While there are some threads dedicated to specific issues, I couldn’t find any for general discussion of music production on Linux.
So who’s using Linux for music production? What’s your experience?
Personally, I’m trying to switch to it right now. I’ve spent maybe 12-15 years with Linux as my primary system, but I’ve never used it for music, and for the last years I’ve been on Mac, then Windows. Tried installing Endeavour OS last week (used Arch back around 2017-2018 and was pretty happy with it), but apparently I’m not good at it anymore, or just out of luck, a lot of stuff is broken, and I don’t have time to attempt fixing it, so I’m thinking of switching to Kubuntu.
I’ve been using Kubuntu for audio about 4 years (Ubuntu/Kubuntu for general purposes for about 10+). It’s been great but it took a bit more effort to get to where it is now, a bit more than on Windows which I’ve used for music all my life. I run Bitwig, Renoise, I’m using Pipewire with the JACK libs, I can patch audio between apps, Yabridge works great for Win plugins, although that also takes a bit of effort. Use the Wine-TDK builds to get the best performance out of Windows plugins, Liquorix kernel to get the best kernel performance.
YMMV, but with some effort and patience, it is doable to get a Linux setup up and running.
I used Bitwig on Ubuntu and also Ubuntu studio for a while, on a desktop computer. Compared to Windows on the same machine, there was a significant increase in CPU resources consumption (like 25% to 30%). Switched back to Windows because of this and also unstable audio.
Use Linux if you like to fiddle with settings. Tweakers paradise… endless patching possibilities… ultimately more systems work than music making.
Best experience out of the box so far for music software is with MacOS, hands down.
me, since early 2000s.
(though up to 2010s i was mainly into esoteric stuff like cSound & SuperCollider.)
these days i use Tracktion Waveform as my primary DAW and Harrison Mixbus 32C as secondary.
(note about Bitwig: i stopped using it because it’s 10 years old and still does not have proper MIDI export – it can’t export CC automation in 2024, can you imagine?! you probably never ever needed this, but lack of this is a major PITA for me because i can’t take all advantages of hardware machines with MIDI import.)
unlike vast majority of Linux-based music producers, i narrow down my choice to stuff available natively — i mean, i avoid running windoze software with WINE. IMO if you want Ableton / Serum / FabFilter – just get a windoze machine and stop fucking around with additional abstraction layer that just wastes resources, time & effort.
and i can say that there is quite a few of stuff that has native Linux versions these days. the choice is not THAT overwhelming like in Win/Mac world — but on the other hand, it’s manageable! Waveform lists about 350 plugins in total on my Linux machine — comparing to about 450 on Mac, so the difference is not huge.
Linux rocks when it comes to latencies – just get a decent class compliant interface, install low latency kernel (or realtime one if you’re brave enough), and here you go.
also it rocks when it comes to OS optimization, but this requires quite some effort and RTFM.
I strong disagree with the point that Linux is more systems work than music making.
I play more games on that computer than music making. That is.
Once set up (one time process…) you just can use it like any other computer.
I don’t know if you really have linux as main os… But its a myth from the past that you need to be a computer guy to use it.
Its true that you need to find the distribution you can handle, like and is hassle free too, but I can’t seriously remember when it was the last time i opened a config file. It must been years.
the shell although and programming i like, but config is not my thing and never was.
THIS.
also, due to Linux reputation people underestimate the amount of time they actually spend to set up all the stuff from scratch on a commercial OS.
in my experience Mac is the quickest to set up (though the difference with Linux is not huge), and Windoze is the slowest of three.
Well I think with the accounts you need to enter with commercial os…
You cant use all the things anymore without apple, microsoft or google.
Its a shame, you need at least one of them to use “your” stuff.
excellent point!
so, anyone with Akai Force, NI Machine+, and even Ableton Push actually DOES have Linux music production experience because those run Linux inside
I have my laptop with Linux mint 21.3 still. and using jack for the music related programs… but in general I make music with my DT+DN.
If I want to upload something to the internet, I usually record the stereo out of DT in ardour and apply a limiter or EQ sometimes.
I have used overwitch to record the tracks separately and mix them in Ardour, but as I don’t really know how to mix, i usually get bored and can’t finish that process.
I also play around sometimes, with different things like supercollider, lmms, vcv rack, mixxx, tidal.cycles, puredata, hydrogen, zyn-fusion, helm, sooperlooper, and any other FLOSS related to music…
I try not to compare my experience with people using closed operative systems, because I decided to put my priority in FLOSS than in making music with “professional standarts”. It is what it is, good enough for me.
elektron is the exception, since they count more as instruments than as software for me. but even there sometimes think about buying a deluge to see if it is possible to go full FLOSS also there. but i don’t think that the DT+DN combo (or maybe even the elektron workflow) can be replaced.
Switched to Linux in September as my daily driver to see how comfortable it would be, turns out it’s pretty fantastic running a KDE arch build. Realtime permissions all enabled.
Trialled Bitwig, would up buying it in the sale as it runs great and is a fun DAW to get sequencing in. I’ve got a Licence for S1 V5 too and now that has a Linux build I’ll probs upgrade a couple of point numbers down the line.
Pipewire seems to completely crush ASIO for performance, running multiple interfaces and sources with ease. Got a USB microphpone, my Typhon and interface connected along with the elektrons although sometimes it can be a faff to match the buffers. Running Overwitch is straightforward and Bitwig (also Reaper when I trialled it) remembers the connections for later when something is unplugged. Generally fantastic.
I really wish Elektron would consider Linux versions of the overbridge plugins, I miss having states/recall enabled even though recording the tracks isn’t an issue with the FOSS alternatives.
I have a couple of gotchas to look for. I dual booted linux mint and win10 for a while but a windows update screwed up the UEFI config and the linux partition is now inaccessible, something to watch out for. It’s pretty hit and miss with PC HW and you definitely need to try the distro out on your own PC before committing. Check that any HW you use has drivers for linux, my audio interface doesn’t.
I guess I got lucky my Ultralite Mk5 works fine class compliant and pipewire splits everything up nicely. It’s also pretty easy to get the cuemix software running on Linux too as a helpful chap from MOTU has compiled a linux-ready binary of the mixer, it’s also an Electron app so you can recompile the source.
I can imagine using a UAD or similar might not be so straightforward.
I believe the recommendation for low-ish effort dual boot is to use separate drives so that you don’t everwrite your EFI boot with a windows equivalent and use your Grub/systemd-boot/etc to launch either OS. Microsoft does have some guides on protecting a non-windows EFI partition floating about too.
This is encouraging to hear. I recently built a new desktop and am not loving windows. I haven’t owned a windows box since about ‘04. I Frankensteined a few mbp corpses together recently too but honestly I’ve been feeling more and more let down by macOS over the years. I think it’s time to give Linux another shot. Figured I’d start off by booting from a separate drive (this is for the desktop) until I’m sure it’ll work for me. I’m not very itb for music production but not fully otb either. I’ve been using reaper for years so that should help make the transition smooth. If my internet connection hadn’t been down for the last two weeks I’d have already done this, just waiting. @Holon re: drivers. Am I correct in thinking that any class compliant interface will work without driver issues or is there some Linux catch I’ve missed?
Hmm, I’m curious, maybe I should try USB audio with my Typhon, that would free up 50% of inputs on my interface (can’t afford upgrading yet).
I’ve researched interfaces, and looks like so far the best options with multiple I/O would the the 16i16 in the lower price bracket, Evo 16 and 18i16 somewhere in the middle, Ultralite mk5 and 18i20 up there. Out of all these, the Evo 16 seems to be the most balanced one in terms of price, but also has the least comprehensive support (it just works, no fancy config apps). Anyway I can’t afford any of these at the moment.
No, kind of. There will be very limited access to two computer audio channels for general playback but they don’t show up in any software that selects channels.
I still have a 12 core windows machine, which i can repurpose, as i dont intend to go to windows 11 - is the thunderbolt support stable? I am not sure if my Quantum 2426 would work on linux - i dont want to buy an extra interface just for that purpose. Also i would need a thunderbolt switch, that can be accessed from multiple computers - i dont know if that is a realistic szenario. I have some linux system admin expierience, as i maintained a solaris system back in the day, and had gentoo working for a time, but i dont want to work as system admin, i want to spend my time making music.
