Running commercial audio software on linux

[audiojunkie]

This is REALLY GOOD news! Did your version of WINE get updated between the time when you had to go through the hoopla to get things running and the time that everything just worked? Maybe WINE is getting to the stage where Native Instruments products will just work--without troubles.

[glokraw]

I don't know why there was a difference, the same wine-staging
V 4.20 (not 4.21 as mentioned earlier was used for all installs
mentioned here, same kernel and C-libs etc. I added Battery 4
and some others, and copied the .wine folder safely to some
backup drives, and synaptic package manager is set to keep
downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives, for easy
backups of the wine install dependencies.

Perhaps the main Kontakt installer has not yet been fitted
with the whole iso file install regimen?
I've read that the Kontakt codebase is so old and convoluted,
(pioneers rarely can travel in straight lines, so congrats NI,
two freaking DECADES!!!! )
that NI coders tampering with accessories to actual music-making,
like an installer, ist zehr verboten. According to Evildragon,
an NI expert/helper/advocate, if not employee/stockholder
this large evolved legacy codebase is the reason the main
Kontakt gui lags behind competition, it's a huge task that teams
starting closer to scratch, don't have to deal with. But the new
Massive X comes with a scalable gui,
so code progress is being made.

I think a good long-term strategy would be to get a pair of
fast or SSD drives, for a fresh start, with no trace of disk fragmenting,
or any 3rd party oddities, and after install, put all the big
sound sample libs on the second ssd drive.
The Native Instruments demos run in 30 minute sessions,
(only Kontakt full demo is 15 minutes), and Reaktor, Guitar Rig
and Kontakt each have very capable free Player versions.
And then there is the parallel universe known as the
Reaktor User Library...if your wife/kids discover it, kiss your
computer time goodbye, just get a teepee for the back yard,
and cut a deal to use your neighbors high-speed internet

Come to think of it, jamming those West Africa percussion riffs
would be great around a teepee's camp fire, with some
venison roasting over smoky alder wood,
on a hickory branch spit

Also, I followed the experts advice to run Kontakt on a single core,
it's performance was much improved. Hopefully wine advancements
will obviate that at some point, but a single core
is still a powerhouse, these days!

I'll soon try to replicate the current success in a different distro,
and provide the results.
Cheers

[glokraw]

Attached is a loop made with Kontakt West Africa
in wine/reaper/Mint 18, using Reapers 'record live output' option.

In the preset I used, the gui has 6 octaves of keys
mapped out in 8 colour coded zones, on a virtual keyboard.
Each keypress offers it's own pattern riff, with zones for different purposes.
Using the left hand, in the first zone, I alternated playing two riffs,
then in the second zone, with the right hand, played through it's riffs
chromatically, thus adding variations to the alternating beats on the left hand.

Just scratching the surface, this is great fun when
partnered with linux Hydrogen.

West Africa is part of the $199 Komplete Select product, commonly
a boxed set in the brick&mortars, with software installers
on a usb stick. And it usually gets you into the next full Komplete sale
for 50% discount. Not sure of the current NI sales, maybe some bargains
exist?
Cheers

[glokraw]

I took the audio from which the above attached loop came from,
and modified thusly:

Slowed playback in Audacity to 54
copied and pasted the audio to a second track,
and offset it visually by about a half beat
Lowered the volume on the second track by about 40%
Routed the Audacity output to linux Rakarrack multi-effects app,
loaded it's 'Summer At The Pool' preset, that uses the
Expander, Sustainer, and Echotron modules,
set Rakarrack i/o levels and recorded the playback
of Audacity and Rakarrack in Timemachine recorder,
trimmed as a loopable etc

Cheers

[glokraw]

I did a second install of Kontakt 6 and Reaktor 6,
on Bodhi linux, with wine-staging 4.21. I started winecfg,
and chose windows 10 as the OS to mimic, then installed
Native Access, and rebooted for good luck. When I started Native Access,
it checked for updates, and sorted out the account for this system,
which had nothing from Native Instruments installed.
I installed Reaktor, and it's factory library first,
then Kontakt 6, and one of it's libraries.

The common use-case will be a Ubuntu/Debian user,
or those using distros based on them, like Mint, and Bodhi,
but with some Arch, Fedora, Puppy and Suse users.

Use your package manager to fully remove any wine version,
and add a wine-staging repository to you package manager,
directions are here:

Wine-staging site: https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu

and a page back at the site for other distros.
(I would also remove pulse audio, so only jackd and alsa
need to be dealt with for pro audio)

Obtain the 3 .dlls mentioned below, from a working system,
or reliable website.

Install mfc42 and mfc42u 32bit dll into
/home/you/.wine/drive_c/windows/syswow64

Install the mfc140.dll into
/home/you/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32

Add the dll names in winecfg's Libraries tab,
and use the apply button. Configure the options
on the other tabs while you're there, like showing
hidden files on drives, and wine appearing as win 10

If any of those above .dlls already existed, rename them
in place, and/or move them for safekeeping before adding the
new ones.

That's about it. Make plenty of disk space for the install,
shop carefully for the best prices, develop a long term
purchase/use strategy, and limit Reaper to one cpu when using Kontakt,
and make some cool tunes.
Cheers

[glokraw]

A linux standalone Discovery Pro

This, and a midi controller would be a great Christmas gift combo
for kids, nieces/nephews etc

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/discodsp- ... -6-9-47151

includes a linux standalone with JACK support. It's a Nord hardware in software,
comparison video here (done on win, and an older version, but a good example.
A great instrument that fills some gaps in many studios.
Cheers

https://youtu.be/7EckOJ5fpNU

[audiojunkie]

Nice!! Sounds very interesting! I still don't have any of the Native Instruments tools, but I hope to get Kontakt someday. I have been focusing on my guitar again (after nearly 17 years of rarely playing), and bought myself a Boss MS-3, Boss RV-500, and Digitech Mosaic. I still need a couple more components for my pedalboard setup, so it may be a while before I get around to buying Kontakt. Do you have CWITEC's TX16Wx or possibly Togu Audio Line's TAL-Sampler? I've got both of them currently, so I may try getting them to work in Linux.

[glokraw]

Looks like some great new gear. That MS-3 is a few great ideas all rolled into one!

The free Guitar Rig Player and Supercharger might pair well
for designing MS-3 chains while the family sleeps. GR5 has drag&drop
of it's models, so it's easy to experiment with new
effect chains in virtual setups, and then apply the keepers to hardware.
If you download NI items, they will email you a download link, and enter you
into the deep assimilation pool

The Reactor Player will run the free ensembles from the User Library

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... r-library/

for 30 minutes, which library has some excellent multi-effects ensembles, drum machines, and synths, and the player content itself is also high quality,
and with no time limits.

https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/B ... ewarePack/

BlueCat offer a great collection, three great amp models, some modulations,
EQ and a visual frequency analyst

IK Multimedia's free Amplitube 4 Custom Shop version also is fine
in wine. They have a new Roland Jazz Amp 120 model that could
be tested...
Mosaic-->MS-3_(cabsim-off)-->computer-input-->Amplitube-JazzAmp120

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/i ... -amplitube

When online, gear models like the Jazz Amp can be tested for 48 hours each,
twice a year. The IK FullTone collection is also worth testing,
great chorus, delay, and distortion pedal models.

I keep asking for 30 hour days, but no earth-slowing asteroids
are yet on the horizon

Cheers

[glokraw]

Having a blast using Kontakt's ethnic libraries in linux.
Attached a little music bubble from a daydream on
foreign soil...
Cheers

[audiojunkie]

Having a blast using Kontakt's ethnic libraries in linux.
Attached a little music bubble from a daydream on
foreign soil...
Cheers

[glokraw]

Another good time, just installed the latest
IK Multimedia Amplitube 4.9 in a pretty standard
Puppy Linux, 'Bionic 64', which uses standard Ubuntu
packages, none of the fancy gnufangled stuff

Not a single problem, started the standalone,
responded to the Authorization Manager with
the serial number, and add-on gear model
serial numbers, and all is well. While it was running,
I started the Reaper daw app, and loaded the plugin
version of Amplitube, and the two played without a family feud. (There's a nice looper in the standalone)

I then launched the Custom Shop, and chose something
for testing, and that also went fine.
Each gear model can be tested for a three-day period of time, twice yearly, when the Shop app is open and online, and gear can be purchased thru the Shop if desired.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/news/index ... rkrazydeal

And since IK are having a 60% discount on several
versions of Amplitube, as well as on some extras,
a better time for a linux guitar picker to nab some
pro quality gear won't likely show up for a while.
Amplitube Jimi Hendrix Anniversary, and
Amplitube Slash are $40 each, among others.
The videos on the sale page are nicely done,
and eventually get to a nice 3-man jam
from IK's amp room.

You'll want the tiny wineasio.dll copied to your
system wine (not the .wine folder)
and use commands to 'register' the .dll.

wine64 regsvr32 wineasio.dll

wine regsvr32 wineasio.dll

If it's not in your software repository, it's at the typical
ubuntu/debian/suse package sites. Extract the archive,
and copy the .dll as mentioned.

Success will be verified in the terminal output.

Cheers

[Boone777]

Can you do realtime recording on that Puppy ? Do you have a RT kernel installed ?

[dellboy]

Can you do realtime recording on that Puppy ? Do you have a RT kernel installed ?

I have just rummaged around and found a USB stick with Bionic Puppy on it which I was testing a few months back ( I am on windows 10 usually).

Anyway I managed to get it to boot and loaded the Linux Bitwig demo and it works just the same as it does in windows. The latency seems the same as windows without doing anything special. Linux sound has come a long way.

It is just a standard Bionic Puppy install without an RT kernel. It is an amazing little distro considering it easily fits on an old 4 GB USB stick and can be booted live.

[Boone777]

My guess is if you record with some plugins, like guitar amp+fx the delay will be too much to record decently without RT and an interface. But yes audio out of the box works for many cool stuff in Linux.

I had a blast with Puppy it was my first distro ever last summer !
Could'nt figure out where my download on the desktop went for a while ! The 'pinboard' desktop is mind bugling at first, Puppylinux lives in it's own little world but it's a trip !

I wish more distros would have working persistence Puppy rocked for this.

[glokraw]

Can you do realtime recording on that Puppy ? Do you have a RT kernel installed ?

Hi, it's standard kernel 5.05 if I recall. Seems very usable,
can play a track in audacity, load effects in reaper, play along
to the playing audacity track, while recording both as a 24bit .w64 audio in
jackd timemachine. Reaper option to 'save live output to disk'
also is very handy. Audacity also has that handy playback speed control

I notice some screen jittering in a few apps, (not Amplitube)
if moving a cluttered window very fast, T-racks standalone has a huge
window for example)
but with a 24" monitor, moving app windows might not be needed much.
No problems with the U-he linux apps, there is an installer option
to allow root installs, or use the win versions in wine.
The commercial Studio 1337 has an RT kernel, with apps
compiled with it, another great option! I have that on an 8gig
usbstick, and a large savefile.

Two commands team up to allow viewing your puppy
savefile contents:

sudo mkdir /mnt/pup

mount -t ext4 -o loop /media/you/insert-win-partition/bionicpup64save.4fs /mnt/pup

Cheers