I'm quite interested in using Linux, but it won't run many, if any of the 100s of plugins I own, let alone my audio interface, or my production software.
At least, that's my assumption. I did a search and can see there's a decent DAW for Linux (the amusingly-named Cockos Reaper), it's affordable at $80. But I'd also need to buy a new audio interface, there's a few that have Linux drivers. An expensive experiment. My interest is because it'd be amazing to have a stable system to play music live, with no weird Microsoft shit happening in the background guaranteed.
Reaper is awesome. It's pro tools for non-millionaires.
Reaper is awesome indeed. But the DAW isn't the issue, it's the VST, very few work on Linux
it's wild to me how many people I see saying this. I assumed I was one of like... 3
Maybe Ardour can fit? You can pay $1 or more for the binary or compile it yourself.
Reaper is the best there is for Linux. There are other alternatives of you want FOSS, but they are not as good.
Not a pro DAW user. I use it to just substitute Adobe Audition to some extend. Tenacity is used most of the time.
In that case there are many viable FOSS alternatives.
Ardour is very appealing to me because it supports VST3! There is a 'wrapper' available to make VST3 compatible with Linux, but that's just adding the complexity and potentially bugginess that I'd be trying to escape from.
FYI I am using reaper on Linux and I have all my windows plug-ins working through yabridge (32 and 64 bit vst/vst3), focusrite interfaces don't even need special drivers, that and my alesis midi keyboard just worked when I plugged them in. I just started using Linux semi-permanently at home last week for the first time (though I am a developer)
Does the interface that you have now work under Linux? Linux has pretty good support for a lot of things now, so you may be able to use what you have. Reaper also has a generous free trial, so potentially this is a free experiment. (I'm no expert and just tinker with this stuff, but I have Reaper and I find it similarly easy/difficult as every other DAW I've used) Several distributions have "live images" where you can run it from a flash drive without copying anything to the hard drive. I don't know if you could set up Reaper and your interface from a live image.
If you do decide to do an installation, consider buying a different hard drive and installing Linux on that. You can install both Windows and Linux on the same drive, and it's not difficult, but it is slightly easier to use a separate drive and they are not expensive.
I have used Linux and Windows a lot, but I have only used Reaper in Windows, so unfortunately I can't say whether it's a similar experience.
Unfortunately, not only is my interface not supported, but it straight up doesn't work with linux (according to all the forum posts I've seen of people trying, failing, then asking UAD why no Linux compatibility). It's a UAD Apollo USB, ASIO-only.
I've got a frankly ludicrious number of M2 / SATA drives in my music PC so installing on a separate drive is no problem. Thanks for the tip! I bought a new interface for mobile production / live work, so maybe I'll fare better with that than the UAD beast. Certainly wouldn't want to stop using that because it's an absolutely fantastic interface, not to mention the 2x SHARC chips which allow me to run CPU-intensive UAD hardware recreations without smashing my CPU.
If you want to try Linux, try Ubuntu or mint. Those are the easiest to make an entry into.
I'm quite interested in using Linux, but it won't run many, if any of the 100s of plugins I own, let alone my audio interface, or my production software.
At least, that's my assumption. I did a search and can see there's a decent DAW for Linux (the amusingly-named Cockos Reaper), it's affordable at $80. But I'd also need to buy a new audio interface, there's a few that have Linux drivers. An expensive experiment. My interest is because it'd be amazing to have a stable system to play music live, with no weird Microsoft shit happening in the background guaranteed.
Reaper is awesome. It's pro tools for non-millionaires.
Reaper is awesome indeed. But the DAW isn't the issue, it's the VST, very few work on Linux
it's wild to me how many people I see saying this. I assumed I was one of like... 3
Maybe Ardour can fit? You can pay $1 or more for the binary or compile it yourself.
http://ardour.org/
Reaper is the best there is for Linux. There are other alternatives of you want FOSS, but they are not as good.
Not a pro DAW user. I use it to just substitute Adobe Audition to some extend. Tenacity is used most of the time.
In that case there are many viable FOSS alternatives.
Ardour is very appealing to me because it supports VST3! There is a 'wrapper' available to make VST3 compatible with Linux, but that's just adding the complexity and potentially bugginess that I'd be trying to escape from.
FYI I am using reaper on Linux and I have all my windows plug-ins working through yabridge (32 and 64 bit vst/vst3), focusrite interfaces don't even need special drivers, that and my alesis midi keyboard just worked when I plugged them in. I just started using Linux semi-permanently at home last week for the first time (though I am a developer)
Does the interface that you have now work under Linux? Linux has pretty good support for a lot of things now, so you may be able to use what you have. Reaper also has a generous free trial, so potentially this is a free experiment. (I'm no expert and just tinker with this stuff, but I have Reaper and I find it similarly easy/difficult as every other DAW I've used) Several distributions have "live images" where you can run it from a flash drive without copying anything to the hard drive. I don't know if you could set up Reaper and your interface from a live image.
If you do decide to do an installation, consider buying a different hard drive and installing Linux on that. You can install both Windows and Linux on the same drive, and it's not difficult, but it is slightly easier to use a separate drive and they are not expensive.
I have used Linux and Windows a lot, but I have only used Reaper in Windows, so unfortunately I can't say whether it's a similar experience.
Unfortunately, not only is my interface not supported, but it straight up doesn't work with linux (according to all the forum posts I've seen of people trying, failing, then asking UAD why no Linux compatibility). It's a UAD Apollo USB, ASIO-only.
I've got a frankly ludicrious number of M2 / SATA drives in my music PC so installing on a separate drive is no problem. Thanks for the tip! I bought a new interface for mobile production / live work, so maybe I'll fare better with that than the UAD beast. Certainly wouldn't want to stop using that because it's an absolutely fantastic interface, not to mention the 2x SHARC chips which allow me to run CPU-intensive UAD hardware recreations without smashing my CPU.
If you want to try Linux, try Ubuntu or mint. Those are the easiest to make an entry into.
Thanks, noted.