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Configure and optimize you computer for Audio.
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MusE Rosegarden Waveform Pro

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I think I'll be installing Linux Mint 13 Maya, due to the PAE kernel which probably is not compatible with my Sony Vaio. The release notes warned me about that, and also, I think I'll install the 32-bit version, due to my VST plugins which might not work in Linux Mint 64-bit even with an adapter. If anyone has any insight on these points, please let me know, the laptop is a Vaio VPC-EB33FM/BJ with an Intel Core i3 M380 2.53 GHz.
"The Law speaks too softly to be heard amid the din of arms." -- Gaius Marius {Roman consul,soldier}

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Download Linux Mint 13 Maya, burn as ISO. its should boot and run from DVD without touching or changing anything on your Hard drive. That will tell you more about how it will work than anyone on here can.


http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=18

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Linux installed. Still have the same problems with USB ports, soundcard, and probably other components. I guess this means a trip to the local Microcenter after all. I was hoping to save the seventy bucks.
"The Law speaks too softly to be heard amid the din of arms." -- Gaius Marius {Roman consul,soldier}

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Moe Shinola wrote:Linux installed. Still have the same problems with USB ports, soundcard, and probably other components. I guess this means a trip to the local Microcenter after all. I was hoping to save the seventy bucks.
Hi, run commands

aplay -l and
arecord -l

This output will declare what your linux kernel sees for
audio playback and recording. On my system, looks like
(referred to below)

bash-4.1$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: M2496 [M Audio Audiophile 24/96], device 0: ICE1712 multi [ICE1712 multi]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

bash-4.1$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: M2496 [M Audio Audiophile 24/96], device 0: ICE1712 multi [ICE1712 multi]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Amplifier [Mustang Amplifier], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Qjackctl is the gui for connecting your hardware and software,
install it using synaptic, which will install qt and other dependencies.
Start it, and press the setup button, and on the right of the setup panel,
you'll see

Input Device
Output Device.

Click the ^ and > widgets on the right of those, and you should see some of what has been
shown in the command output, the parts named, or shown in brackets, can be selected,
or typed in, to be your choices for i/o devices. My example shows an mAudio pci card,
and a usb guitar amp that is input only, it doesn't play system audio.
There are youtubes showing qjackctl use with various ubuntu versions,
and software like zynaddsubfx, hydrogen rakarrack etc.

edit: qjackctl periods/buffer might have to be 3 for some usb input devices.

As UltraJv says, it's good luck to run live from cd/dvd, to determine
a linux is going to work on your hardware. You can install on a usb drive,
and boot from that, to keep the present setup. Your first install should
have three partitions:
/
/home
swap
4gig for swap, 10 or 20 gig for /
and the rest for /home.
Many personal prefs and eyecandy are stored in /home/you
and you can opt out of re-partitioning it, when you do a fresh install,
and have your internet, gui, vsts etc, as you left them.

I found a step-by-step guide for musicians using mint 13,
that might be a good reference. It mentions kx studio,
which provides repositories holding most of the popular
and newer audio software.

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9666
Cheera

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http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9&start=15

BeerHunter has 8) kindly 8) hosted a Bitwig .rpm, so Fedora linux users,
and some others, can give bitwig a trial run. The newest 1.09 version
is 137 meg. Download link is in the thread.
Cheers

This thread has some informative links:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p5737665

and

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... q#p5738153

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I have been having success running Ubuntu Linux v1404. It came with Wine v162 already installed in it and that enabled me to install, configure and successfully run REAPER v462 with most of my VST(i) plugins working! All this on a HP dc5800 2.4 GHz Core2Duo, 4 GB RAM without even updating from the repositories of Ubuntu.

I was able to use my old Windows 7 install programs and archives because I used Precise Puppy Linux to transfer the files to an Ext3 partition.

At first, I tried Puppy Studio 4 which was almost successful. I couldn't get MIDI input working so I tried KX Studio and AV Linux and Ubuntu Studio. Ubuntu Studio seemed the easiest to use, most complete, and able to run the most stuff without hitches.

For hardware I am using an Alesis Q49 MIDI keyboard, an Alesis M1 Active 320 USB Interface/Speakers, and also a Zoom R8. The Alesis gear is USB Class Compliant so it's nearly guaranteed to work without manual installation of drivers. Amazingly, the Zoom R8 works in Reaper also after installing it's drivers via Wine.

I was also able to install and run FL Studio 11 with mostly success. It's MIDI input is a bit too slow for live input, but the step sequencer works just fine and even the VSTi's work OK too. Before installing FL Studio, I had to install the Windows Core Fonts that it uses (Arial, Arial Black, Times New Roman). I downloaded the fonts in the form of the original Microsoft installers which still run OK in Wine and get installed into the fake C:\Windows/Fonts folder. Without the fonts, you can't use FL Studio because the menus show up blank and wordless.

In Reaper I use the WASAPI setting instead of ASIO or WDM. It's experimental, but it worked for me. I had to tweak some other settings like the interface sample rate (44100 Hz) and the buffer size (960 samples). I also had to select the one Wine setting that REAPER recommends (I forget what it's called!). I also disabled media buffering to get rid of glitches, and one other setting which I'm forgetting to prevent REAPER from going into paralysis during freezing and rendering. I think it was a rendering preferences thing that I deleted. Sorry I can't remember all of it right now. Also I set the main master meter to use the largest and slowest RMS window to reduce CPU burden for screen rendering. Possibly less CPU use would happen to keep all of the channel meters small or non-visible.

I set the audio for PulseAudio in WineConfig and also in the PulseAudio Control Panel/Mixer. In both REAPER and FL Studio I selected PulseAudio. I configured JACK for my USB M1 Active 320 Speakers/Interface, but I'm not sure if it's necessary since I don't use JACK except for specific other Linux programs that need it.

It's also worth adding that my Korg NanoKEY2 USB MIDI keyboard works in Hydrogen so it probably would work in all the other programs. I didn't even have to install any drivers for it even though on Windows 7 I did have to download and install the Korg MIDI Driver/etc.

I am not an expert in Linux but I am rather computer literate. Nevertheless, I think this is an attainable type of project and I'm glad I did it. Most of the work just took a lot of forum reading and careful planning so I wouldn't erase my old partitions. I used gParted to manage the partitions because I wanted to use Ext3 and a SWAP (Virtual RAM) partition instead of NTFS. Precise Puppy Linux comes with gParted in it's control panel, and Ubuntu Linux has gParted also. But you can also get gParted as it's own boot LiveCD if you like. It's still quite supported.

I really wanted to share this information with as many people as possible because I think the situation is going to improve over time and it will get easier for newbies as the howto's are shared and updated to modern standards with the newer releases. I am thankful to the creator of Puppy Studio 4 for showing that Reaper is useful in Linux, and I'm thankful to the Ubuntu Studio and Precise Puppy Linux creators for maintaining modern software solutions.

Wine v162 turned out to be pretty good with a lot of portable Windows freewares also. So I'm thankful to the creators of Wine also. VERY THANKFUL!
Reaper and FL Studio are my main DAWs. I use them on Ubuntu Studio Linux.
https://SoundCloud.com/Nistegmos

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The author of Guitarix2 has released a new lv2 plugin, in his own words,

"It is a tube screamer driving a powerful 2 stage 12ax7 tube amp with baxandall tone controls in the middle of the stages,
followed by a cabinet. It needs here just ~5% DSP load."

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guitari ... 2/download

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"The linuxDSP Workstation Plug-ins Bundle is now available as Pay What You Want for a limited time until the end of June 2014. A unique opportunity to add professional console grade processing to your Ardour sessions for a fraction of the normal price (or whatever you think it's worth). Min price £5.00 (to cover payment processing and charges)." Get it here:

http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/download/lv2/download_wpp

http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/download/lv2/

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the great zynaddsubfx, new gui proposal, I'm gonna need
a taller monitor :hihi:

Image

http://budislavtvp.deviantart.com/art/Z ... -455890191

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My dual core processor 1.60 GHz is getting long in the tooth. My Hardy Heron is having trouble with latest Sound Cloud i.e. non-supported browser. Updated to 10.4 but Adobe Flash keeps being disabled 'for my safety.'

I guess I need to get a new machine to run latest codecs etc.

Quick question: What is it that I need to read up on about getting any distro installed without MS trying to stop me. Isn't there a new bios to contend with?

Any pointers will be appreciated. Thanks

Mark

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https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI

http://itsfoss.com/disable-uefi-secure- ... windows-8/

http://blog.malwarebytes.org/developmen ... and-linux/

Hi, these links should provide fairly current methods to bypass uefi,
and use a typical linux/bios in a variety of configurations.
Cheers

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[quote="glokraw"]https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI

http://itsfoss.com/disable-uefi-secure- ... windows-8/

http://blog.malwarebytes.org/developmen ... and-linux/

Hi, these links should provide fairly current methods to bypass uefi,
and use a typical linux/bios in a variety of configurations.
Cheers[/quotei ]

Thanks glokraw,

Exactly what i am looking for. That looks rather straight forward. At first glance the situation does not look as bad as I first thought. My current laptop is an Acer. A bit budget with shared graphics memory and slow disk. Are there any particular brands that I should steer clear of in regards to dual booting and uefi? For work I need tobe able to use the latest MS offering. I have only used W7 on a few occaisions and lots of things appear renamed and put in different locations it bit like going down the supermarket. Very frustrating...
Thanks again for your help.

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One test case would be to install linux on an ssd, housed in a usb3-->sata
adaptor and case. This would let you test out various laptops.
For sceptical/wary dealers, you can demo using your asus, to divert
paranoia. As an interim solution, the external ssd should be fast,
while not quite as fast as one on the main bus.

An OEM windows version, and a printed returns policy
on the laptop, are probably good luck. There are several good
linux audio distros, and some lightweight ubuntu based variants,
so finding a really good fit on your purchase, and in your productions,
should be more testing time, than battling the uefi tech.
Cheers

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTQ1MDU

ubuntu Vs mac

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... untu&num=1

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V2 of Studio1337 is released. Play On Linux is introduced,
along with Kernel 3.14.2-rt3, and freshly baked versions of audio
and video apps, like kdenlive, ardour, hydrogen, guitarix,
zynaddsubfx. And some pretty nice eyecandy,
for doing Beach Boys covers! Available on usbstick,
or by iso download. 32 or 64 bit.

app list:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... ee04692fef

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efwstP5 ... e=youtu.be

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http://www.libremusicproduction.com/

A new source of linux audio information.
The colors are deadful :ud: :o :ud:
Even the cat jumped when I first loaded the page :hihi:
but there is useful content, and more on the way.
Video, screenshots, tutorials, definitions, links etc
Cheers

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