The linux DAW thread

[stanlea]

The biggest thing preventing Linux from becoming a more widely adopted OS, is the elitist and snobbish attitude of the Linux community itself.

I understand that you may have some bad experiences with some people here and there, but I can tell you that many folks are really helpful. There is not a "Linux community", really, but a myriad of small communities around specific uses. This said, a nice place to get help is linuxmusician.com forum. Like all forums, there are sometimes battles and flames, but overall it's a safe place. Talking about Linux on KVR may be sometimes deceptive, but not always. See the U-he thread about Linux versions of U-He synths.

I think that the biggest issue is that Linux is not driven by one company like Mac or Windows, and there are so many different configurations that it takes some time to understand how things work and where to get info at a reasonable cost. And yes, some are elitist and snobbish,of course. Some also let you think that all works easily and flow you with useless information.

A last thing : windows software may work with wineasio and wine. "May", but you can't be sure until when. For instance, Reaktor worked until version 5.8, but now it lacks a dll in wine, and Reaktor 6 can't run. So... you have now a lot of native linux software very powerful, free or not, imho you'd better use that.

[glokraw]

The biggest thing preventing Linux from becoming a more widely adopted OS, is the elitist and snobbish attitude of the Linux community itself.

I think that perception is heightened somewhat by the comparatively small number of musicians using linux for audio production. Those are human flaws,
not particular to any certain grouping of the folks. There are tube-amp snobs,
analog snobs, mac snobs, yada yada

However, within the relatively small group of knowedgeable linux audio people,
there is a lot of competition, and some serious coding disagreements.
Linux users are not one big happy family, but I thinks it's trending toward being
more positive lately.

Some open-source developers and users voice a strong zeal against the entrenched commercial entities, and when that carries over in discussions
with windows or mac users, cubase or pro-tools users etc etc
a display of good manners goes a long way. Even among linux
help forums, there are (in my opinion at least) too many truncated
or terse answers, lacking well-known details that could be called up in
a minute or two, if not from memory. Even nooby questions requiring
psychic powers to answer, can be answered with a friendly or humorous
admonition to acknowledge the human fraility among potential helpers.

I think the linux community is getting a little friendlier, maybe due
in part to the new exposure from the many commercial products released
in the last few years, and their successful usage within longstanding
linux audio applications. It's a bit easier to remain a curmudgeon,
when nobody is looking. And in hard times, people are realizing
it's easier to get and stay hired when you have a jolly good reputation
to back up your resume'.
Cheers

[ford442]

I would be interested to know what flavors of LINUX people are trying to use on here. There are so many slintered off projects that I've had a hard time contrasting very many by myself. I use Ubuntu. Long ago I tried Mandrake/Mandriva. Fedora seemed too complex and unfriendly. Debian didn't have a great time running when I tried it briefly. I have not gived Arch and Knoppix a try yet. But, I am sure that I don't know which branch of LINUX is best for music. Ubuntu Studio is wonderful in it's completeness and functionality/workability out of the box. I would be curious though if other distros are more appealing to people? It has been quite a bit of time for me just getting aquainted with the .deb package managed system of things. I am wary of starting the whole process over with a non-ubuntu-based set of stuff to learn...

[glokraw]

The biggest thing preventing Linux from becoming a more widely adopted OS, is the elitist and snobbish attitude of the Linux community itself.

Most people were introduced to windows and macos
at work and/or at school, or when purchasing their first computer,
and simply keep on using what is familiar, regardless of options.
Very little personality is involved in that scenario, where the decisions
are so limited.
Cheers

[Greenstorm33]

Seeing this thread reminds me, are there any tricks to getting USB midi devices to work on Linux (specifically, in FL Studio running under Wine)? That's the one big thing that's holding me back from fully transitioning my musical endeavors to Linux right now. Judging by a search of this thread, a few people's controllers apparently just worked out of the box, but my Yamaha YPG-235 doesn't seem to fall into that category.

qjackctl 'Periods/Buffer' setting should be 3 for a usb device.
If there is a local on/off' switch on the YPG keyboard controls, try using
local off'. Might be labeled as 'Omni off'. An older yamaha DGX 300/500
can be had for good prices, and they use 5pin midi, have more effects
available, and a full XG soundset to effect in linux. But you will need
an midi or audio/midi interface with the 5pin i/o

I've read that wine/wineasio audio may need an all-32 bit setup for awhile yet.

also, a command is needed after installing wineasio:

regsvr32 wineasio.dll

Search synaptic for usb, and look for usb libs are not installed yet.

wineasio flstudio in ye olde search engine brings up a lot of discussions.
Cheers

Alright, I managed to get 32 bit wineasio installed, and I can set it as my audio device in FL (it's not a super cpu-friendly setup, but I can deal). After changing the periods/buffer setting in qjackctl I also have my keyboard showing up as an ASIO midi input/output port in the connections list. I still can't figure out how to actually make the connection to FL though. I don't know if it's helpful, but when I try to internally set up FL as a midi output device (not that this is something I want to do - I was just messing around in the midi settings), I get a message saying "The current MIDI setup is damaged. Copy the original MIDIMAP.cfg file to the Windows SYSTEM directory, and then try again." I can't find any file in my Wine prefix with that exact name, although there is a midimap.dll file.

[glokraw]

If qjackctl is running when wineasio is selected as the asio driver in fls,
it should autoconnect. Reaper always does. In the qjackctl
connections panel, your midi interface/keyboard should be in the alsa tab, but unconnected until you connect it, and fls should be in the audio
tab, connected. (The midi tab should be empty, unless you start
a2jmidid or an jack-midi app like yoshimi synthesizer, or amsynth)

Also, the qjackctl MIDI driver should be 'none'.

Run winecfg, and make any obvious changes

As to the MIDIMAP.cfg, it looks like it is generated at run time,
based on your fls and/or wine config, I don't have such a file
in my wine folders.
I'll check in a running reaper session and edit this shortly...

edit: no sign of MIDIMAP.cfg, with reaper running in wine.
Very little in google. You may want to try your interface
in different usb ports. Does it have a power supply connector?
Some computer usb lacks adequate power for proper running,
despite what the labels say. You could try booting without your usb device
then plug it in, and look at the end of text files /var/log/messages
/var/log/syslog /var/log/user.log for clues.

And see if it's recognized uniformly from commands

aplay -l
arecord -l

aconnect -i
aconnect -o

also, on a fresh boot, run a generic jackd command before starting qjackctl:

jackd -d alsa -r 44100

Check that pulseaudio is dead: killall -9 pulseaudio

[glokraw]

I would be interested to know what flavors of LINUX people are trying to use on here. There are so many slintered off projects that I've had a hard time contrasting very many by myself. I use Ubuntu. Long ago I tried Mandrake/Mandriva. Fedora seemed too complex and unfriendly. Debian didn't have a great time running when I tried it briefly. I have not gived Arch and Knoppix a try yet. But, I am sure that I don't know which branch of LINUX is best for music. Ubuntu Studio is wonderful in it's completeness and functionality/workability out of the box. I would be curious though if other distros are more appealing to people? It has been quite a bit of time for me just getting aquainted with the .deb package managed system of things. I am wary of starting the whole process over with a non-ubuntu-based set of stuff to learn...

It's really obtaining compatible hardware that's most important.
Most of the important software runs in nearly all the main linux distros.

(and for wineasio, a 32bit system is still important.)

With an maudio pci soundcard, and an nvidia video card, I have used everything you mentioned on my old setup.

Currently, pclinuxos uses the synaptic package manager, as does ubuntu,
and is maintained for stability, defaults to nvidia corporate 3D driver, has solid kernel support, and wineasio has worked with reaper for years. It has a good selection of audio software, and foreign audio apps are easily installed manually. The 3D driver has been superior for running graphics intensive linux versions of bitwig, and the u-he and discodsp plugins in linux daws, or windows plugins with reaper in wine. The linux audio apps run very well in 64 bit systems, and it's never been easier to have a productive variety.

Puppy Studio 1337 is a commercial custom realtime media distro, shipped on
a bootable usbstick, wine preconfigured for easy reaper use, lots of audio apps,
hand optimized with the kernel, ready to use in high performance mode.
Puppy prompts you to let it create a save file, to hold your data, mods, tunes etc.
The save file is a squash filesystem that can be resized as needs grow, And the setup
is extremely portable. Ridiculously fast, even faster on an SSD.

avlinux is a remastered debian system, loaded, if not overloaded with a/v apps,
can be run as a live dvd for testing, and later installed.. Well supported,
and happily doesn't need much.

kx studio: many people add the kx repos to ubuntu or debian variants,
to access a wide range of apps, updated frequently, and a bootable
dvd can also be tested/installed. Home of the Carla daw, and origin of many
linux plugin ports. Zynaddsubfx is now a linux vst

qjackctl is the hub of many linux audio setups, for configuring audio settings,
selecting interfaces, and creating connections. Then a good testbed is amsynth,
which can be run as a standalone, by commanding it's name, then connected
in qjackctl.
And it also can run as a vst or dssi plugin in a daw like qtractor.
Cheers

[Greenstorm33]

In the qjackctl connections panel, your midi interface/keyboard should be in the alsa tab, but unconnected until you connect it, and fls should be in the audio tab, connected.

.
What do you mean by "unconnected until you connect it?" Is FL supposed to show up in the ALSA connections? The only things I've ever seen there are my keyboard and "MIDI through." Since you know REAPER works, I'm going to try it to see if this is an FL problem or something else.

update: Got REAPER running. I have sound output with the audio device set to wineasio, even after killing pulseaudio (which was a little surprising to me, because I had a pulseaudio sink as my output device...I've never really understood what all the different linux audio programs do). My keyboard does not show in the REAPER midi devices menu, even after I refresh it. Also, here's the result of those commands you told me to try:

Code: Select all

$ aconnect -i
client 0: 'System' [type=kernel]
    0 'Timer           '
    1 'Announce        '
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'YAMAHA Portable G' [type=kernel]
    0 'YAMAHA Portable G MIDI 1'
$ aconnect -o
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'YAMAHA Portable G' [type=kernel]
    0 'YAMAHA Portable G MIDI 1'

[glokraw]

I have 'ASIO_reaper' in the qjacktl audio tab, left and right side.
Each connected to System across the way.
You're right, in the alsa tab, no midi connection is needed
unless/until adding some linux instrument. The midi keyboard would be
chose/enabled in the fls preferences
Cheers

[Greenstorm33]

Welp, I actually got my keyboard to work with something! Specifically, the linux version of zynaddsubfx. Unlike REAPER or FL, it shows up as a MIDI input port in qjackctl, so all I had to do was connect the system MIDI capture device to it. So that pretty much confirms that it should be possible to get it to work with REAPER, at least. Just to confirm, you're saying that all you have to do on your system is start REAPER with qjackctl running and your keyboard will connect to it automatically?

edit: I just found a tutorial on using REAPER in Wine that said that for MIDI to work you MUST have everything under the winecfg audio tab be set to "ALSA." My driver is pulseaudio.drv and my only option for anything is Pulseaudio. Could that be the problem?

edit: That was indeed the problem. I win! Thanks for the help, glokraw

To summarize for anyone who happens to find this in a search or something, if your keyboard doesn't work with a wine program...
1. Download and install wineasio. If you're on Mint or Ubuntu, you can use the kxstudio repos to get a nice prebuilt version: . After wineasio is installed, select it as the audio device in your host.
2. Install qjackctl and set it up by changing the MIDI driver to "seq" and the Periods/Buffer to 3. Jack will need to be started any time the wine program is running.
3. Make sure your wine prefix's audio driver is set to ALSA. You can do this in winetricks by going to "Change Settings" and checking the "audio=ALSA" box.
4. Your MIDI device should show up in the ALSA tab of qjackctl's Connections window. However, it is not necessary to make any connections for it to work with your wine program (on the other hand, the program you're using the controller with should show up in the audio tab and should be connected automatically to the system ports)

[glokraw]

You can further process reaper output, with linux effects,
for example, install and start rakarrack, connect reaper output
on the left, to rakarrack input on the right

Then rakarrack output on the left to 'system' on the right.
Rakarrack has a tickbox upper-left corner to turn it's effects On.
And a pair of sliders to balance input to output.

Record the output of rakarrack, and reaper too as desired, with 'timemachine', a handy jackd 'one button recorder, just make another connection from reaper /rakarrack outputs
to timemachine input. (it even buffers the audio, so starts recording 10 seconds 'early'.)
records 24 bit .w64 audio files, or 16 bit .wav Import/edit/export via audacity

Also, connect the YPG headphone out to a computer soundcard line-in,
which will be 'system' on the left. Connect that to system on the right,
to record YPG audio. Or insert rakarrack or other effects in between.

Rakarrack has three banks of 60 effects combos.
!0 possible effects in each combo, each can be on/off
and modified per controls. Very versatile, and quality sound.

Glad things are working!

[glokraw]

In case anyone is new to zynaddsubfx, (or it's kissin' cousin synth, 'yoshimi', there are two little widgets, lower or middle of the gui, one to enable playing a second sound layered with the first, and one to select a midi channel for the new sound.

Setting all the midi channels to channel one, lets you play in multi-timbral, mode, and zyn allows for 16 sounds at once, which might melt your cpu and burn your house down,
but the quest for stardom does have risks.

But it's great fun to layer several sounds, and zyn has it's own internal effects chain, which is pretty easy to figure out. There are some youtubes to search for out there.

Hydrogen also has youtubes, and a versatile effects system for each drum. And the youtube sidebar often holds some good related links.

And then route back to rakarrack for even more action. And off to timemachine for recording, and a final patina of perfection in audacity, before exporting the new tunes.
Cheers

[NystagmusE]

Just a quick note:

On some systems/configurations, in winecfg (wine configuration) there is no "ALSA" setting available on the Audio tab. There's only PulseAudio or System Default. However the system default may or may not be ALSA depending upon how the rest of the operating system is set up in terms of audio.

Also, WineASIO isn't always needed to get USB MIDI devices to show up. If you start out with hardware that is USB Class Compliant, it will probably work right away. You just need to find out what it's called so you can select it from within your music programs. A quick way to see the name of a USB Class Compliant MIDI device is to run Patchage and just look at the screen. No need to tweak anything there.

This is based upon my experiences with Ubuntu Studio v14.04.x, Reaper, EnergyXT, and FL Studio v12.
You of course could have different results and experiences with different operating systems and different program versions.

Not all configurations are the same.

[MachFront]

I've quite honestly spent the last three hours trying to simply get sound out of: Jack + QTractor + Yoshimi.
Launch QJackc...t...whateveritis... Start. Launch QTractor. Add track. ...*sigh!* Name freakin' track. Name session. *yawn* (Have to have a folder ready for this, too. Yay.) Add clip. (getting closer) Launch Yoshimi. QTractor is connected in Jack. Right click to add outputs for the track and...umm... try this connection. Nope. Another? Nope. Watch YouTube tutorial again. Hm. This connection here? Nope. Still no sound. Watch YouTube tutorial. Ah!!! Go to outputs for the track and....what is shown in vid is not shown in my 'connections'.
Pour another drink.

Man, but do I really, really miss: launch Reaper, add Midi track and add plug-in from list. Done. (also, being able to use my laptop's keyboard as a MIDI keyboard).

[MachFront]

(related to above)

Am I to understand that plug-ins in Linux are always treated as full-on and separate programs (as opposed to how Windows at least seems to treat them). In Windows DAWs the plugs are...ermm.. 'held within'. In Linux, it would seem were I to have a project in, say, QTractor with ten plugs that every plug would be launched and all populating the panel.
It seems bizarre, perhaps unnecessary and kinda messy. Is that just simply how it is? Am I missing something simple or huge or is there more to the story or...what?

Were I to be running Reaper in Wine would it 'act' is it does in Windows? As in, would there simply 'only' be Reaper and I'd be selecting my plugs as I did in Windows or would there still persist this structure of plug-ins being everywhere all over the place or... um.. I'm not even certain what I'm really asking or getting at. Guh.