new linux user

[Seiken]

hey folks,

I've been using linux (slackware 10.0) for a few weeks now after windows died hard on me. somewhat of a shame since I was really starting to get into ableton live.

anyway, I'm wondering what hosts are recommended for linux (KDE is my window manager if that matters), and how all the VSTi/DXi (or equivalent) and effects work etc. I currently have 0% knowledge, so any help is hugely appreciated

thanks
seiken

[dvonae]

hey folks,

I've been using linux (slackware 10.0) for a few weeks now after windows died hard on me. somewhat of a shame since I was really starting to get into ableton live.

anyway, I'm wondering what hosts are recommended for linux (KDE is my window manager if that matters), and how all the VSTi/DXi (or equivalent) and effects work etc. I currently have 0% knowledge, so any help is hugely appreciated

thanks
seiken

First off, when it comes to music production, linux is capable, but rather difficult to configure -- not even close to the general ease-of-use of Windows. I've been using Linux for non-music stuff since 1994, so I've got a bit of experience configuring it and compiling software to install on it.

If you really want to have a go at trying to do music production on Linux, you might want to try out

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

which is a distribution for RedHat/Fedora versions of Linux with just about everything you need for audio production -- including step-by-step instructions for setting it up.

For other alternatives, check out http://www.linux-sound.org/, a site with an extensive listing of audio/video stuff for Linux. Other distro info is at http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html.

[maximilians1]

I think the latest versions of muse and rosegarden have vst support of some kind...

[Seiken]

thank you for the links.

[dvonae]

I think the latest versions of muse and rosegarden have vst support of some kind...

They do, but only if you compile them yourself -- at least the PlanetCCRMA install did not include this support in their packages. They also require the installation and setup of Wine to allow running VST/VSTi DLLs.

The synths and effects available natively in the PlanetCCRMA setup are worth looking into -- they work in Linux without requiring Wine and sound pretty good IMO. And if you've used ZynAddSubFX in its Windows version, the Linux version is just as good.

If you're determined and patient, you can definately make music using Linux -- but it will require some work to get it set up...