The linux DAW thread

[MachFront]

Pardon me for running roughshod over the thread but...

Another thing that befuddles me is organization (especially as pertains to plug-ins).

In Windows I have a plug-in folder. Most plugs (especially for a simpleton like me) are lil dlls. I download one and plop it into my plug-in folder. This Or That DAW has a dialog to set to point to the folder wherein plug-ins are located. Loading a track and selecting a plug then brings up a list due to the aforementioned dialog, etc.

Now...in Linux, plugs seeming to be full-on programs in their own right are downloaded and installed and then populate one's list of programs in the Menu's program list.
How do I grab these and shove them into a central folder/location so that a DAW such as QTractor or Reaper (via Wine or no? Or?...) can 'see' them in a selectable list or some such?
I know it's doable as I've seen QTractor tutes (though not in English, I could see the lists of the uploader's LADSPA, DSSI, etc. plugs when a MIDI track was loaded.).. so... how? :-/

[glokraw]

Hi, your motherboard sound will likely be detected by qjackctl,
you can check in the Setup panel on the middle-right,
click the > ^ widgets to see/change whats been chosen.

Plugin paths for linux vst, lv2, and dssi plugins:

/usr/lib/vst /usr/lib/lv2 /usr/lib/dssi
/home/you/.vst /home/you/.lv2 /home/you/.dssi

.folders are 'hidden', change filemanager setting to see them.

yoshimi can run as a standalone, by commanding it's name in a terminal,
or as a plugin. For standalone use,
install a2jmidid and then command a2jmidid -j default
This will place a jackd midi port in the qjackctl Midi tab.
yoshimi will appear there when launched, select both the port and the app, and press the connect button. (not the connect button on the main panel)

A line will draw to show it's connected. In the audio tab, connect
yoshimi on the left, to System on the right.

For use in qtractor, launch qjackctl and qtractor, and make connections in qjackctl. In qtractor Tracks menu, choose Add Track
A two tabbed panel appears, choose either audio or midi track, (click midi to use yoshimi) In the same panel, select the Plugins Tab
Click the 'Add' button on the right

In the Plugins panel that appears, in the upper right corner,
click the widget to choose between plugin types: any, lv2, ladspa, dssi, vst
choose lv2, and select yoshimi (or your choice) from the list.
Choosing 'any' will trigger plugin scanning. Yoshimi will then be listed in lv2, or any.

In yoshimi, in the Instruments menu, choose 'Show Banks',
and then pick a sound. This assumes you installed the yoshimi data file
in synaptic.

If you installed kx repositories, amsynth will be in lv2, vst, dssi, and standalone. Calf Plugin Suite lv2 includes a fine monosynth and organ,
and Helm, Oxefm, TAL Noisemaker, zynaddsubfx, and Tunefish, are among the linux vst plugins.
Cheers

[MachFront]

Brain. So. Full. Head. Might. ...Explode. Argh.

Oohhhkay. Need to save for later. Thanks, glokraw. It's so very much appreciated. You've the patience of a saint.

[NystagmusE]

Linux plugins aren't the same type of plugins as Windows plugins. They aren't cross-platform. Linux plugins are for Linux, Windows plugins are for Windows.

However, Windows plugins (VST instruments and effects) can be seen by a Wine-compatible Windows DAW program such as REAPER or EnergyXT if you put them into a VSTplugins folder on the fake C: drive created by Wine. And then of course, within those programs, you point the program to that VSTplugins folder in their preferences/settings.

Also, there are some other Linux tools to use Windows plugins within Linux, such as FeSTige, but I don't use that yet, so I can't help much on that tip except to refer you to those for research.

I don't yet used Linux plugins, so that's where my help ends yet I would refer you to the Ubuntu Studio forums or KX studio forums to get better support. Even if you don't use those particular distros, they will have a lot of compatible support info.

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.ph ... 430f611cb6
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewforum.php?f=47

[glokraw]

Did a portable install last week, of 64bit reaper in 64 bit Mint 17,
a ubuntu custom derivative. 32 bit plugins are working with
reaper and wineasio, and that was not the case last year.
So progress is happening, although I don't yet know who to blame

wine 1.8x is hitting quite a few repositories, hopefully it won't be
just for office/gaming setups, and offer speed/stability on all fronts.
Cheers

[fluffy_little_something]

Pissed W user here, thinking of switching when I build my new computer. So, after 44 pages spanning a decade, is there any recommendable DAW by now?
My demands are not huge, I am currently using Mixcraft and used to use Mulab, which was way too much for my needs. I assume my biggest challenge would be getting Sylenth1 to work, that would be kind of a must.
I prefer a basic solid DAW over a bloated buggy one.

[stanlea]

You can use Mixcraft on Linux, of course. Sylenth1 may work.. or not, depending the wine flow. Consider getting an U-He synth ported on Linux.

[glokraw]

Pissed W user here, thinking of switching when I build my new computer. So, after 44 pages spanning a decade, is there any recommendable DAW by now?
My demands are not huge, I am currently using Mixcraft and used to use Mulab, which was way too much for my needs. I assume my biggest challenge would be getting Sylenth1 to work, that would be kind of a must.
I prefer a basic solid DAW over a bloated buggy one.

A previous Sylenth demo worked in reaper/wineasio, but the newest one
crashes reaper instantly. A rarity. It is mainly dongled plugins,
installers demanding win 7+, or pace/macromedia style copy schemes
that fail. If Discovery Pro is similar enough to Sylenth, it's linux version
works well in linux daw 'qtractor', as do the U-he synths, Pianoteq,
zynaddsubfx, oxefm, obxd, dexed, and TAL Noisemaker.

The best bet would be a 32 bit linux install on an external drive,
using reaper with wineasio for the daw. And some youtube time
with synaptic package installer, and qjackctl connections gui,
so you can see into the first needed processes. Linux installers
are pretty simple, formatting choice, password, username, language,
timezone etc

Or a 64 bit install, with bitwig and 64 bit reaper. Just recently,
the wine-rt version in kx-studio repository seems to run 32bit windows plugins in reaper quite well. Bitwig hosts native linux vsts, and a newish app call airwave, is being used to host windows vsts.

Synaptic is a gui for the apt-get software installer.
If you start with a debian or ubuntu based linux distro,
after the drive formatting dialogs, you'll choose a user password
that will grant admin rights for root level operations, where
a command would be proceeded by 'sudo'. For example, if you
are connected to the net, a command

sudo apt-get install wineasio

would prompt you for your password, and then search your distro repositories for wineasio, and all the libs and utilities it may require,
(dependencies, in linux lingo) and offer to download and install them,
or declare any issues it found preventing that. Synaptic gui loads the
list of available software, with several viewing options, like
status, all, not installed, installed, installed upgradable, and new,
and has a search function, which lists the relevant results,
displaying their status in your system. So if wine-rt were installed,
but not wineasio, that would be apparent, and you could choose
accordingly. Youtube vids are great for showing
the weird jargon at work.

[glokraw]

There is a certain philosophy as to installing linux, and software updates.
As a musician, I start with 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
And then, 'uninstall what you don't use'. And then, 'Don't uninstall unless you know what you are uninstalling.'

So if extra media players are installed, vlc, mplayer, xine, etc
and one is enough, it's safe to remove them. But libraries with cryptic names, should be allowed to remain. Synaptic gui makes this easy.
And will warn you what else will be uninstalled, never to be
taken lightly. Some rare flawed updates could uninstall
your core system.

If I hear about a serious security breach, I'll update that,
but I tend to avoid system version updates, until a new stable release
can be tested, after being installed on an 'extra' drive.
I keep several drives handy, since I enjoy tinkering and
experimenting, and keep two systems for more serious use.

A balancing act can occur if your favorite audio software update
now requires some newer system library, and the system decides
it's not happening. But it's very rare. The most recent issue I
know of, was audacity audio editor released a flawed version,
and it took a couple months using the previous release, before
the new one was fixed.

Wine updates I keep in the 'don't fix what ain't broke' column.
as a lot wine emphasis is on gaming and office tools.
Reaper works in most any wine version, but I've no need to
experiment. Since reaper 2.06. there's been two releases
that had a major issue, so I used the earlier one.

Audio interface and video cards are important. I was lucky,
and both of mine were supported in generic linux without deep trials.
A quick google search reveals soundcards that work, of fail,
there are lots of good ones these days. The official nvidia 3D driver
has proven to be very stable with complex daw and vst interfaces,
like Bitwig and Zebra. The open-source counterpart, not so much.

http://www.libremusicproduction.com

has some very useful tutorials,
the one on setting up jackd is important.
Cheers

[fluffy_little_something]

Thank you, to me Linux still is like a maze, I will have to read a lot on it before I switch. Windows spoils people

So, Bitwig and Reaper are available for Linux?
energyX as well, I remember that.
I have also stumbled upon a DAW called Ardour.
When you say that I can run Mixcraft in Linux, that implies a kind of conversion, I take it because it is only available for Windows, unlike energyX. Is it better to take a DAW that is explicitly available in a Linux version?

Can you recommend Ubuntu Studio? I read yesterday that it is geared at audio and multimedia stuff.
I think I will download it at the end of the month (if I have enough monthly traffic left) and run it from a disc.

Regarding Sylenth1, I have made so many patches for it, I can't do without them. U-he, DSP etc. just don't sound as good to my ears. And U-he's stuff is too much for my computer, because it will be AMD-based again

[fedexnman]

Bitwig , Tracktion , U-he , DiscoDSP , Renoise / Redux , Harrison Mixbuss , Ardour etc etc . My lame reasons of not making this switch fully is I miss using Cytomic "the glue " and fighting with my audio interface at times . Oh and I don't fool with WINE never got things going right with Windows VSTs and WINE . But the switch is possible .

[stanlea]

Thank you, to me Linux still is like a maze, I will have to read a lot on it before I switch. Windows spoils people

So, Bitwig and Reaper are available for Linux?
energyX as well, I remember that.
I have also stumbled upon a DAW called Ardour.
When you say that I can run Mixcraft in Linux, that implies a kind of conversion, I take it because it is only available for Windows, unlike energyX. Is it better to take a DAW that is explicitly available in a Linux version?

Can you recommend Ubuntu Studio? I read yesterday that it is geared at audio and multimedia stuff.
I think I will download it at the end of the month (if I have enough monthly traffic left) and run it from a disc.

Regarding Sylenth1, I have made so many patches for it, I can't do without them. U-he, DSP etc. just don't sound as good to my ears. And U-he's stuff is too much for my computer, because it will be AMD-based again

Just to be clear :
- Bitwig and Tracktion have native Linux versions, same priced as for other OS's
- Reaper has an old build of a Linux version, but very experimental...
- Reaper actually has NO Linux version, it just works under Wine which is a Windows emulation layer under Linux - use at your own risk
- Ardour is a native Linux DAW, with a great user base, and it's free software
- My apologies about Mixcraft : there is no Linux version, I was confused by the name, because there's a commercial Ardour derivative called Mixbus.
- I didn't try recently Ubnutu Studio, but for me the best solution is here :

http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/Repositories

Recommended Ubuntu version is 14.04 that has long time support if I remember well.

But really, I'd not be confident about Sylenth1 working well. If there's a demo, I'll download it and tell you.

[NystagmusE]

Reaper on wine in Ubuntu Studio isn't that hard. But I got it to work by not trying to fight with JACK.
Instead I edited PulseAudio's settings to have lower latency according to some help sites on the web.
Then I use WASAPI mode within Reaper, and disable unneeded inputs. That's the main thing to get Reaper going.

Of course there's other DAW tweaking stuff you can do to improve on that. But VST instruments and effects working is not all that hard. I had a hard time only when I tried WineASIO and JACK. That turned out to just be headaches. So I quit doing that.

The other main thing is to make sure you MIDI gear and audio gear is USB Class Compliant, so that it just runs when plugged in.

[glokraw]

Could you please post your pulse configs? Important linux
documentation is always useful!
Cheers

[glokraw]

To be fair, jackd has a variety of gui's, to make it simple to use,
and youtube videos of linux audio apps, and various audio-centric distros,
often include it, as the first part of the movie.

When wineasio is chosen as the reaper asio device, a simple commmand
launches reaper, and reaper auto-connects it's i/o Can't get much easier than that.
Put the reaper install in /home/your-username/reaper and command:

$ wine reaper/reaper.exe

Have reaper scan your chosen vst paths, enable your input devices, and