anyone do music on linux?

[nepalnt21]

how has it been so far? tough? easy?

are the programs that are available for production (digital audio workstations, etc) satisfactory? can i get max/msp on linux? how is puredata compared to msp?

thank you

(p.s. - im a nooooooob when it comes to this kinda stuff)

[MetalManiac]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

Good discussion form a different board. Hope this is of some use;

http://www.el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=8617.0

[MetalManiac]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=6663.0

[nepalnt21]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

very awesome thanks

[firebirdV]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

In my short time with Ubuntu (about 1 year), I've had a lot of problems with sound drivers and sound applications. This doesn't mean that you will have problems, for all I know, this is a problem unique to my distro.

You might want to ask uOpt. He seems to be very knowledgeable about linux (and everything else computer related).

[MetalManiac]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

In my short time with Ubuntu (about 1 year), I've had a lot of problems with sound drivers and sound applications. This doesn't mean that you will have problems, for all I know, this is a problem unique to my distro.

You might want to ask uOpt. He seems to be very knowledgeable about linux (and everything else computer related).

Heres what Ive been very fortunate to find out about Ubuntu, which is the best distro for a novice like myself. The old Distro , 8.04 Long term Stable release( LTS) was my introduction to Linux. I had it for about a year and a half. The first time you end up banging your head against the wall, as a novice, doing a lot of stuff and usually messing up your sound and video, and finally you'll break everything like i did maybe.
When I finally crashed my browsers and my email clients, I reluctantly and fearfully took the step to the new LTS release, Ubuntu 10.4.
Its been so sweet since the month Ive had it. Lots of stuff you were banging your head trying to figure out just really comes naturally with previous experience and mistakes to guide you.
First I would recommend a back up computer with Windows installed maybe. I was able to download an ISO of Ubuntu 10.4 myself- almost a miracle to me I could figure that out.
Then from experience it was easy to do the fresh install.
What was really amazing was that IO was able to use my previous mistakes to get all my sound and video working, as well as DVD Roms (2) , printers. I
I don't think I'll ever be as afraid again, its become second nature to me now from having learned the hard way. Its does take some intuition- its not point and click., although a lot of stuff like hardware driver has really come a long long way and some of the software in the Ubuntu software library is just there and works, and some stuff it isn't even necessary to go fishing around for Apt-get commands to run in the terminal!
The new operating system 10.04 is smooth and fantastic Sure , some stuff requires some research and getting in to the terminal to paste copied commands to get it working right, but most everything is now either automatic or intuitive for me now Ive had experience with it. Whats totally amazing is that Everything works now and Ive never had such a smooth running trouble free system ,touch wood!
Now as far as figuring out how to record, thjts beyond me , and would need a tutor.
Trouble is, even most pros from my experience know little about Linux still, and your almost better off trying to figure it out on your own. But if your having trouble with you sound and stuff, time for a fresh install with the new operating system. Just order one now- id get it off the Ubuntu site though cause Ive had trouble before with bad ISO's off the Ebay sellers. Also, change your DVD/CD Roms if they they more than a few years old. Mine were both bad and I didn't even know it, and check you have your cables hooked correctly as you may have fiddled around and hooked them up wrong. Stick with Linux, ts the only way to go for most causal users IMO.
if it sounds like I am ranting preaching I probably am. I would never , but never go back to Windows as my main OS again, and the headaches I remember from Windows are well worth the learnign curve and trouble it took to understand what I know about Ubuntu Linux now.

[Vincent Vespa]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

I use Linux for recording. Adrour is my favorite DAW. I find Linux to be much more reliable for recording than other computers.

[cakire82]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

Linux (and Unix) is the most reliable and durable operating system. All these features makes it perfect for server applications. When It comes to client operating systems I prefer Windows since it has more software and driver support. More headache free IMO.

I have tried several Linux distributions, so far Ubuntu was the best. It is very easy to use operating system with great graphical user interface. But as most of the linux distros lack of drivers and software was obvious. Hence the headaches for me.

I think XP is still the best operating system for DAW applications and recording. If you know how to take care of it is very durable and reliable for these purposes.

[GuitarStv]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

Once you get it all up and running, it will work like a charm . . . that said, I had untold driver and latency issues during the setup period. You better be very comfortable with messing around with systems settings, config files, compiling your own kernel if the currently released builds do not support your audio hardware, etc. I haven't done it in a while, but when they started switching crap over from ALSA to Pulse audio my system had untold audio issues. These days I'd take a look into Ubuntu studio (http://ubuntustudio.org/) for a somewhat optimized environment for recording. When I got my last computer I ended up ditching recording in Linux because it was so much simpler to get new drivers and do the set up in Windows.

[uOpt]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

how has it been so far? tough? easy?

Audio on Linux is a mess. There has been a long stream of parallel lines of driver development, with the more ambitious project being done by very messy people. They won out anyway so you are left with a powerful driver architecture that is messy. Then, the driver configuration at runtime is in the hands of morons (udev) and even for me it breaks working hardware on OS updates every now and then.

Then, after you have working drivers (hopefully), you have an interesting set of choices of competing audio demons. Unfortunately the major distributions have decided to go with Pulseaudio, while the serious audio users, including the recording packages, use the supposedly superior Jack subsystem. You can't run both at the same time. I only use jack and I think it mostly sucks. I haven't made the step of using Pulseaudio. Right now all my recording and general music playing is done without a demon, using plain Alsa. Which sucks royal rotten dunkey balls, too, in particular in the (non)- documentation department. For the life of me I can't figure out why I can create a working alias based on a device string for all the dsp ports but not for the MIDI ports. So every time I reboot and the Linux kernel places all my audio devices in random order (that for that, too, USB subsystem) I get to have recording and playing working no matter where the device ended up but for MIDI I have to edit a file.

Keep in mind I am a Unix kernel programmer (FreeBSD) and have 20+ years of exclusive Unix usage on my belt (I only ever used Windows for gaming). I sit there more than once a year and curse somebody who plain fatfingered something in the extremely fragile driver stack. Usually from udev which IMHO is one of the worst designed pieces of software I have seen and every distribution seems to let people mess with udev who don't test.

are the programs that are available for production (digital audio workstations, etc) satisfactory? can i get max/msp on linux? how is puredata compared to msp?

Like with all plugin based software, the situation is that there are powerful plugins, but most of them with useless defaults and insufficient documentation. I only use audacity for multi-track and software I did myself for plain recording and plain playing. Ardour is supposed to be a nice audio workstation but I haven't tried it. Overall I am confident that you can do a lot of great stuff on there.
But the plugin situation is like GIMP versus Photoshop. You can get extremely powerful plugins that are giving you the same capabilities as equivalent Photoshop plugins. But in the GIMP version they have a huge random of random sliders that you can only understand with the required math and image processing background (mainly filters). In the Photoshop version they have useful defaults, a couple "just to the right thing" dummy buttons and some documentation that explains the concepts of the sliders to the luser. The situation is similar with the audio plugins. The major problem is finding out what they do, exactly, and for that you usually need the background knowledge. There is a general lack of "just don't suck" one-click buttons in Linux.

I have no idea what msp and puredata are.

I'm not really doing anything serious with digital music. I just want to manage my guitar recordings.

I would recommend to download the Ubuntu variant that is specialized for audio usage. When it installs and boots it will have a working setup for the drivers or not. If yes you should have smooth sailing with it.

[nepalnt21]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

awesome man

thanks for the info

hopefully i wont pull my hair out but im definitely not gonna stick with windows forever

would ubuntu stuidio be the one you mean?

[Vincent Vespa]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

Ardour is supposed to be a nice audio workstation but I haven't tried it. Overall I am confident that you can do a lot of great stuff on there.
But the plugin situation is like GIMP versus Photoshop. You can get extremely powerful plugins that are giving you the same capabilities as equivalent Photoshop plugins. But in the GIMP version they have a huge random of random sliders that you can only understand with the required math and image processing background (mainly filters). In the Photoshop version they have useful defaults, a couple "just to the right thing" dummy buttons and some documentation that explains the concepts of the sliders to the luser. The situation is similar with the audio plugins. The major problem is finding out what they do, exactly, and for that you usually need the background knowledge. There is a general lack of "just don't suck" one-click buttons in Linux.

You should start using Ardour. It sounds like you would like it a lot more (especially on the plugin front).

"What plugin formats can I use with Ardour?

On Linux, as of version 2.5, you can use LADSPA and LV2 plugins. As of Ardour 2.8.3, plugins that use the LV2 external GUI extension will have their own custom GUI displayed, rather than the generic one offered by Ardour itself.

Somebody said you could use Windows VST plugins...

On Linux ONLY: ... It is also possible to use Windows VST plugins, though not all will function correctly and can make Ardour unstable (you would be using software created for a different operating system - it cannot be expected to be perfectly reliable). The Linux Audio Consortium maintains a page documenting various kinds of VST compatibility for Linux. VST support generally requires build Ardour yourself from the source code."

A lot of Windows VST plugins work just fine for me... As long as they don't use HUGE amounts of memory (some virtual instruments and some drum kit plugins).

[Vincent Vespa]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

awesome man

thanks for the info

hopefully i wont pull my hair out but im definitely not gonna stick with windows forever

would ubuntu stuidio be the one you mean?

That would depend on how tech savvy you are. If you need to get recording pretty fast, ubuntu studio is the way to go.

If not, and you have a bit (or a lot) of patience and computer knowledge, I'd say to get the normal Ubuntu and set it up with JACK and Ardour. It's a lot of effort, but it will be more stable in my experience.

[uOpt]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

You should start using Ardour.

I know, I am just trying to avoid being sucked into more computer fiddling.

I already have the problem that sitting down to practice guitar for 2 hours ends up with 10 minutes of playing and 3.5 hours of taking the guitar apart (I'm sure that's familiar to some here). If you would throw some fascinating software into the mix, then, well ....

[Vincent Vespa]

Re: anyone do music on linux?

I know, I am just trying to avoid being sucked into more computer fiddling.

I already have the problem that sitting down to practice guitar for 2 hours ends up with 10 minutes of playing and 3.5 hours of taking the guitar apart (I'm sure that's familiar to some here). If you would throw some fascinating software into the mix, then, well ....

Yeah... I know the feeling.