Setting up a Linux DAW

[ras.s]

https://soundcloud.com/groups/music-made-using-linux

Visit the link for more. It's perfectly comparable to music made on any other platform.

Like the tagline on a packet of Rizlas: "It's what you make of it."

[NystagmusE]

Thanks for the group link ras.s; i joined. I use Reaper and FL Studio via Wine. I know this isn't the same as using LMMS or Rosegarden or whatnot, but it is still within Ubuntu Studio. I guess I wanted to join just to show my support of Linux and that it's possible to use for good music making. I do use the Linux versions of Audacity and OcenAudio, but for now, that's about it. I don't even use JACK. But I do prefer Linux for it's OS stability. Windows was making my life stressful. Once I got the right kernel bootloader commands for my current system it stopped all of the few crashes that I had (kernel panics during boot due to ACPI and PNPBIOS). I disable all ACPI except for HyperThreading and disable PNPBIOS and now it's good. "ACPI=off, PNPBIOS=off"

[Kypresso]

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.

So you found Linux too difficult to use, i understand, there's no shame in not being computer literate. Although i really dont think you need to insult people who do use and understand Linux.

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.

Or to put it another way, in windows microsoft owns you, your computer and everything on it. In linux, you choose what to do, how to do it and with what

[jancivil]

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.

So you found Linux too difficult to use, i understand, there's no shame in not being computer literate. Although i really dont think you need to insult people who do use and understand Linux.

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.

Or to put it another way, in windows microsoft owns you, your computer and everything on it. In linux, you choose what to do, how to do it and with what

Sure, 'there's no shame in not being computer literate' is just pagro enough to not be perceived as insult. I was just thinking, the thrust of Linux is ideological and here you confirm it. That's an amazing statement, through this belief system the choices of the eg., Windows user are not really choices, the belief is just that strong.

[kmatheussen]

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.

This is a misunderstanding. JACK makes Linux audio simpler, not harder. The problem is the underlying audio system, ALSA, and not JACK. ALSA is very low-level, and it can be cumbersome to set up to work properly for low latency. JACK makes it simpler for the users by letting you configure ALSA once for all programs. JACK also makes it simpler for the audio developers by freeing them from having to deal with ALSA, which again has the fortunate consequence of less buggy software and proper low latency.

[RockinMillie]

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.

This is a misunderstanding. JACK makes Linux audio simpler, not harder. The problem is the underlying audio system, ALSA, and not JACK. ALSA is very low-level, and it can be cumbersome to set up to work properly for low latency. JACK makes it simpler for the users by letting you configure ALSA once for all programs. JACK also makes it simpler for the audio developers by freeing them from having to deal with ALSA, which again has the fortunate consequence of less buggy software and proper low latency.

The point is, that you shouldn't need yet another layer of stuff (i.e. JACK) to make the underlying audio system work properly. In my opinion JACK doesn't actually make things easier. What complicates things is that there is no single, definitive audio sub-system - ALSA, OSS (while it is deprecated since kernel 2.6 , legacy bits of it are still floating around), then we have some applications using Pulseaudio on top of ALSA, some using Phonon on top of ALSA, GStreamer on top of ALSA, not to mention Xine.

This article explains it well:
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/how-it- ... ained#null

Now that's all very well, but it's a train-wreck !
Most people want to get on with making music rather than pissing around with various layers at various levels above the Linux kernel to get their DAW to work in a reasonable manner.

I love Debian Linux, but the audio side is a good example of what happens with open source software.
Linux is still evolving from being a 'UNIX like' (it's not UNIX as it does not conform to the UNIX standard) server oriented OS, to being a usable multimedia desktop environment.
But, because there are no commercial business priorities (other than for servers) being applied, then you will never have audio production industry standards applied to Linux.
ASIO implementation would be a good start.

[kmatheussen]

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.

This is a misunderstanding. JACK makes Linux audio simpler, not harder. The problem is the underlying audio system, ALSA, and not JACK. ALSA is very low-level, and it can be cumbersome to set up to work properly for low latency. JACK makes it simpler for the users by letting you configure ALSA once for all programs. JACK also makes it simpler for the audio developers by freeing them from having to deal with ALSA, which again has the fortunate consequence of less buggy software and proper low latency.

The point is, that you shouldn't need yet another layer of stuff (i.e. JACK) to make the underlying audio system work properly. In my opinion JACK doesn't actually make things easier.

We seem to agree that audio on Linux is a mess. I've had that opinion for about 15 years, which is around the same number of years I've been using Linux for audio. However, this is not Jack's fault. Jack is a solution to a problem. It's easier to configure Jack once, than having to configure every single program individually.

[RockinMillie]

We seem to agree that audio on Linux is a mess. I've had that opinion for about 15 years, which is around the same number of years I've been using Linux for audio. However, this is not Jack's fault. Jack is a solution to a problem. It's easier to configure Jack once, than having to configure every single program individually.

Sorry, but where did I blame solely JACK for being the problem

My original post said

1. The audio sub-system is a mess and the JACK connection kit is a major pain in the arse.

The audio sub-system is a mess and JACK is another complication (as well as all the other guff that sits on top of ALSA and OSS ).
I would describe JACK as a work-around to the problem rather than a root cause solution

[kmatheussen]

I would describe JACK as a work-around to the problem rather than a root cause solution

Sure, the audio system should have been designed more like jack from the beginning. It was probably a mistake of ALSA to expose low-level details to the user space. But whether JACK is a workaround or not, it's probably little doubt that it has made things incredibly much simpler.

[kmatheussen]

It was probably a mistake of ALSA to expose low-level details to the user space.

Actually, I don't know enough about the details here. I remember someone who knows a lot more about this than me saying that user space mixing is the way to go, and that both windows and osx do user space mixing the same way as Linux does (with Pulseaudio and Jack). However, the reason for the chaos on Linux probably has more to do with lack of hierarchy in how the os is designed and developed. Pulseaudio has slowly grown into a daemon that works pretty well for audio, but it doesn't provide the same kind of low-latency performance as Jack, so one has to use both and switch between them. It's approximately the same situation in windows though (asio/etc.), it's just that in windows there's a lot more users, and all users run the same setup (there are no ubuntu windows, fedora windows, etc.), plus that there is a huge company that cares more about the user experience (microsoft), so bugs and quirks are fixed much faster. Linux is more of an anarchy, and that's wonderful, but it can also be frustrating. (Not that windows isn't frustrating too though.)

[glokraw]

Linux audio isn't a mess, unless musicians needlessly 'update'
their well-configured working audio systems to the unknown.

Which from reading several linux forums over the years, almost always happens, and often with undesirable results. Trusting the
fruits of a loosely connected international body of coders, of differing motivations and skills, to provide a stable and cohesive update system,
is folly. It's borderline miraculous that 'linux distros' work so well
when first installed.

It appears to me, that the body of 'linux musicians' is more interested
in chasing grail, than producing music. Not that win/mac musicians
don't have grail to chase, it's just they chase grail related to
producing music, instead of a grail related to being able to...
produce music.

I manage to keep four properly configured bootable drives, each
with a different linux, (one is a dual-boot setup with XP since 2007)
and I only experiment on one at a time, so I am never unable
to record with linux, and don't waste precious hours fixing
what ain't broke. Is it a mess? No. Does it work? Yes.
Am I going to check for system updates now? Yes...but if it doesn't
shake the earth like Zebra or Bliss, it doesn't get installed.
Cheers

[kmatheussen]

Linux audio isn't a mess, unless musicians needlessly 'update'
their well-configured working audio systems to the unknown.

Yes, last few years, things have gotten a lot better. Pulseaudio is fairly stable, and it's gotten easier to switch between jack and pulseaudio.

I still miss the option of running jack simultaneously with pulseaudio though, without screwing up the system or cause high latency on the pulseaudio side.

[RockinMillie]

Linux audio isn't a mess, unless musicians needlessly 'update'
their well-configured working audio systems to the unknown.

Utter nonsense

There isn't even a clearly defined bottom level, with several audio technologies messing around with the kernel and your hardware independently.

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/how-it- ... ained#null

It has to do with the messy and 'evolved' nature of the Linux audio sub-system architecture, rather than a having a clean, standardised design.
That's why it is a mess.

You can't blame that on your flawed perception that "musicians needlessly 'update'
their well-configured working audio systems to the unknown"

Riddle me this: If the Linux audio sub-system is so good, why isn't Linux the de facto standard in professional music production ?

The legions of people (including people with many years of experience of working with UNIX and Linux) who have just given up in frustration with the lack of reliability and unnecessary complexity of the Linux audio sub-system, is the answer to that.

Because, there are literally thousands of Linux based web servers, database servers and file / print servers out there in commercial use.

[glokraw]

Riddle me this: If the Linux audio sub-system is so good, why isn't Linux the de facto standard in professional music production ?

In the old days, professional recording studios were not computer based, and slowly began integrating the new software technology.
A lot of apps got their start in Amigas and Ataris, but those
computer platforms were led by blundering fools, and the
the mac/pc duopoly took off in the business and educational
sectors, while linux was lurking in Fortune 500 server closets. Established recording businesses looked for stable products, with documentation, business models, and most of all, verifiable results.

As the new tech started taking hold in studios, intrepid independant users started using it in home and 'indie' studios, and they used what they saw working in the studios, a natural progression.
Linux was still in the server room.

As this time frame ticked on, linux 'boxed sets' began selling at Borders,
Barnes&Noble, and other large booksellers, I gladly bought Suse,
Caldera, Mandriva, Corel, and Red Hat. I was lucky, that my
hardware was linux compatible, and CCRMA, deMudi, Jacklab,
Ubuntu Studio, Knoppix, 64 Studio, and Roxshop.
unveiled the simplicity of using zynaddsubfx, qjackctl, and a range of ladspa effects, to record a song.

Then the Jacklab team introduced wineasio, Reaper was born,
and worked nicely in wine, so a viable way to use
a wide variety of quality windows vsts in linux was here,
and an audio subculture continued to evolve. EnergyXT and Ardour
were ongoing, and many new projects, like Qtractor, were being born,
and are maturing.

The uptake of linux in the commercial 3D rendering and embedded synthesizer hardware markets added a petina of credibility,
and curiosity. Today, a commercial viability is being tested by the great U-he and discoDSP synth products, the recent Bitwig DAW, the PianoteQ modeled keyboard system, the MOD guitar pedal/plugin system, and
the Studio 1337 usbstick based rt-kernel distro.

There are a bevvy of free alternatives, the remastered debian studio known as AVlinux, the KX Studio (with popular repositories added to many other setups), Tango Studio, a new one called 'Parabola',
and CCRMA still cooking many years later etc etc

But among the many fine options, there runs one constant:
get it running, and use it. You get the upgrade fever? Use
a second or third drive, and keep the recording studio pure.
Let the fearless masses of alpha-male spearcatchers enjoy the pain, while you record the tunes.

Also, I'll wager most successful windows and mac users stubbornly
refuse to blindly upgrade their studio machine(s). Avoiding
an OS/audio mess is really just common sense, and not OS-specific.
The audio forums are filled with failed quests of those who rush in,
and then need help with the consequences.

Every audio user using an OS has to deal with the same learning curve.
Midi, i/o, timings, audio bitrates, codecs, hardware quirks,
and particular OS tips/tricks/workarounds.
These respect no label, and have no mercy. Everybody
must learn or burn.
Cheers

[Lump]

Riddle me this: If the Linux audio sub-system is so good, why isn't Linux the de facto standard in professional music production ?

In the old days, the Jacklab team introduced wineasio.

Bitwig DAW, the PianoteQ modeled keyboard system...

My sermon:

In my Jacklab days, thats nearly 10 years ago (only some older people like glokraw, drumfix and studiodave remember ) I was try to use Linux as a DAW and made this as a public linux project. In the jacklab community we've done a lot for making it possible. And at the first time my enthusiasm was authentic. But at the end I've realized, that Linux need a lot of time to grow up as a stable platform for a professional DAW, but I need to make my studiojob now, so I decided to use OSX and it was a good decision, because it works. 2008 only Renoise and 3 pro VSTs was available for Linux and WineAsio only was a temporary crutch but with a big overhead of system resources. On the OSX platform I have all I need for music production in a very stable and userfriendly environment, supporting creativity and productivity. On Linux, I always had to fix a hole.

8 years later...

A year ago I was trying to set up my iMac with Ubuntu, because U-He started a Linux beta for its plug ins. But this failed because the iMac is no good platform for Linux - lot of problems and I was not able to find a solution. So for this winter I've purchased a used Dell PC with a Xeon CPU. This is a dual boot system with OSX and Linux. As Linux distribution I chose Ubuntu with Multimedia Kernel and some KX extensions.

And after some elaborating and testing with this box I must admit, there is something happening the last years on the Linux platform.
-Lots of VST and LV2 plugins - not all good and a lot of crap but some pearls like Yoshimi, all U-he plugins, all Loomer plugins etc.
-A good amount of DAWs: Renoise is still one of the most stable VST capable DAW, followed by Bitwig, which is the most complete VST studio for Linux. And not to forget Ardour 4, and qtraktor, they''ve made a lot progression the last 8 years. And there is Tracktion, LMMS and....
-FalkX, if you read this don't be jealous, but I definitely love your C-girls. KX is the missing link and bringing open and closed software together.
-My prefered hardware (Focusrite FW Audio, Ableton Push, and a lot more) is running flawless ootb.
-The overall perfomance and my subjective user experience is great.

But there are still cons, to use a Linux DAW for my daily work: I miss some plugins. A sampler like Kontakt with a huge commercial library. A cool drummer helper like groove agent, Ezdrummer or Addictive Drums. A good ampsimu like TH2/TH3 or GuitarRig.

I've tried Airwave and other windows vst wrapper but they produce a lot overhead - I prefer native solutions. So your turn, VST makers, here is a potential customer...