Why Are the Linux Versions of U-He Products Hidden On the U-He Web Page

[#rob]

How many Linux users download their u-he synths from KVR ? I sure did.

Pretty sure none do. Since when does KVR host our installers? Link pls.

[StudioDave]

How many Linux users download their u-he synths from KVR ? I sure did.

Pretty sure none do. Since when does KVR host our installers? Link pls.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to this thread :

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=424953

Which is indeed where I got mine.

Best,

dp

[#rob]

Yeah, and those links all point to our CDN which lets us see the stats about how often which files were downloaded.

[hihu]

Urs said he was going by "downloads".

We also get a feeling for it by how many eMails we receive to our support system. There have been eMails along the lines of "thank you for supporting Linux" or "it doesn't work on my distro, what am I doing wrong", but those accumulate to maybe 1-3 every month. We get more Windows specific support requests every hour.

Is there support for the linux version? Most developers, when they make some software available on linux, don't offer support. Always "use at your own risk", no support.

But when you look at the KVR forums you see a lot of windows users not knowing how to install vst plugins at all. Just put it in the vst folder is the answer many time.

I guess lots of linux user are more technically advanced concerning those thing.

I never need support for the u-he plugins because the work very stable, so I never contacted the support team.

[Benutzername]

Yeah, and those links all point to our CDN which lets us see the stats about how often which files were downloaded.

I also downloaded the windows versions while I was on the site because I still have a windows running in a VM for older projects. The Linux version is the only one that gets regular use though. So I was counted twice and I don't think that I'm the only one.

Desktop Linux might look like a niche product at first but ChromeOS (=Linux) currently outperforms MacOS in the US by a margin in sales. It has even surpassed Windows in the US educational market. Android (=Linux) has crushed all competitors in the mobile market and almost every network router, smart TV, media player, smart fridge or coffee maker runs a flavor of Linux today. Many hardware synths, effect units, controllers, mixing desks etc are running with Linux too. Statistically everyone of us owns five times as many Linux devices as Windows or MacOS/iOS devices. You just never notice this because they usually just silently do what they do.

So being ready for Linux is not a bad idea at all for a software company in this day and age.

[ejgallego]

Well, certainly Linux user numbers have to be low as until recently there was not real DAW available for Linux, and even now, Bitwig is great, but quite immature. [Ardour is also getting there and it is truly a remarkable project]

On the other hand, focusing on download stats to measure user numbers is bound to be a bit imprecise. For example, I've donwloaded the plugins once, more than one year ago, however thanks to /home being synched wrt all my machines I estimate that my single Linux download corresponds to more than 10 downloads would I be using windows.

Just a detail, but indeed YMMV. Maybe a more accurate method would be that every registered user would specify their OS of choice.

[StudioDave]

We also get a feeling for it by how many eMails we receive to our support system...

Well, dang, if you guys would make a poorly-designed product then I'd have something to complain about to the support system. But no, Urs & Co. seem dedicated to producing stable high-quality great-sounding ergonomical good-looking reasonably-priced musically-provocative plugins that simply refuse to f*ck up. What's a satisfied user to do...

I guess I could pretend to have a problem with 'em.

Best,

dp

[#rob]

I also downloaded the windows versions while I was on the site because I still have a windows running in a VM for older projects.

Even if we factored out 1000 downloads for Windows and Mac each, to allow for users potentially using Linux plus another platform like yourself, that still wouldn't tilt the stats into the direction of Linux in any way whatsoever. Not even slightly.

ChromeOS (=Linux)
Android (=Linux)

This part made me chuckle a bit.

ChromeOS and Android may be *nix based, but they're highly commercialized products. CI branded by Google, shipped with non FOSS components and targeted at specific hardware, or licensed for lots of money. Not so much in the real F(L)OSS Linux spirit, is it? Not any more than OSX or Windows, anyway.

So by that rationale, we can just agree that Darwin kernel based macOS is just as much Linux as the other two you mentioned, and be done with the discussion? Great!

being ready for Linux is not a bad idea at all for a software company in this day and age.

You know, it's kinda funny. When I went through my IT training (for lack of a better word) in 2002, people said exactly the same thing. "Linux already took over the server market, it's going to overtake Windows and MacOS soon!" Fast forward, 15 years later. Still didn't happen. The only ones preaching that "the holy age of Linux is nigh" are still the same people who preached it 15 years ago. Linux users.

Well, certainly Linux user numbers have to be low as until recently there was not real DAW available for Linux

Ardour/Mixbus, Tracktion, LMMS, Renoise, KXStudio, Carla, energyXT, Qtractor, Audacity... do I really have to continue? VST capable audio applications have been around on Linux forever, that's hardly a lack of DAWs now, is it.

What's a satisfied user to do...

"Hi, just wanted to let you know how stoked I am that you're FINALLY supporting my operating system of choice. Please keep it up, we need quality software like yours on Linux. I posted about your software in my Linux Audio Production Forum Of Choice, and constantly defend it against the raging F(L)OSS hordes there. Thank you guys so much, and kudos to whoever did the coding! xoxo Satisfied User X"

...or words to that effect.
Does happen occasionally, about 1-3 times per year.
The other 5-10 Linux centered support mails every year are just "I bought Dark Zebra, where can I download the Linux installer?"

[ejgallego]

that still wouldn't tilt the stats into the direction of Linux in any way whatsoever. Not even slightly.

Oh, no question over that, but different "install cultures" among the systems should be pointed out.

You know, it's kinda funny. When I went through my IT training (for lack of a better word) in 2002, people said exactly the same thing. "Linux already took over the server market, it's going to overtake Windows and MacOS soon!" Fast forward, 15 years later. Still didn't happen. The only ones preaching that "the holy age of Linux is nigh" are still the same people who preached it 15 years ago. Linux users.

Well, that's a bit unfair in that indeed in 15 years we have seen quite large positive evolution wrt Linux and standards support. Even Microsoft ships now a "Linux" subsystem, and Linux / OSX is the standard enviroment in many fields there days.

Ardour/Mixbus, Tracktion, LMMS, Renoise, KXStudio, Carla, energyXT, Qtractor, Audacity... do I really have to continue? VST capable audio applications have been around on Linux forever, that's hardly a lack of DAWs now, is it.

With the most respect to these amazing applications, they can hardly be even compared to Cubase, Protools, or Ableton. As much as I am a Linux user and love Linux I am not gonna confuse amateur-quality vs professional quality apps.

On the other hand, official VST support for Linux only happened very very recently.

I think I stand on my point: Linux is still very far from being a platform were professional music producers can work on; however, the jump in the last few years has been dramatic thanks mainly to BitWig + open source VST.

[Benutzername]

ChromeOS (=Linux)
Android (=Linux)

This part made me chuckle a bit.

ChromeOS and Android may be *nix based, but they're highly commercialized products. CI branded by Google, shipped with non FOSS components and targeted at specific hardware, or licensed for lots of money. Not so much in the real F(L)OSS Linux spirit, is it? Not any more than OSX or Windows, anyway.

I was not talking about spirit, I was talking about market share because everybody seems to think that 2% on the desktop market is too low to care.*

If you interpret the original idea or spirit of the IBM PC as being a "multi purpose computer for personal use" then the market shares of Windows and MacOS are a joke in the grand scheme of things because you'll have to take the entire mobile market into the account as well. The palm is the place where people use their multi purpose computers all day long, not the desk. And apart from a few small niche systems like iOS this world is entirely dominated by Linux, either used with the right ethics behind it or not. But that was not the point I wanted to make.

Let's face it, the desktop PC is a dying market. It may hit a ground level at some point as content creation on a professional level is usually still easier to achieve with a big computer. But even middle of the road computers from several years ago have more than enough power then most people will ever need and even freeware software has reached a level that producers dreamed about just ten years ago. There is almost no room for growth anymore, neither in hardware nor in software. Companies are trying to get around it with subscription models, DLCs and things like that but this will only help temporarily. Other companies move the applications into the cloud but this strategy doesn't work for everything.

I was referring to this future. And it's great to see that u-he's code base is ready for this diverse world with many different platforms and operating systems. I know that I have invested my money in the right company.

When I notice that a company only offers windows plugins then I instantly step back. Not because I'm a Linux user. It's because I know that there are still developers out there who use MFC and the Win32 API to create plugin GUIs...*shudder*... Only supporting one platform because of technical reasons is always a strong sign for very ancient and/or extremely crappy code.

--

*By the way: I have written some apps for Android and sometimes I get asked where the iOS version is. I love the reaction when I tell these people that I'm not going to waste my time and money to support niche operating systems with just 10% market share or less. Some of the Apple users really get angry because they seem to take an iOS version for granted for a bizarre reason...

[hihu]

It's nice that the discussion gets a drift. In my opinion you have to see the whole thing in a historical background.

The whole open source stuff is not only about having all software for free, it's about having open standards. Most companies back the days which started developing software relied on selling their software. So their income was based on selling licenses.

Nowadays a lot of companies don't rely on selling software licenses they sell "user experience", creativity, workflow like a service and the software is only a tool to reach their goal.
As you said above the trend is going to subscription stuff. Google is a large software company with a lot of projects involved. But they earn money with software indirectly. The don't sell licenses they sell adverts and offer people all services for free. Same goes for Steam. The sell games as an experience for their customers everything included even VR headsets as a bundle. So software nowadays is something to reach a higher goal.

Those companies want to reach a large audience, so lots of their software is free to use or open source. They have a real advantage when you can use it on every device on the market. So the are interested in making the underlying base to an open standard.

The old approach was more like we have to develop a standard which is only ours. Other companies have to pay for it or best thing would be customers buy our software. And they developed only for the platform where people payed. So everything was locked, lots of different standards, licensing problems and so on. So old software is pretty hard to port to other systems.

New software is mostly developed cross platform from the beginning like Bitwig did in 2014. Because they are more flexible to use it on many devices (Surface Book).

I have no detailed information hows about the VST standard. I only know it's from Steinberg. I don't know how the developing process of VST works an how companies developing vst plugins are involved in designing those standards.
But you can guess that Steinberg does have most of power deciding in which direction it goes. So the developed the AU on mac. Great. Another closed standard. And in the end you have a lot of stuff to maintain instead on focusing on the real work like creating good circuits for the sounds.

But how would be the world when the underlying codebase would be open source and could be adopted to every platform you think of. Playing with bazille on your mobile phone in the subway or tuning some parameters on the build in Tv on your fridge while cooking. Of course these scenarios are a little bit weird but I guess you get the clue.

Sorry for the long text. But as conclusion.

I guess a lot of software developers would profit from the fact that more common and open standards are developed so they can bring the software to the users desired hardware device and reach a much larger audience. Linux is only an example how you can adapt software for your needs with a lot of possibilities. But I guess there is a long way to go till you are able to use all software on all devices. This would music making to a totally new experience.

[mevla]

With the most respect to these amazing applications, they can hardly be even compared to Cubase, Protools, or Ableton. As much as I am a Linux user and love Linux I am not gonna confuse amateur-quality vs professional quality apps.

On the other hand, official VST support for Linux only happened very very recently.

I think I stand on my point: Linux is still very far from being a platform were professional music producers can work on; however, the jump in the last few years has been dramatic thanks mainly to BitWig + open source VST.

Yes, Bitwig on Linux also gave me a jump forward. Before that I was using Ardour and could not have an easy workflow to create, way too laborious. Bitwig changed all that. Bitwig gave the incentive to be more 'serious' about the music I create. And then I got Mixbus32C for mixing. Creating with Bitwig, mixing with Mixbus32C gives good results I find, even though I'm still learning about mixing. I'm using u-he audio plugins, OvertoneDSP, Harrison and Tracktion. Synths are u-he, Tracktion Biotek and Discovery Pro. From the courses I follow (given using ProTools on MAC) I find there's everything in this Linux setup to come up with good audio. Certainly not perfect, listen to some of the pieces in the signature below.

Why Linux then ? Because I already knew Linux which I use for work. I would not use Windows or MAC for many reasons that have not much to do with audio. Linux feels 'home', is easy to operate, is straigthforward, not much going behind your back, lots of updates when needed, stability, rarely fails, easy to tweak if needed, lots of information out there.

[krans]

As a person who works with sound for a living, and does this exclusively on Linux, I would like to show my gratitude towards the Linux effort u-he has actually made: Making these Linux native downloads has made my life sooo much easier.

Not only does u-he make the best plugins I know, the fact that they are available for Linux does in itself make other companies uninteresting for me. With all the floss Linux audio software + the astounding u-he plugins (like Repro-1, Presswerk, Bazille, Zebra, Uhbik, oh yes and the free ones like Podolski and so on) I get all the tools I need and want.

Even though the Linux downloads are only beta, I've never had any issues with any of them. And as a Linux user, I know how much goodwill I feel towards companies actually making this effort. So in my opinion they could easily be promoted on the website, no reason to hide them away in a kvr forum thread.

Please don't come to the conclusion that the Linux versions are too much hassle for too few persons. To turn the whole thing upside down: By making Linux versions you do get (and have already got) quite a few very loyal users who truly appreciate your effort.

[bulevardi]

I'm into transition to Linux aswel, since my Windows setup is not possible anymore, I'm for 100% on Linux since a few weeks.

Today I managed to run the U-He synths in Ardour.
(with this batch installer: https://www.reddit.com/r/UheOnLinux/com ... on_script/ )
Works perfect. Going to play with it a while and if it suits my needs I probably go further with that.

Before, on Windows, I used to record guitar with a software amp called Vandal (https://www.magix.com/int/music/vandal/ )
It sounded very good, better than Amplitube or GuitarRig or these things. Made a few good signature tones for my own work.

However, this Vandal amp was co-created by Sascha Eversmeier long time ago... (he works at U-he now). I'm wondering if there would be a Vandal version for Linux someday... Maybe I should contact Magix for this? Or maybe someone else is using Vandal here too, on Linux? I cannot get it to work via Wine or PlayOnLinux.

If I can't get Vandal to work on Linux in the near future, I'll probably buy something like Line 6 Pocked Pod to replace it... but I won't be able to record dry signals to my tracks, only wet.
Maybe U-He is working on a guitar amp? *wink*?


Edit: I contacted Magix to see if they can deliver a Linux version someday for Vandal Amp. Let you know the answer later on...

[#rob]

Maybe U-He is working on a guitar amp? *wink*?

Nope, no plans of going there, at least none that I know of.