[LAU] Going from window to linux

Jon H october001 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 29 12:31:00 EST 2008


Hi Mike,

As a fellow FL user I can tell you that there is no equivalent (at
least not yet) in the realm of linux nor will FLstudio run under wine
or an emulator.  LMMS is good software and has a similar look and feel
but is still far, far away from being a 1:1 replacement.  This is one
of a very small handful of reasons why I still keep a winXP dual boot
on my system.

That said I have an audio targeted linux on my system for a reason
too.  Performance is great, very low latency (M-audio Delta 44 here),
and stable as a slab of granite.  The software that is available is a
mixed box of chocolates and it will take some time to find the ones
you really like.  JACK makes it relatively easy to patch most
applications together (hydrogen drum machine and seq24 sequencer ->
zynaddsubfx synth -> recording by Ardour -> mastered in Jamin, etc.) ,
a strong point for using linux over windows.  I've messed around
playing with VST/VSTi in linux but more as a technical challenge (most
applications will require configuring and compiling by hand) than
because I *needed* them...  I've found the available LADSPA plugins
quite useful in replacing most of my VST's for real audio work.

None the less it will take a good deal of effort to learn enough to
make an adjustment and actually get any audio work done in a linux
environment especially if you consider yourself a musician first and
computer geek second (no offense to my fellow geeks!)  It is however
obtainable provided you have the time and fortitude and you, like most
of us, may well be pleasantly surprised.

My advice, like the others, is dabble with a live CD first.  I can add
to the list by recommending you try Jacklab's live DVD
(http://www.jacklab.org) as it may offer more than the rest in ASIO
and VST support, and Musix (http://www.musix.org) because, well,
because I prefer debian based distros ;)

Best,

Jon

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 5:43 PM, JiNN <jinnproduction at gmail.com> wrote:
> I appreciate everyone's input. Not sure what to do right now, since from
> what i hear in linux there are many different tools you need to use for a
> track. I definitely try to as much as possible to have 'total recal'
> functionality from sequencing all the way to mastering.
>
> I will try the music related linux build OS that was suggested and see where
> i go from there. I guess my main thing is that i want to spend most of the
> time working with music and not tinkering with, not sure if this describes
> it, "programming issues."
>
> Thank you everyone.
> Mike
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Arda Eden <ardaeden at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi everybody,
> > I was using Windows and the music software working under it until I made a
> long conversation with Mr. Richard STALLMAN 2 - 3 weeks ago. Now I removed
> Windows and related DAW software. As a Free-Software user I believe that
> without using Free Software we cannot have Free Software. What I try to mean
> is, our ideas and opinions as being Free software users is really necessary
> for the developers of Free Software. Free software is going to develop in a
> parallel way to our needs. believe that using it is a great contribution to
> developing.
> >
> > So,
> > Protools, Cubase, Logic and etc. really gives us too many opportunities.
> Yes, Ardour, Rosegarden and the others may not be as strong as their windows
> counterparts. But they will be soon. We also had too many Plug-ins in VST
> like Amplitube, waves and others on Windows and Macos platforms but,
> > As an Ardour user (for nearly 2 - 3 weeks) I really liked some LADSPA
> plug-ins. I'm playing electric guitars and Amplitube was really great but
> now I returned to my SM57 and my Tube amplifier back. Now i'm not using FM7
> or FM8. I turned back in to my 20 years old DX7, JV80, WO5/R etc. Wow, i've
> missed them. :) Bu sure that they sound greater than the software ones. Also
> there are some LADSPA plug-ins that can simulate amplifiers, valves and
> other effects too. They work real great.
> >
> > I remember a word from Mr. Charles DYE - a great mix man - which is "If I
> had bla bla plug-ins thing could work better. NO, you don't need bla bla
> plug-ins to make a great job. Just work Hard."
> >
> > Please use Free Software and give support.
> >
> > I respect every user and developer on this list.
> > Thank you.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Chuckk Hubbard
> <badmuthahubbard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Mike.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 3:52 AM, JiNN <jinnproduction at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > project. This, of course means a lot of CPU since i try to do as much
> > > > as possible without rendering it to .wav and back, since this takes
> time,
> > > > especially for little changes when mixing. Another issue is the
> > > >  windows 2gig ram application limit. I hit this a couple of times and
> was
> > > > left in a dead end as to what to do. Vista is probably out of the
> option
> > > > right
> > >
> > > One nice thing about ext3, the default filesystem for most Linux
> > > distributions, is that you almost never have to defragment the drive.
> > > That's not the same as using RAM efficiently, but it is very handy...
> > >
> > >
> > > > 2) I assume linux is a lot better with RAM than windows, and was
> curious if
> > > > there are any people who are on this list
> > > >    that actually switched over and could tell me if they really could
> "do" a
> > > > lot more in linux with the same hardware specs than in windows.
> > > >     Does linux have some sort of application RAM limit?
> > >
> > > If nothing else, applications are less likely to be mysteriously added
> > > to your boot process automatically.  Unfortunately, figuring out how
> > > to make a program NOT start automatically when it does so by default
> > > is actually quite harder on Linux.  Killing a program that you don't
> > > want to be running is far more reliable in Linux... sometimes too
> > > reliable- if Windows won't let you kill a necessary system process,
> > > Linux doesn't even warn you...
> > >
> > >
> > > > 3) What is everyone's favority sequencer for linux? I know there are a
> > > > couple of them. Which one is your favorite?
> > >
> > > I wrote my own sequencer for microtonal music in Pure Data.  I use it
> > > and Csound extensively, though neither is standard sequencer fare.  I
> > > have found Rosegarden sufficient for that, but I have heard of others
> > > not finding it so.  I do believe Linux is way behind in this
> > > department, partially because programming efficient and powerful user
> > > interfaces is BORING, and no one pays Linux developers to do it, so, I
> > > suspect, they let those kinds of things lag a bit; the software can DO
> > > great things, but it's not always easy to use.  Ardour may be the
> > > exception, and someone was contracted to add MIDI sequencing support
> > > to it last summer.  He did so, but to this day I don't believe his
> > > improvements have been added to the main branch >:(
> > >
> > >
> > > > 4) I have never used linux before. Would it be better for me to
> install
> > > > linux first and after im comfortable try audio on it?
> > >
> > > In my experience this is a good idea; audio was really the only reason
> > > I wanted to use Linux, but that made me pretty miserable when trying
> > > to learn very basic things, realizing I was struggling to understand
> > > certain concepts and that even when I did understand them, I was
> > > barely any closer to making the music I wanted to make.  Some people
> > > on this list may tell you, I was a huffy puffy bitch sometimes.
> > > Some key things to check out if you want to kickstart your audio
> > > setup: Jack, chrt, realtime preemption, kernel building, aconnect (for
> > > connecting MIDI apps, something like MIDIYoke), top and htop (for
> > > checking CPU and memory usage), and bash scripting.  As others
> > > mentioned, you often string several programs together to do the
> > > necessary tasks, rather than one program doing it all.  Because of
> > > this, knowing a little about "bash scripting" can make it far simpler;
> > > a "bash script" can start all of the necessary programs in the right
> > > order, so you don't have to always start them manually :)
> > >
> > >
> > > > 6) Audio drivers? I currently own the t.c. electronic konnekt8 audio
> > > > interface and going from whats on the website they
> > > >    dont have linux drivers? Could i use AISO4ALL? I used those drivers
> on
> > > > windows with no problems before, anyone have
> > > >     any problems with them on linux?
> > >
> > > I have never heard of ASIO4ALL on Linux; AFAIK ASIO in general only
> > > runs on Windows, and is probably unnecessary.  Jack does low-latency
> > > (IMO better) on Linux.  One thing I did like about ASIO4ALL was that
> > > it allowed realtime audio input to Reason- but, as we all know, Reason
> > > doesn't run on Linux, so no loss!
> > >
> > >
> > > > I guess this is all for now. There are many more questions which i
> have, but
> > > > i will do the research for those. If someone can also
> > > > point em to some good resources on the web on linux audio i would def
> > > > appreciate it.
> > >
> > > I got a lot from Florian Schmidt's page, I'm sure it's not hard to
> > > find.  He provides some details that it always seemed like everyone
> > > else knew but me.
> > > One last word of advice: if you find Linux interests you, you're bound
> > > to encounter some outwardly rude people.  Obviously getting nasty with
> > > them doesn't help, and it satisfies them in some kind of way; but
> > > sometimes a severely sarcastic remark, perhaps a self-deprecating one,
> > > really seems to win them over.  It hasn't been my experience here, but
> > > if you ever go on the #debian IRC channel, you might want to set up
> > > some counseling beforehand, just in case.
> > > Good luck, hope to see you on the list in the future.
> > >
> > > -Chuckk
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://www.badmuthahubbard.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Linux-audio-user mailing list
> > > Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
> > > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Arda EDEN
> > Cumhuriyet University
> > Faculty of Fine Arts
> > Department of Music Technology
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>  Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
>  http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
>
>



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