Setting up a Linux DAW

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Windows 10 has made me realize I have 5 years to switch to Linux before Windows 7 support ends. Basically, I don't like my personal data being uploaded to servers against my will, and hope to close my MS account soon.

So I hope people are using Linux for DAW purposes, and I could use pointers as to which DAWs to look at. I know it'll be a short list. Also, any 'sites that could be helpful? Yep, I'm a Linux noob. Over the past 20 years I've been using Cakewalk and now Cubase. I'm prepared to scale back for a while. It'll do me good.

Thanks for any and all help.
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You probably want to start with LMMS, Renoise, Ardour, or Bitwig as DAW. You will want to set up JACK for low-latency audio, or get a specialized distro such as KXStudio which already includes JACK. Then check for example https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio for links to a lot of useful software.

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An idea I play with every few months or so. Any computer I have reaching the end of its reign because the components are maxed and still not powerful enough for the next windows - gets the Linux usb boot and they are getting better and better.

Start here:
https://ubuntustudio.org/

As the OS is particularly set up nicer IMO to other distributions (at least for my tastes).

I haven't jumped into using anything in it that I have to pay for though.
But Bitwig looks like it's headed for top DAWg in this respect.
And U-he beta's to add VIs. If I could stop spending money on Windows PC things long enough, this is what seems to intrigue me the most in that direction.

But the OS is free for the download.

And I'm still on 12.04
Guess it's time for me to download the latest one too.

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Why not using Windows for DAW purposes and Linux for others, especially when you are worried about your privacy and future support.

Maybe Linux get there in 5 years for audio, but now, it's no go for me, too much trouble for gaining nothing really, of course, if you want new perspective on things and sorta new exciting beginning, less is more and etc, I can understand that, than, there's something to gain.

I would pick Bitwig as a DAW, U-He is on Linux too, that's it for today, hope in 5 years there's something more to it, but even today, if you want that restricted, focused, less is more environment, go for it.

I as many who tried and messed with setting up Linux can say don't mix DAW and regular usage and you will be happy, for DAW sake, I would use any OS and anything, that's the most important thing, Linux wasn't that for my DAW, but it were for my other needs.

Good luck
This entire forum is wading through predictions, opinions, barely formed thoughts, drama, and whining. If you don't enjoy that, why are you here? :D ShawnG

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Gonga wrote:Windows 10 has made me realize I have 5 years to switch to Linux before Windows 7 support ends. Basically, I don't like my personal data being uploaded to servers against my will, and hope to close my MS account soon.

So I hope people are using Linux for DAW purposes, and I could use pointers as to which DAWs to look at. I know it'll be a short list. Also, any 'sites that could be helpful? Yep, I'm a Linux noob. Over the past 20 years I've been using Cakewalk and now Cubase. I'm prepared to scale back for a while. It'll do me good.

Thanks for any and all help.
http://www.libremusicproduction.com this will cover a lot of the nuts and bolts
for getting sound in and out, the section on jackd for connections is excellent

Reaper and wineasio in wine, will host a wide range of windows vsts,
most things work unless dongled or paced.

Within linux, Yoshimi is one of the best synths on any platform, 16 partmulti-timbral,
built-in effects, and based on zynaddsubfx (which has itself assimilated
many code improvemets)
Hexter and Dexed load DX7 sysex files. OxeFM is now a linux vst.
Whysynth is Kawai K4 based.
Hydrogen is a pattern/grid based sample playback monster, you got samples
and common sense, you got tunes. Often used for percussion patterns.
Guitarix is an ampsim/lv2-ladspa plugin host, extremely versatile, with a fine gui
Rakarrack is an excellent multi-fx app, and it's individual effects can run standalone now,
using jalv.select gui to host them.
Amsynth has a typical synth sound, and some 16 banks of sounds to sort through.
TAL reverbs, and Noisemaker synth are high quality linux vsts.
The Calf plugin suite is excellent, around 15 effects/mastering plugins, plus an organ, monosynth, and wavetable synth.

MDA plugins, Invada plugins, mididings, Cabbage plugin creation system...
I can't keep up.

Daw software outside of wine, has native Bitwig, Tracktion, Ardour, Qtractor,
Renoise, Radium, and the KX devs growing Carla/cadence/claudia suite.
The website

http://www.linuxmusicians.com forum has some good discussions in many categories.

U-he and DiscoDSP offer great pro instruments and effects as linux vsts,
there sure isn't any shortage of creative potential. The Bliss Sampler, the Redux sampler,
and linuxsampler, will host sfz, sf2, wav, flac etc, and Carla will fit in there too,
although I've not used it beyond proof-of-life, many others have.

I'm a preset&pray guy, but there are loads of deep intellect projects for those with time,
talent, and grit, to create music from the molecular, to the mountaintop.
There are a lot of youtubes on linux audio, that can help make sense of things,
if words fail.
The linuxi I use are Studio 1337, pclinuxos, a stripped down Mint17 or
a lightweight Bodhi 3x.

There are 'big' media production iso's to download and burn for
AVlinux, KXStudio, Tango Studio, Ubuntu Studio, Fedora has the CCRMA addon's,
Arch and Suse have active packagers, and there are tools to get most apps converted
and running on whatever linux you settle in to. Not to mention compiling from source,
for fine tuners.
Again, youtube has flicks that cover many of the names I've dropped.
Cheers

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Zexila wrote:Why not using Windows for DAW purposes and Linux for others, especially when you are worried about your privacy and future support.
This :tu:

I use Win 8.1 for my DAW only. It only goes on the internet occasionally to update my virus checker.
I use Debian Linux for all my internet access, including manually downloading Windows updates to be applied to my Win partition offline.

There are two issues with using Linux for ones DAW in my opinion:
  • 1. The audio sub-system is a mess and the JACK connection kit is a major pain in the arse. It all needs a good sorting sorting out. I have tried all sorts of custom kernel builds in vain to try and get decent pre-emptive audio performance. It's just too much hassle.
    2. Being an open source system there are very few commercial incentives for developers to produce pro level DAW applications and plug-ins.
Why won't you delete this account as I have requested Ben ?

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Thank you all for your advice. I am reading it all thoroughly!
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US - Google

https://soundcloud.com/dan-ling
http://danling.com

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Keep windows just for music production and install linux for normal use. If you are a noob with linux it's better to understand how it works first, than jumping strictly into music production with it. In 5 years you will know linux, and then it will be a good time to use it for music production.

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Linux has stuff for music, and none of it is worth a pinch of shit. It is not worth the hassle, and not even in the same league as what you can get for Windows, it's THAT SIMPLE. If you want to step back in time, and use for the most part sub par products, spend your time trying to make things work, continually fighting with stuff, go ahead, take the plunge. Don't listen to all the Linux nuts that will come out of the woodwork saying this that and the other, except for basic computing, surfing the net, Linux sucks, always has, and always will. Next year has always been going to be 'The Year Of Linux', it's been that way since I first messed with it 10 or more years ago. It's going nowhere fast, well to be honest, it is getting better, but the human evolutionary process will out pace it's progress.

The bottom line is, with Windows, you will be able to do a lot more, using far higher quality products, far quicker, an with none of the hassle and aggravation that you will find with Linux. You will get all these people who praise Linux, yada yada yada, but they all still have a Windows drive or a Windows partition, Why is that ? It's simple, because you can't do everything you want to in Linux, you can't use the hardware and or software YOU choose in Linux. For me it came down to this, I can do everything I want, use whatever Software or Hardware I want or choose in Windows, in Linux that is not the case, you are very limited, and what you do have for the most part is substandard.

As I said, the Linux nuts will come out praising it's capabilities and it's advancement, as I said, it's ok for normal run of the mill computing stuff, surfing the net etc, but for specialized stuff forget it, there is a reason people don't use it, and it's advancement is at a snails pace in comparison. And when the Linux Nuts tell you about how wonderful everything is in the Linux world, just ask them, why exactly is it you still run Windows if Linux is so great ?

So don't listen to the Linux nuts, and don't listen to me, take the plunge and find out for yourself, after all it is the only way, one last thing I will say, be careful not to fall into the Linux trap and become tangled with the Linux way, the Linux movement, because the FOSS movement can sound very enticing and suck you in, and if you are not careful you could find yourself waking up in a few years time saying to yourself "How the hell did I get myself involved in this shit, it's absolute crap, always fighting to make things work, always battling things, not being able to use what I want, being forced to use buggy sub par, feature poor replacements" and then you will realize you have just wasted your time and effort, and you'll never be able to get either back.

To put it simply again, In Windows you can do whatever you want, use whatever software or hardware you want or choose, In Linux you can not. It's that simple.
Say NO to CLAP!

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http://ubuntuforums.com for support on any of the many many different flavors of Ubuntu including Ubuntu Studio
http://distrowatch.org for monitoring releases of Linux and occasionally searching

I migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7 to Ubuntu Studio Linux.
The good news is 32-bit Reaper for Windows still works in Ubuntu Studio Linux via Wine.
So you can still use many VST effects and instruments. Many freeware instruments and effects work. Image-Line software synths tends to install and work OK as long as the core fonts are installed...

It's not a perfect process, so you'll want to research how to install Microsoft Core Fonts into Linux. Also, there are a few OS
tweaks to increase performance, such as disabling unneeded services and disabling filesystem last access time logging (noatime in fstab).
Also, you might need to edit the configuration files for PulseAudio even if you don't use PulseAudio for Wine, because you might find that PulseAudio works better than ALSA (default).

For hardware, if your hardware isn't supported by linux you'll want to use USB Class Compliant gear. This means that drivers aren't needed; they are already in the Operating Systems. This is true for both MIDI and audio interfaces. Alesis makes USB Class Compliant gear but you'll need to check before you buy anything.

Some gear is supported by Linux even if it's not listed, but there's a website which logs which pro audio gear is compatible. I forget what it's called.

Good luck.
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jinotsuh wrote:...
There is at least one newer project that attempts to provide an experience similar to Windows on Linux (that I happen to be the developer of). This gentleman summarized the user experience nicely.

Instead of needing to install a special kernel and doing some elaborate audio back-end configuration and routing in a separate application, you simply install the package, run it, and see the Windows-like hardware dialog on the first run:

Image

I had a similar disdain for "the linux audio way", but since I'm a software engineer I thought I would try to do something about it. Proponents of the current Linux audio ecosystem have been quite hostile to the idea of a competing Linux audio ecosystem, which eventually caused me to focus my efforts on the Windows port instead, but the Linux port is still a first-class citizen, it's just as stable and performant.

Screenshots
Downloads

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One way to ensure you have options might be to prepare for external gear, both midi and audio.
This way you can switch to portastudio, tape machine or whatever.
The instruments you have is not dependent on a certain os at all - just midi sequencer and a analog mixer and you are fine.
Certain workstations/arrangers are well equipped in sequencing area.

I still think Windows 8.x is decent for daw applications - so you are probably good having those until 2025-2030 or something before Microsoft drops support.

A bit worried myself over forced updates and constant hazard whether all your software will work with an everchanging machine. If you've got something that works fine - why fix it. Only way would be to keep it offline and stay away from software that force authorization online.

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Lots of experience and wisdom in this thread.

Again, thanks to all who responded.
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US - Google

https://soundcloud.com/dan-ling
http://danling.com

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Keep your Windows DAW and dual boot Linux Mint , UbuntuStudio , or KXstudio . Or use older computer or laptop for Linux experimenting . I never switched full time to Linux for music it never happened for me , but its getting closer I could fully switch now to be honest ... . With U-he , Renoise/Redux , Tracktion , DiscoDSP Bliss etc , Bitwig , Harrison Mixbuss3/Ardour , LinuxDSP , ...its very very very doable now . I dont see where Microsoft is doing anything different then Apple or Google .....There is also a good LV2 IR Reverb as well so its very doable .

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Sorry to say I have to join the others in recommending staying on Windows for audio production right now (but you may very well run a VM or dual boot into Linux for everything else).

As a SW engineer earning my living on various flavors of Linux I have for a long time searched for the Linux DAW environment. I love the workflow of Tracktion and it runs really nice, but everything around it with unstable drivers, bad plugins and HW incompatibilities just drives me nuts.
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