Hi everyone,
I’m getting fed up windows and want to switch my laptop to linux. My laptop also doesn’t meet windows 11 standards so I figured nows a good time to switch. I don’t do a whole lot on my laptop, but there are some programs that I do need to use. I have an E drum kit and right now I use reaper and Steven slate audio center to play and record my drums through my laptop. I looked at reaper, and I see linux options for download. But for Steven slate , I only see windows and Mac. This is pretty disappointing and so I figured I ask to see what would work for me.
I was going to go with Ubuntu, because it seems to be the most user friendly and has good support. I also use mullvad VPN on my laptop very frequently, which was another reason I chose Ubuntu.
Any help is appreciated. I’m willing to look at other distros too if there is one that better fits my needs.
EDIT: I have successfully migrated to linux mint and have reaper working with yabridge. Thanks, everyone, for your help and suggestions!
I work in music and audio post, and everyone I work with would love to be able to use Reaper (or Logic, or Nuendo) instead of Pro Tools, if Pro Tools didn’t have the post industry completely captured in the US.
Reaper is a world-class product, and the team could easily charge 10x as much for the pro licenses, and get it. Stick with Reaper.
There are alternative drum triggers for Linux, I’m sure. Even SPL makes a drum exchanger. There’s got to be one out there.
VMR shouldn’t be a problem to run, I just don’t know what the install process would look like.
I’m pretty sure Airwindows plugs are Linux compatible, probably Audio Obsession too.
In any case, Reaper’s stock plugins are awesome. My only real complaint about them is the EQ cramping in the hi-end, which is typical for stock plugins.
I would prefer to stick with reaper since I’m familiar with it and going off other comments, it seems that I can still use windows vsts in linux so I think that is the route I’m going to go
Hi, I ran into a problem with reaper taking over my audio driver and I’m not able to play YouTube, or any other music, while reaper is open. I didn’t have this problem in windows because I had the aiso4all driver. But doing some searching, I’m not sure that driver will work on linux. Do you have any insight as to how to fix this?
While I don’t have personal experience with this, I did find this from the bad website:
Install pipewire-jack and use JACK audio device in Reaper. Also, yes make sure that wireplumber is installed.
Not sure about Reaper, but most Windows-only VSTs work fine on Linux using yabridge in my experience. Some DRM can have issues, though, and sometimes you need to install dependencies using winetricks.
Also, I noticed you mentioned using Ubuntu since Mullvad is supported. I have a feeling that you’re attempting to download software through websites instead of using your distro’s repo or by using flathub. Downloading software “the Windows way” by using websites isn’t recommended unless it is not available on repos. Mullvad works on every distro, for example, and is available on most repos.
Oh ok, that’s good to know that I can use vsts on linux. And I’m just overall being more privacy conscientious lately.
Mullvad (and every other decent VPN) supports WireGuard and OpenVPN configurations that will be supported on any distro through the network settings without the need for additional software. It’s also pretty likely the mullvad client will be in the software center of whatever distro you’re using
Oh I see what you’re saying. I’m still getting used to linux. I have a steam deck and have been using the desktop mode quite a bit, so I’m familiar with the app store in there. But I’m still not used to it thinking about going there to install what I need. Thanks for the tip
As for Windows plugins with no native Linux version, there are ways to use VSTs over Wine. Check out Yabridge project. There’s no guarantee that 100% of plugins will work, but many do pretty well. It requires some additional setup, but once it’s done, you don’t have to think about it much, just call yabridgectl when you add new plugins to sync them (it creates stub library that is seen as Linux native, but it wraps Windows plugin using Wine)
Reaper is perfectly fine choice if you’re already familiar with it, but here are some other you may want to look at:
FOSS Options:
- Ardour - it’s pretty old, UX is not perfectly intuitive, basically GIMP of the audio world, but it can do everything you’d expect a professional DAW to do, while being incredibly lightweight. It’s straightforward to install on any Linux system.
- Zrhythm - it’s a new DAW that didn’t have a stable release yet, but it’s on 1.0 RC1 so I guess it’s pretty close. It has some promising user interface and feature set, also easy to get installed, but might not be super solid just yet.
Commercial options:
- Bitwig Studio - probably the best audio workstation for Linux, but also the most expensive.
- Waveform Tracktion - I personally had mixed experience with it. On one hand the UX and flow is quite good (not as flexible as ardour, way more opinionated, but still fully functional and easier to use), but I had bad time dealing with a large project as the editor becomes extremely sluggish as your project grows.
So as someone who tried Ubuntu first because it seemed like the easiest place to start, don’t. First off, I never could get Ardour to run right on it. Try Linux Mint. I switched this weekend and everything seems to work better and there appears to be a lot more available software when you aren’t stuck with Snaps.
I tried linux mint and fairly quickly I had more issues than with Ubuntu. I tried to install reaper through the app store and it wouldn’t launch. I had to get it from the website. I also tried to get wine through the app store and that didn’t work either. I couldn’t even get it to install properly through the terminal. I’m not too sure about switching now.
I checked out ardour and I was able to get it to register my drum kit, but they kept pestering me to pay for the program every 10 min which was frustrating. Bitwig is a little more than I need at the moment. I’m not creating music, I just need drum triggers and basic drum recording. I was able to get reaper to work and pick up my kit, but I still need to try yabridge to get vsts to trigger.
Wow, what OS you used and where did you take your binaries from? It’s free and open source, but their official builds (distributed through their official website) are paid. I’m using Arch official repo package and it asked me for a donation on first boot, but I could just select to never bother me with it again. You can build Ardour freely on any OS from source, but Linux distros are also free to provide their own packages and most of em do. There’s also Flatpak Ardour build, but your plugins then also must be installed from Flatpak, Wine must be from Flatpak etc., doable but not the most convenient
I was using ubuntu and I got the program from their main site. I saw they offered monthly subscriptions but I just chose the demo. On their site, it says the demo goes silent after 10 min… I searched the app store in ubuntu and didn’t see it so that’s why I went to the website. That’s cool you can build it from source though. I think I’ll just stick with reaper now however.
You should use Ardour, it’s a DAW with native linux version. It’s free for Linux users and it’s a free software.
LMMS isn’t really a DAW, as it can’t really manipulate audio easily, only midi. Reaper and Bitweeg have native Linux version but aren’t free softwares.
Windows Vst are running fine on linux these days, but on Linux there are a lot of audio plugins on Lv2 format you should try as well… Lastly, native vst for Linux do exist and work flawlessly.
Edit: as a general rule, audio in Linux is fairly different than on windows/macos, because it allows more flexible workflows, with the use of multiple softwares in sync to get the best of their abilities. For instance I make professional audio mainly with Ardour but I also use rosegarden, guitarix, luppp, non-daw, open stage control or pure data for some specific functions.
LMMS isn’t really a DAW, as it can’t really manipulate audio easily, only midi.
IIRC it can use audio files as instruments though I never used that feature so idk how limited it is , I believe other DAWs can import audio more directly
Right now I’d say the best open-source DAW for Linux is LMMS if you want to do everything just on your laptop, or Ardour if you want to use external instruments.
LMMS has some shockingly versatile built in synths, including a port of ZynAddSubFX, supports LADSPA/LV2 plugins, and supports using Wine to run 32-bit Windows VSTs. I’m unsure of Ardour’s VST support, but it at least supports LV2 plugins. Either of those, if you install them through your distro, will likely include Calf Studio Gear, an extensive collection of LV2 effects and a couple synths. As for ones that run natively on Linux, there’s synthv1, samplv1, drumkv1, and padthv1, though I’ve had trouble getting them working myself.
I’ve found some good stuff on the Linux Audio Wiki but IDK how up to date most of it is.
