[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Is there any Linux distro dedicated to music...
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Ask HN: Is there any Linux distro dedicated to music performance?
I'm impressed by the recent developments regarding Linux and audio
production; I've been using Reaper, both the Windows version under
WINE and the native Linux one for some time, and it works
flawlessly with very low latency. Also there are some really good
native Linux plugins around, and Windows one - including some very
old ones that stopped working on Windows ages ago - run without
(almost *) any problems using Yabridge. So the question is: why not
creating a very minimal Linux distro dedicated only to run straight
after the boot either a DAW and related plugins, or a plugin host?
I mean it shouldn't even have a desktop and most common
applications, no browser etc. Just the bare minimum to run the
audio, both native and WINE subsystem with the simplest window
manager around. It should boot directly to the music software to
minimize boot time, also handy should it crash in the middle of a
gig. Anything like that in development?
Author : squarefoot
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-05-29 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
| unabomber wrote:
| I think i see what you mean and as far as i know there are some
| realisations with mixxx that look close to your idea.
| https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Portable-Mixxx I did
| something similar with an arch linux running kde and only the
| packages i needed for using reaper, carla and a few vst synths.
| This page could be usefull for configuring your distro :
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Professional_audio Using it live
| with many plugins at the same time on my 2015 mid-budget laptop
| and it's working pretty well.
| whateveracct wrote:
| musnix:
|
| https://github.com/musnix/musnix
| seclorum_wien wrote:
| ZynthianOS:
|
| https://zynthian.org
|
| Monome NORNS:
|
| https://monome.org/docs/norns/shield/
|
| Both of these Linux vendors have created what you describe -
| definitely worth checking out if you are a performing musician.
| These machines transform into viable, usable instruments - you
| don't have to do much Linux hacking, you can just plug in and
| play, like any other electronic musical instrument, and some of
| the stuff in the NORNS community is amazing for live performance
| (actually most of it is):
|
| https://norns.community
|
| Both systems will let you play with MOD DUO, which is a plug and
| play effects system that kicks serious ass:
|
| https://moddevices.com/devices/dwarf/
|
| Other than that - definitely check out Ubuntu Studio, as others
| have mentioned. I've been running it for a decade as a production
| DAW in my studio and it really kicks ass... you will be
| astonished at what is included, out of the box ..
| worik wrote:
| https://market.monome.org/
| https://shop.zynthian.org/shop/product/zynthian-kit-v4-6-448...
|
| Everything sold out.
|
| A common theme these days. Looks interesting
| willismichael wrote:
| AV Linux probably has the best out-of-box audio production
| experience: http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/
|
| The maintainer, Glen MacArthur, is very active on the Linux
| Musicians forum and always willing to answer questions:
| https://linuxmusicians.com
|
| Side note / self promotion, I'm the primary maintainer of
| Dragonfly Reverb, which is popular among folks that make music on
| Linux: https://michaelwillis.github.io/dragonfly-reverb/
| mousefad wrote:
| I was messing about with Carla on Ubuntu Studio recently and
| played with your plugin. Nice! :D Thanks for your work.
| hakube wrote:
| For everything Multimedia, Ubuntu Studio
| tyingq wrote:
| Not exactly what you're asking for, but an adjacent area. Bela
| leverages the built-in real time PRUs on a Beaglebone dev board
| to get very low latency audio processing.
|
| https://bela.io/products/
| CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
| Thanks. This is a really cool use for Beaglebone's Realtime
| Units.
| henearkr wrote:
| Is there one such distrib that is not PulseAudio based? (and
| possibly also without SystemD).
|
| I liked quite a lot Alsa/Jack based audio management, but
| nowadays it seems more and more implemented over a PulseAudio
| layer, which I would try to avoid.
|
| My main motivation is that PulseAudio has had latency problems in
| the past (I don't know what is its status now, but Alsa/Jack
| never had such problems), but also I'd to avoid to depend on the
| DBus infrastructure if it is not strictly required (and in the
| case of audio management there are alternatives, so DBus is not
| strictly required).
| kitotik wrote:
| Pipewire (mostly) works as a drop in for both pulseaudio and
| jackd. It's been solid for me with very low latency.
| worik wrote:
| Why is Pipewire better than Jack?
| capableweb wrote:
| I'd suggest going to the bottom if HN and searching for
| "pipewire", looking through previous threads. The benefits
| of Pipewire against X is discussed in a lot of them.
| oshanz wrote:
| Fedora Jam https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/jam/
| krnlpnc wrote:
| I honestly would not go down this route unless you intend to
| spend considerable time on the linux side itself.
|
| If you want to just get on with playing music stick with macOS or
| windows.
|
| Also the platform should not crash while live in the first place,
| but in cases where its critical usually there will be two
| machines running the same set in a failover config.
| worik wrote:
| No. That is not true.
|
| Using a MIDI input over USB into Yoshmi or ZynAddSubFX is very
| straight forward and there is a powerful synthesiser straight
| out of the bow.
|
| There is a lot more you can do on Linux, if you choose. But the
| easy things are easy, the hard things possible, and no silly
| license requirements (having been burned by Apple....)
| cozzyd wrote:
| Planetccrma, but not sure if it's still active.
| inetsee wrote:
| Planet CCRMA is still out there but "Last updated on June 17,
| 2019", and it seems to require Fedora.
| http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
| capableweb wrote:
| Not mentioned yet, is the Pisound together with a raspberry pi.
| Fast boot and good hardware in general, for the price. Haven't
| run any daws with it though, only Patchbox OS (which is made by
| the same people that makes the Pisound, who also makes the
| Midihub which is a core staple in my home studio: Blokas):
|
| - https://blokas.io/pisound/ - EUR99 - Pisound is an ultra-low
| latency high-quality sound card and MIDI interface specially
| designed for Raspberry Pi pocket computers.
|
| - https://blokas.io/patchbox-os/ - Free - Patchbox OS is a custom
| Linux distribution specially designed for Raspberry Pi based
| audio projects. It comes pre-configured for low latency audio
| performance and pre-installed audio software that will help you
| get started with your projects in no time!
|
| I'm not affiliated with Blokas, just a very happy user of
| Midihub.
| worik wrote:
| PiSOund is good.
|
| The Raspberry Pi is badly served when it comes to sound cards
| that do I/O, though. Pi sound has 3/4 inch I/O jacks, all be
| them stereo.
|
| Hi Fi Berry have a multitude of cards but for a musician
| wielding 3/4 inch cables they are not much use.
|
| The PiSound has MIDI Din jacks but I have not found any new
| MIDI equipment, any more, that requires them. It is all over
| USB it seems.
| donquichotte wrote:
| May I ask what audio interface you use for recording? I want one
| mic preamp and one direct input for guitar, and my Roland
| Octacapture that I am otherwise happy with is not supported on
| Linux.
| tzs wrote:
| It looks like the Octacapture may be supported if you set the
| sample rate to 44.1 kHz.
|
| https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=17423
| scns wrote:
| Native Instruments' interfaces have their drives in the Kernel,
| submitted by NI themselves.
| News-Dog wrote:
| Maybe check _> 2022:'list of Linux compatible pro-audio
| interfaces'<_ @DDG :
| <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=2022:'list of Linux
| comp...>
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I've heard good things about the Focusrite Scarlett series.
| Those are USB class compliant audio interfaces, so they should
| work in a lot of places (Linux, Android, iOS).
|
| Edit: looks like the presonus and Steinberg USB audio
| interfaces are class compliant too. So the Presonus AudioBox
| USB 96, Steinberg UR22, and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 should
| all do what you need. I have a Steinberg UR44, and it works
| fine but the preamps are a little weak IME.
| chupasaurus wrote:
| Scarlett 2nd Gen has a noticeable (for a live playthrough)
| latency which is fixed in 3rd Gen.
| lloeki wrote:
| I own a Scarlet 2i2, with a mic (XLR) and an electroacoustic
| guitar (6") plugged in a Mac, using it with GarageBand and
| Ardour. Can't voice a general conclusion since everyone has
| different requirements, but it's a very potent device, great
| bang for the buck.
|
| Maybe gain is a bit weak for my mic, I used to turn it way up
| which obviously makes it pick up other sounds (guitar,
| background noise) which might be unwanted. Now I set the gain
| right before unwanted sound is picked up, which is ~2/3, then
| tune the gain/EQ baseline up in GarageBand and Ardour for
| that channel to get a solid sound.
|
| Cannot commend on Linux usage, but it's a class device
| alright so it should be fine.
|
| When using Ardour, and only on one of my machines+, I did
| also get some kind of buffer/timing drift that produced
| progressively more garbled sound, I identified it to come
| from other USB devices and/or the USB hub. The issue is not
| present when using GarageBand.
|
| + MacBook Pro 13" 2018, among the ones which you should not
| charge on the left side. I think USB is hopelessly borked on
| these devices.
| glyphy17 wrote:
| teddyh wrote:
| Audiophile Linux: https://www.ap-linux.com/
|
| (Found on the LWN.net Linux Distribution List:
| https://lwn.net/Distributions/)
| sp332 wrote:
| It has not had a release since 2019 though.
| smitty1e wrote:
| https://distrowatch.com/ also bears mention.
| _spduchamp wrote:
| I've found that Ubuntu Studio just works. I've tried all sorts of
| variations and have trouble sound not working during recording,
| but good ol' Ubuntu Studio gets it done. I use Ardour for my DAW.
| I've been able to record live feeds in Ardour while also live
| streaming using OBS. Jack works.
| News-Dog wrote:
| Yes, my first thought was Ubuntu Studio too :
| https://ubuntustudio.org/
|
| Ubuntu Studio developer wiki! :
| https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Studio
| zymhan wrote:
| Glad to hear it's still around!
|
| They had my favorite Gnome theme years ago.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| I didn't check now, but I recall (current) Ubuntu Studio is
| KDE-based isn't it?
| jcelerier wrote:
| Yep. At the SCRIME (experimental comp.sci lab / music
| studio in Bordeaux) all our computers use 21.10, soon
| 22.04 and it works pretty well.
| shaicoleman wrote:
| If latency is your main concern, switching your kernel to
| something like XanMod Real-Time [1] may be enough to fix any
| latency issues.
|
| Switching to Pipewire will also help.
|
| 1. https://xanmod.org/
| squarefoot wrote:
| Thanks for the replies; I had to go out in minutes and didn't
| have much time to be more specific about the intentions. My goal
| actually is to see if it's feasible to use a small PC to fill the
| gap between a MIDI/USB master keyboard and one (or more) ready
| made synthesizer(s) in a way that there are no distractions or
| other software slowing things down, exposing points of failure
| and generally wasting resources. Ideally, if I turn on a mini PC
| with that Linux distro, it should boot straight into either a DAW
| or a plugin host, possibly remembering the last known state, so
| that boot time is kept to a minimum and I can safely turn it off,
| then back on to find the same configuration (plugins loaded,
| presets recalled, etc), just like what I would expect from a
| physical keyboard instrument and possibly more. Such a task could
| probably be accomplished by taking the bare minimum bootable
| system, then adding packages one by one until audio, WINE, basic
| windowing and networking would work, then some scripts could
| automate loading the DAW or plugin host. Ideally the user doesn't
| even know there's an operating system under the hood; they switch
| on the appliance and after a few seconds it shows one or more
| synthesizer panels and it's ready to play. I recall over 10 years
| ago there was Muse Receptor, a very well known hardware appliance
| that did exactly this, and almost nobody knew there was Linux
| under the hood running all those Windows plugins (there were
| almost no native Linux plugins back then); price wasn't low
| because at that time some serious CPU power was needed for live
| FX and synthesizers, but today I'm sure it could be done a lot
| more cheaply.
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