layout is reminiscent of
a software Roland JV-1080, four parts to add to, or subtract from, and easy ways
to modify each layer.

Linux users may appreciate the flac file format, and accompanying sfz files,
for use in linuxsampler, if one is alergic to wine, and fears the reaper

Cakewalk's Rapture, and z3ta+ 1.5 synths also work fine.
Cheers

[glokraw]

Stombox coming for linux lv2 plugins.
Some hardware for Guitarix & friends

http://portalmod.com/promo

[glokraw]

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=419984

U-he, creators of great synthesizers, sounds, and effects, are adding some
linux options, starting with Podolski, a very complete and fine sounding
instrument.

More will come, as this great twist in reality unfolds,
without deadlines and timeframes.
Cheers

[MachFront]

*sigh!*

So here I am again, considering blowing everything up, throwing up my hands and moving to Linux.
I'm so tired...really tired of feeling like my Win machines are like a house of cards. I'm afraid to do anything too drastic to either my old XP desktop or my Win 7 laptop because I don't have install disks. Anything goes and...it's gone. All gone. Anything gets weird and/or buggy...no reinstall option exists. My XP box has been running on it's original install from back in mid '07.
My laptop has odd issues within due to it belonging to someone else first and I renamed the user account before I added a new one and deleted the old. Now there are things I can't 'touch' due to them being attached to the original and now missing user acc't. Somewhere along the line some folders turned themselves into shortcuts that cycle right back to where ever explorer happens to be at the time (I can't get into User/default/Application Data for example).
I'm also tired of two machines that used to boot in around about 30 seconds now booting anywhere from a 1:05 to just under two minutes depending of how they feel that day.

ANYWAY!

At least (I'm imagining) with Linux I'd have handy and free install disk so I'd be less shaky-handed about something going south.
I could go on, but I'm already rambling...

I need something lite and fast.
I wish to use Reaper. I've gotta have Synth1. So...Wine, I guess yes?
I want things minimal. I don't want to have a bazillion things running all at once to fiddle about with some soft synths and a small handful of samples.
I'm used to even my old XP machine and my laptop running with very little cpu considering how relatively unimpressive they are in the hardware department (my laptop is a HP 2000 with one of those integrated graphic cpu things...AMD Vision).
I understand that any given distro may grant me great results with general use but what about having to run Wine to use something like Reaper? Is Jack still going to be a 'thing' in such a case?
Can I use a lite distro like Lubuntu, antiX, Simplicity or some such and then tweak it (as opposed to dumping some gargantuan 'studio' distro onto the computers)? Install a low-latency kernel? Even though I'm a moron?!?
CAN I WEAR A DUNCE CAP AND DO THIS?
When will fall in Georgia ever feel like fall?
Why can't there be any gal celeb as hot as Fairuza Balk was in 1995?
Do I really have to refill my rum & coke again?
Yes. The answer to the last question is 'yes'.

[briandc]

Lots of valid questions there!
Well, Wine is probably a must if you want to use VST instruments. Jack is a good audio host, I don't have a preference to either Jack 1 or 2, they both work fine here.
The low-latency kernel issue, I have heard, is quite a thing of the past, as the standard "default" kernel works fast already.
Lubuntu is good. I use BodhiLinux and that works fine, too. Although there are some "tricks" that can be done to make it even faster.
I have Reaper installed on my UbuntuStudio distro. I think UbuntuStudio is quite good. Certainly a bit "larger" distro but it gives to a simple install walk-through and there isn't much to do afterwards.


brian

[MachFront]

I thought it was the real-time kernel that was no longer a "thing" but a low-latency kernel was still helpful/'good'. But...I dunno...

I'm attempting to rid myself of fear of what the OS may do/not do which drives me to Linux...but also my fear stops me. If I 'go' Linux...considering I've no way to revert...once my Windows is gone it's gone for good. No turning back. That's scary.
What if I find that Reaper isn't as bizarrely awesome on resources via Wine on Linux on my laptop (supposedly only good for surfing the 'net and not good enough via conventional "wisdom" here on KVR to do all that I do on it music-wise) with a tweaked Win 7 ? And etc.,etc., and blah and blah, blah, blah?..... :-/

[briandc]

I'd say, if you're afraid about "losing" Windows, then don't change. If anything, see if you can get your hands on another pc (perhaps a used one, sometimes for less than 100 bucks!) that you can take and load any linux OS that you like. That way, you have a "playground" to work on until you find just the right system.

THEN, you might feel more comfortable with finally leaving Windows.


brian

[glokraw]

I thought it was the real-time kernel that was no longer a "thing" but a low-latency kernel was still helpful/'good'. But...I dunno...

I'm attempting to rid myself of fear of what the OS may do/not do which drives me to Linux...but also my fear stops me. If I 'go' Linux...considering I've no way to revert...once my Windows is gone it's gone for good. No turning back. That's scary.
What if I find that Reaper isn't as bizarrely awesome on resources via Wine on Linux on my laptop (supposedly only good for surfing the 'net and not good enough via conventional "wisdom" here on KVR to do all that I do on it music-wise) with a tweaked Win 7 ? And etc.,etc., and blah and blah, blah, blah?..... :-/

Highlites a win7 guy might enjoy:
hydrogen drum machine (samples placed in patterns, patterns placed on grid)
Rakarrack: great multiFX app
zynaddsubfx, hexter, whysynth, calf monosynth and organ: these will give a wide range of synth sounds.
Guitarix is an ampsim with many fx and controls, with a nice and flexible gui

Safe/easy way to get started, just grab a cheap used external drive from a recycler, and follow the installer defaults of a few linux versions, test until you like one.
Boot it using the computers early boot menu, or modify the bios boot order.

If you have new generation win8 laptop, read up on booting from uefi devices
(I think the video covers a dual-boot process using one machine, one drive)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE8XvuhyaaA

Then watch a bunch of youtube videos on
qjackctl, hydrogen, ardour, zynaddsubfx, rakarrack, and the others that show up in the youtube sidebar.

If you don't have a backup drive, 2 TB usb drives are under $100, put a pair of 50 gig partitions formatted as ext4, mount points / and /home with the rest as ntfs.
gparted, a gui for partitioning, has lots of youtube vids on partitioning, should give you confidence, and help take the right steps. The 'package manager' in your linux, synaptic, yumex, etc is another youtube stop, so you can install/remove things in peace.

I wouldn't recommend any computer enabled musician, to be isolated into one way to do things, one daw etc Reaper runs well under wine. If you have issues on the laptop, disable bluetooth, webcam, networking, set cpu use to 'productivity' while using audio apps.

With a powerful computer, you can run a reaper session, alongside standalone.exe, and vst plugins running as standalones, and individual linux instruments, route things in and out of fx, all linked by qjackctl. Take your time, setup 5 or 6 desktops, to avoid clutter. If you think it up, google probably has the details
Cheers

[glokraw]

They made the kickstart goal, now on to the stretch goal, and gift-a-dev donations would
still be greatly appreciated!

Instruments/samplers will be supported, so it's not just for guitar pickers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mo ... ects-pedal

[publicradio]

I just use Reaper in Windows when I want to produce, but I'm thinking I might want to make some mixes without leaving Linux. Basically, I would want to be able to stretch or pitch shift tracks to beatmatch them, line them up on different tracks, and, ideally, be able to set points where the mix would break into separate tracks on a CD.

I can do some of this in Audacity, but it's really not the best tool for the job. Mixx looks kind of cool, but that's for live mixing, not programmatic mixing like I'm talking about.

Latency and audio input is a non-issue since, like I mentioned, I'm not dong any live mixing. Does anyone know of a piece of linux software that would be ideal for what I'm describing?

[glokraw]

I just use Reaper in Windows when I want to produce, but I'm thinking I might want to make some mixes without leaving Linux. Basically, I would want to be able to stretch or pitch shift tracks to beatmatch them, line them up on different tracks, and, ideally, be able to set points where the mix would break into separate tracks on a CD.

I can do some of this in Audacity, but it's really not the best tool for the job. Mixx looks kind of cool, but that's for live mixing, not programmatic mixing like I'm talking about.

Latency and audio input is a non-issue since, like I mentioned, I'm not dong any live mixing. Does anyone know of a piece of linux software that would be ideal for what I'm describing?

You'll find reaper works well in linux, with wine and wineasio. Linux will see the whole reaper, as just another app with audio i/o to mix in with linux things. I've happily used an
maudio pci soundcard, and nvidia videocard for ages, for reaper/linux sessions. I even ran
bitwig and reaper together, with some common linux audio apps, and had success, within
the limits of my sad old computer. You can sneakernet your reaper folder, into a linux
/home/you folder. You'll want to install wineasio and qjackctl from your repositories,
which will bring in the rest of the wine and jackd things you need. Run command

regsvr32 wineasio.dll (the system will report success.)

then

wine reaper/reaper.exe

Audacity won't open it's jackd port in qjackctl, until you start audacity recording or playback, so click pause, connect things, and click pause again, to resume, then edit the results.

Cheers