1y ago

Metal music with Linux?

The world of music production is dominated by Apple with Windows running a distant second. Thanks to DAWs like Reaper and open source plung-ins constantly being developed, music production on Linux doesn't seem like such a crazy idea anymore.

26 comments

Is there a community or database where people have tested different plugins on Linux either natively or with Wine to see if they can get things working?
- I'll be honest, I'm just starting this journey. My music stuff is still all on Mac.
  
  No worries, I’m hoping someone with a fire in their soul for Linux music production will come along and give us the answers we seek
- There is, if you look up yabridge that's like a plugin bridge that natively runs windows vsts in reaper for Linux through wine with almost no hassle. They have a list somewhere
- Maybe here:
  Favorite music production software on Linux
  State of music production with Flatpak

It seems like a lot of the folk here could be pretty interested in the revival of the Fedora Audio Creation Special Interest Group, as it could become a real powerhouse when it comes to getting more people involved into music creation with Linux.

It’s good to know amp sims and VSTs on Linux have come far! The drums still aren’t where I’d like them to be to switch and I’ve tried several times to get Steven Slate Drums and Superior Drummer working with a VST bridge in Ubuntu Studio, with no luck. Still sticking with Apple for now, but at least I finally have Windows out of my house.
- I saw that Ableton Live 12 is going to support my old 2015 MBP, which is nice, but it would be so much nicer if we had a Wine/Proton equivalent project for Mac apps. M2 MBPs are nice but it'd be nicer if I could use PC hardware with Linux running Windows and Mac software. Native would be nicest but, baby steps.

All my windows vst work great and with pretty much no configuration with yabridge. I think some heavy drm'ed vsts are a bit more problematic but most (all in my case) work.

There are some DAWs like Ardour and LMMS for linux. The bigger issue is plugins. They are mostly NOT for Linux. There are some but the selection is not big. You can use a VST-bridge like Carla. It worked for me, I could use proprietary windows based VSTs in LMMS on Linux. However, I wanted to go fully FOSS. This is rather difficult. You make it sound like there are a bunch of open source plugins. This was not my experience. Especially not if you are looking for more specific things. If it is like that, shit has changed radically for the best the last two years. I had some coding projects related to music production so I would just try to build whatever I needed. But I dropped these projects unfortunately.
- I am very pleasantly surprised so far, but that's because my expectations were so low that I was shocked that ANY plugins even exist. With the way prices are going when it comes to music software, I expect to start seeing rapid progression in the music FOSS space.

Djing on Linux is also not a big deal. With mixx you we have a great software for this.
- Mixx is alright if you are a bedroom dj but it's still a long way from the completion

I'm actually using Ardour as my daily daw, very powerfull (check my profile if interested in libre music). Consider I made electronic music for many years with proprietary software.

Really? last time I checked Windows was the dominant player in professional music production but I guess trends can change very quickly.
So there is no real reason preventing Linux to become the domint system at any time.
- Huh, last I checked, the professional standard was Mac, at least for recording instruments. From what I vaguely recall, Windows has a latency issue due to how they handle audio stream inputs. I went through these woes myself once while using my guitar & Amp through my computer to practice with headphones on and having the music playing on top. The latency just doesn't allow you to concentrate on what you're playing, it completely distracts you. You can get it lower by doing something, I don't remember what, but that solution ends up introducing random new bugs such as certain audio streams suddenly not playing at all for a while before fixing themselves, and it still doesn't quite get latency low enough to not notice it.
  
  Maybe it depends on who you ask or where you are. Maybe a US vs EU thing? I never was a professional Musician, but when I started reading about creating/composing music for Video Games I learned that many professional Studios run on Windows because of proprietary standards and software. that is not available for Apple (and Linux)
- last time I checked Windows was the dominant player
  Huh? I am confused now. Has the cycle come back around again because in the late 90s/early 2000s last I checked when I was into this stuff, Apple was king with Pro Tools. It's been a while, I used to mess around with FL Studio 20 years ago.

I use the web based DAW Bandlab

@JoMiran @linux Bitwig Studio is also a non-open-source DAW which works on Linux.

I personally like the fact that u-he, acmt and audio damage provide their plugins on linux. I know, not FOSS, but game changing when it comes to switching music production over to linux. Vital is also available on linux, as is bitwig as host.

Part of the problem extended beyond software. Back when I got into recording, FireWire was necessary for the data bandwidth and it was standard on Macs. I had to install a card to work with my recording interface on Windows.
On a side note, been using Reaper for years and it has been great as a hobbyist option. I understand why any professional would use something like ProTools instead, though.