The linux DAW thread

[glokraw]

After listening to the sample Samples From Mars sounds,
I'd ask if it includes thousands of synth drum samples from
a large group of classic hardware synths?
And are the SFM samples in wav format
that can be used for making custom Hydrogen kits,
and other secondary uses? Are you currently using sfz files?
That format, the vast quantity, the reviews, and the price
are what grabbed my attention. AMBUSH!!!

If you're nowhere near maxing out your potentials
in SMS, and you like the results, then there's little
urgency, but I doubt you'd be dissapointed.

My strategerie is to always have several unexplored
no-brainer priced products on hand, for when the Muse
discovers the house is empty, and the coffee pot is full
I used one them today, and had great fun.
Cheers

[audiojunkie]

I can't argue with that! Hehehe!! BOUGHT!!

[glokraw]

These Wave Alchemy sounds are a lot of fun, many of the sfz's that start with a z_ have mapped out 3, 4, or 5 octaves of samples, a couple at 6,
so a four octave randomizer can have a nice workout! Just discovered
the 2sines sfz is all 88 keys, starting a new recording with that

The three jp8 kits are my favorites, I think they'll be first
in line to become Hydrogen kits.

I notice five nice Wave Alchemy freebies at

https://www.pluginboutique.com/manufact ... ve-Alchemy

the DRM Drums provides .wav samples for those not using Kontakt or
Battery, each listing has it's own detailed content explanation.

Cheers

[glokraw]

Finally, the ilok-license-manager is working in Mint 18 linux.
I purchased a cheap AIR Hybrid 3 license a while back
assuming sooner or later, wine and reaper and linux
would converge on a working solution, and today
it all came together. :hyper

Here is what I have, and what I did:

Mint 18 with generic kernel 4.4
Latest Reaper
Wine-staging 4.6 from winehq
qjackctl linux jackd patchbay/config app
from the KX Studio repository

1. I renamed my existing .wine folder, and ran
winecfg which created a new one, and based on previous
wine successes, added the following dll over-rides:

mfc140
gdiplus
msxml3
d3d9
d3d10
d3d11

2. Created a bunch of folders replicating common paths
found in windows 7 setups, so the ilok installer would be happy.
3. Ran the ilok manager installer (which first installs BonJour
for networking)
Rebooted
4. Installed Hybrid 3, and granted the prompt that appeared
permission to repair BonJour, which it did, although it was probably
a nuisance wine glitch triggering that prompt
Rebooted
5. Started ilok-manager, and logged in to my account,
gave the manager the Hybrid 3 serial number,
and the gui reported the activation was complete.
6. Started Reaper, and twitched several times as
the 64 and 32 bit Hybrids were scanned
7. Chose Hybrid 3 on a new track, and grinned ear to ear
when the gui appeared in working order,
with the preset menu bursting at the seams.

The wine-staging team have made great progress in the
last few years. Have to keep my eyes peeled
for a few more bargain plugins to test.

Cheers edit: AIR's Vacuum is also working fine,

so it's not a fluke

[glokraw]

https://github.com/quamplex/geonkick/

A new version of this percussion synthesizer,
adds an lv2 plugin, and now has three audio layers.

This can export sounds in wav, flac and ogg formats,
so can be a great source for new or improved sounds
for Hydrogen drumkits, unique, or extending those available.,

Hydrogen also released a new beta recently, maintaining
it's place as a cornerstone of linux audio

The great Yoshimi 16 part multitimbral synth also has a new version
which adds gui improvements, user controls, useful
default behaviours, and an improved user guide.
I don't know of anything like it on win/mac.
Great fun to layer pluk, lead, pad, and perc sounds, and use
the UNO hardware synth/arpeggiator to see what can be stirred up.
An Arch Linux package is available, probably a .deb soon if not already

https://sourceforge.net/projects/yoshimi

Wine-staging is up to V4.8x
I haven't noticed any regressions since 4.0,
the wine team do a great job making virtual studio instruments
and standalones available.

https://www.winehq.org/

Tone2 released a free wrapper to load vst plugins like a standalone.
Similar in principal and setup to Savihost.
Make a folder with the desired plugin and it's support files,
copy the Nanohost64.exe there, and rename it with the plugins name,
So Fathom .dll and Fathom.exe are in the same folder.
Choose your soundcard and wineasio in the config panel
and start it simply with

wine Fathom.exe

I tested Tone2's app with the
powerhouse Fathom synthesizer, and it was noticably faster
than when hosted in Reaper, (where it is not actually slow
compared to other competing synths)
Nanohost's recording function also worked,
so it's quite a useful tool to have at hand.

https://www.tone2.com/nanohost.html

Cheers

[glokraw]

https://tonelib.net/gfx-overview/

https://tonelib.net/downloads/

This is a win-mac-linux guitar ampsim-effects suite that's getting good reviews.
A couple people not using debian/ubuntu mentioned
unpacking the archive and copying the .so file to the vst path,
so installing should not be a problem. I used dpkg -i
on the .deb, and moved the .so file to my .vst folder,
and have it loaded in linux Reaper.

It presents an empty pedalboard, then you open the effects widget on
the upper right of the gui, select a category, and drag-n-drop
to the pedalboard. Right-click on a loaded slot, and options
appear to replace it with another, with the menus right there to make
it easy. If you drop over an occupied slot, the others are scooted over,
another handy workflow.

Select a loaded effect, and it's controls are then displayed beneath
the pedalboard in a size that's easy to use,
and there are plenty to choose from covering all the standard variety.
Ampsims are in the effect area, 19 of them, a quick testing
of the Fender and Mesa models sounds fine to me.

IR loading is also drag-n-drop, with five controls on it's gui,
and a few example cabs and spaces are provided.

Well worth spending some quality time with this.
And other software is also on their site for the adventurous.
Cheers

[chk071]

Finally, the ilok-license-manager is working in Mint 18 linux.
I purchased a cheap AIR Hybrid 3 license a while back
assuming sooner or later, wine and reaper and linux
would converge on a working solution, and today
it all came together. :hyper

Here is what I have, and what I did:

Mint 18 with generic kernel 4.4
Latest Reaper
Wine-staging 4.6 from winehq
qjackctl linux jackd patchbay/config app
from the KX Studio repository

1. I renamed my existing .wine folder, and ran
winecfg which created a new one, and based on previous
wine successes, added the following dll over-rides:

mfc140
gdiplus
msxml3
d3d9
d3d10
d3d11

2. Created a bunch of folders replicating common paths
found in windows 7 setups, so the ilok installer would be happy.
3. Ran the ilok manager installer (which first installs BonJour
for networking)
Rebooted
4. Installed Hybrid 3, and granted the prompt that appeared
permission to repair BonJour, which it did, although it was probably
a nuisance wine glitch triggering that prompt
Rebooted
5. Started ilok-manager, and logged in to my account,
gave the manager the Hybrid 3 serial number,
and the gui reported the activation was complete.
6. Started Reaper, and twitched several times as
the 64 and 32 bit Hybrids were scanned
7. Chose Hybrid 3 on a new track, and grinned ear to ear
when the gui appeared in working order,
with the preset menu bursting at the seams.

The wine-staging team have made great progress in the
last few years. Have to keep my eyes peeled
for a few more bargain plugins to test.

Cheers edit: AIR's Vacuum is also working fine,

so it's not a fluke

You Linux peeps are absolutely nuts. But, hey, everyone needs a pastime. It would make me absolutely crazy to have so much work to make something work halfway, which is working out of the box on other systems. Actually, i back away from ANYTHING running non-natively on my system. Absolute horror for me, also for system stability reasons.

TBH, i don't understand at all either how someone can choose a operating system for its attitude and the license behind it, and then goes on and makes such a fuss to make proprietary software work on it.

[glokraw]

Proper audio config takes effort and knowledge regardless
of platform. Wine is mainly transparent to the musician, and I can move my
170 gig .wine to whatever drive is desired/needed, all the serials and reg data
are inside. I have five quite different linux systems,
and each has a strength to offer. and Reaper works great
in each. I can use the linux and windows-version-in-wine at the same time,
which can be handy on occasion.

One of the core benefits of linux is the freedom to choose
systems and system componants. From barebones to
waddling behemoth, and a wide variety of kernels to run them.

I originally started using linux because I discovered zynaddsubfx,
a great multitimbral synth still improving all these years later,
and combined with Hydrogen Drum Machine, Rakarrack multi-effects,
Calf effects suite, Guitarix, and the flexible hardware/software routing of jackd,
there was a core system to compose and jam with, at the cost of
some reading time.

And that is surrounded by very proficient utilities to manage
your files and content in a secure environment.

Rolling-release distros mean keep things fresh, and don't bring
the jeopardy of full sysyem upgrades. I get by with Reaper, Harrison Mixbus,
Bitwig 8Track, and qtractor, for daw work.

So here is my plugin suffering in a nutshell (have pity )
Zebra2
Hive 2
ACE
Bazille
Repro 1 and 5
Fathom
Syntronik
Multiple SampleTanks
Reaktor with Razor, Prism, Polyplex, factory giveaways,
and a decade of free user-library ensembles

SynthMaster and SynthMaster One
Wiggle
Rhino
EZDrummer
Drumcorps 3
Cakewalk Dimension Pro, Rapture, and z3ta+ 1.5
Wusikstation 5 with ArtVera soundsets
The Ugo collection
The AlgoMusic Collection
Cobalt
Some great CM software, like StiX CM, Thorn CM, Genesis, CM Fuzz
and great free instruments like
Synth1
Oatmeal
MiniMogue Luxus
Superwave P8
SQ8L
Firebird
Drumburst
Abakos
HG Fortune synths
U-he free synths
(an hour ago, I recorded what I thought was Bazille,
arpeggiating an arpeggio preset, turned out I'd forgotten
I had loaded the free Podolski,
both sound great

Should I bore you with the effects section?

I should add that the themable configurable to-the-hilt
Enlightenment system gui/shell is fast and beautiful
and super easy to manage the computing experience.
It's work, without it, and art-in-progress with it

[glokraw]

TBH, i don't understand at all either how someone can choose a operating system for its attitude and the license behind it, and then goes on and makes such a fuss to make proprietary software work on it.

I didn't choose linux because of some attitude and license, not that
an operating system is even capable of having an attitude.
I pick and choose based on musical usefulness, and price.

Using wine isn't a big fuss, mainly it's just knowing the common
paths to use, and a dozen or so .dlls that help with windows plugin gui's.
Things a windows based musician needs to know anyway.

If you don't yet use a mac, you should get one so you
can use Alchemy and Logic. Great software. There are always some good buys
on last-years models, or those replaced by architects and lawyers.
Cheers

[glokraw]

Good wisdom in the following Focusrite article (video at the link)
Applying it in linux will of course be different,
but common steps are there to get things rolling.
Quite a few linux musicians are using Focusrite hardware.

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... Windows-10

some linux-audio optimization sites:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Professional_audio

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=253225

https://medium.com/@gamunu/enable-high- ... 16f3fe7e1f

http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/01/17/ ... -computers

Some linux users will have win 10, the Focusrite article mentions
the long-running Black Viper guide to the turning off of un-needed srvices.
Guides for older win versions are nearby

http://www.blackviper.com/service-confi ... gurations/

Cheers

[audiojunkie]

https://tonelib.net/gfx-overview/

https://tonelib.net/downloads/

This is a win-mac-linux guitar ampsim-effects suite that's getting good reviews.
A couple people not using debian/ubuntu mentioned
unpacking the archive and copying the .so file to the vst path,
so installing should not be a problem. I used dpkg -i
on the .deb, and moved the .so file to my .vst folder,
and have it loaded in linux Reaper.

It presents an empty pedalboard, then you open the effects widget on
the upper right of the gui, select a category, and drag-n-drop
to the pedalboard. Right-click on a loaded slot, and options
appear to replace it with another, with the menus right there to make
it easy. If you drop over an occupied slot, the others are scooted over,
another handy workflow.

Select a loaded effect, and it's controls are then displayed beneath
the pedalboard in a size that's easy to use,
and there are plenty to choose from covering all the standard variety.
Ampsims are in the effect area, 19 of them, a quick testing
of the Fender and Mesa models sounds fine to me.

IR loading is also drag-n-drop, with five controls on it's gui,
and a few example cabs and spaces are provided.

Well worth spending some quality time with this.
And other software is also on their site for the adventurous.
Cheers

I've been watching this one with interest!

[audiojunkie]

Finally, the ilok-license-manager is working in Mint 18 linux.
I purchased a cheap AIR Hybrid 3 license a while back
assuming sooner or later, wine and reaper and linux
would converge on a working solution, and today
it all came together. :hyper

Here is what I have, and what I did:

Mint 18 with generic kernel 4.4
Latest Reaper
Wine-staging 4.6 from winehq
qjackctl linux jackd patchbay/config app
from the KX Studio repository

1. I renamed my existing .wine folder, and ran
winecfg which created a new one, and based on previous
wine successes, added the following dll over-rides:

mfc140
gdiplus
msxml3
d3d9
d3d10
d3d11

2. Created a bunch of folders replicating common paths
found in windows 7 setups, so the ilok installer would be happy.
3. Ran the ilok manager installer (which first installs BonJour
for networking)
Rebooted
4. Installed Hybrid 3, and granted the prompt that appeared
permission to repair BonJour, which it did, although it was probably
a nuisance wine glitch triggering that prompt
Rebooted
5. Started ilok-manager, and logged in to my account,
gave the manager the Hybrid 3 serial number,
and the gui reported the activation was complete.
6. Started Reaper, and twitched several times as
the 64 and 32 bit Hybrids were scanned
7. Chose Hybrid 3 on a new track, and grinned ear to ear
when the gui appeared in working order,
with the preset menu bursting at the seams.

The wine-staging team have made great progress in the
last few years. Have to keep my eyes peeled
for a few more bargain plugins to test.

Cheers edit: AIR's Vacuum is also working fine,

so it's not a fluke

You Linux peeps are absolutely nuts. But, hey, everyone needs a pastime. It would make me absolutely crazy to have so much work to make something work halfway, which is working out of the box on other systems. Actually, i back away from ANYTHING running non-natively on my system. Absolute horror for me, also for system stability reasons.

TBH, i don't understand at all either how someone can choose a operating system for its attitude and the license behind it, and then goes on and makes such a fuss to make proprietary software work on it.

Hehehe! I can understand what you are saying, but seriously, it's getting better for us each year, and I love the freedom it allows. I can configure my system, including the look and feel, desktop environment, etc, to anything I want. I can customize it to be extremely light on resources and use a realtime kernel so that even old machines work great with audio--while Windows and Macs do pretty well without it, they still can't achieve the custom-ability that Linux can. It's like a mechanic being able to customize and soup up his car, versus buying a nice all-rounder car that can't be worked on much.

Granted, there isn't as much open-source software available, but there is enough, and more is coming all the time. I do use a little proprietary (Windows or Linux-native) software, but not too much. I only use special proprietary software, ie software that is totally free, or has a Linux native version, or uses copy protection such as serial numbers or keyfiles. I use A LOT of SFZ sample sets. The thing I like about this, is that I will NEVER EVER get burned by a company that goes out of business with Challenge/Response software. In fact, with WINE, I can run tons of software that no longer even works on Windows 10. That's something that adds longevity to my software.

So, over all, there are lots of benefits, and yes, for me some of it is philosophical. But here's something to consider--there are Linux distributions that are already pre-prepared and set up to run most everything for you. A lot of the work is already done so that you don't have to do it. So, things are getting better and better.

[glokraw]

sfz lover much?

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/pro ... /cakewalk/

These are the sorted results for soundsets in cakewalk's sfz format,
you might test one of the inexpensive ones, to see if the quality
meets your needs. I have the Planet Earth set, based on that
proteus module, in Soundfont form, and it's very useful.

A lot of these soundsets are based on '90's Proteus and E-mu
samples, now remastered, but the originals were good enough
for hit songs from that era, hitting the sweetspots between
size and samplerate, hence still good enough today for many uses.

Each products page has a 'Choose an Option' button to verify
which format(s) are available.

sfz was a Cakewalk creation, format verified here:

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/about/

Cheers

[glokraw]

Raked this release of the Dragonfly Hall and Room reverbs over the coals,
and found them very cool, excellent in all aspects, from access to zounds

https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragon ... /2.0.0-rc1

a handy new manual page:

https://michaelwillis.github.io/dragonf ... anual.html

They work and sound fine in linux reaper, and windows reaper in wine,
and multiple instances can be chained without slaying a cpu,
for creating that perfect or unique ambience.
One of the best useful multi-platform products to be found!

[audiojunkie]

sfz lover much?

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/pro ... /cakewalk/

These are the sorted results for soundsets in cakewalk's sfz format,
you might test one of the inexpensive ones, to see if the quality
meets your needs. I have the Planet Earth set, based on that
proteus module, in Soundfont form, and it's very useful.

A lot of these soundsets are based on '90's Proteus and E-mu
samples, now remastered, but the originals were good enough
for hit songs from that era, hitting the sweetspots between
size and samplerate, hence still good enough today for many uses.

Each products page has a 'Choose an Option' button to verify
which format(s) are available.

sfz was a Cakewalk creation, format verified here:

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/about/

Cheers

I absolutely LOVE SFZs!