[HN Gopher] LinuxDAW - Quality audio software for Linux
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LinuxDAW - Quality audio software for Linux
I made/released this exactly one year ago today. It's a simple
webpage giving an overview over quality software that runs on
Linux. It has search and filter to narrow down what you're looking
for. Default sorting is latest additions so it can be used as a
"news site". There is also a RSS feed available. I needed this
myself, so I used it as a pet project to upgrade my knownledge from
Vue2 to Vue3. Source code is ofc open and contributions/feedback
is always welcome. https://codeberg.org/fractalf/linuxdaw.org
Cheers!
Author : fractalf
Score : 153 points
Date : 2023-12-30 15:21 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (linuxdaw.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (linuxdaw.org)
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| To me a DAW is a category of software[1], so I'd choose a more
| general name for the site.
|
| [1]: https://linuxdaw.org/?t=daw
| have_faith wrote:
| Wouldn't the majority of this be used in conjunction with a
| DAW? seems in the right ballpark.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| Mentioned in another comment. DAW is an IDE for music
| production. Calling Prettier extension for VSCode an IDE
| would be incorrect.
| henriquez wrote:
| Right, this site seems to be showing plugins that run in a DAW.
| But what about Linux DAW software itself? Does anyone have
| recommendations? I think Renoise is nice but it's not as easy
| to puts around in as things like Ableton or Reason which don't
| run in Linux.
| fractalf wrote:
| Check out Bitwig (https://www.bitwig.com/), it's awesome
| (started by previous Ableton devs)
| scns wrote:
| Second Bitwig, it is really good!
| p0nce wrote:
| Notably, REAPER, Studio One (beta) and Bitwig are available
| on Linux.
| marssaxman wrote:
| The name certainly made it harder for me to understand what I
| was looking at when I first clicked the link, expecting to see
| a Linux DAW.
| badosu wrote:
| Well if you take it to the literal meaning of the acronym its
| exactly what it is a digital audio workstation focused os
| kingwill101 wrote:
| Thank you! As a musician I often complain about having to dual
| boot to get access to all the really good plugins. Mostly due to
| me not knowing where to find decent enough plugins without having
| to rely on hacky workarounds using wine
| fractalf wrote:
| You're most welcome! Yea, I know _exactly_ how you feel. This
| is why I had my last Win7 partition for so long, but now it's
| gone as there all I really need is available on Linux. Bitwig +
| u-he, what more do you really need ;)
| lioeters wrote:
| This looks great, I'm going to enjoy perusing the collection.
|
| Nothing by falkTX / KXStudio?
|
| https://kx.studio/
|
| https://github.com/falkTX
|
| EDIT: Oh I see there are some but they're not listed under
| Developer.
| fractalf wrote:
| falkTX is a HERO, no doubt about that! Got these:
| https://linuxdaw.org/?q=falktx ..kx studio is not really a
| "plugin" thingy (more a collection/repository) so it's hard to
| add that in this context. EDIT: I saw your edit :D
| narag wrote:
| Useful (at least for me :)) and great interface, thank you!
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| This is fantastic. Wish I knew this existed before. Already
| spotted a few alternatives for things that are keeping me on a
| dual boot.
| chaosprint wrote:
| It would be great if we can submit a new entry from the webpage.
|
| Also, perhaps add a CLI format?
|
| I know some people use Glicol CLI on Linux:
|
| https://github.com/glicol/glicol-cli
| p0nce wrote:
| Proud to be listed here :) Nice website.
| fractalf wrote:
| Ofc, your stuff is awesome man :) ..thanks!
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Sweet!
| karolist wrote:
| Mind blown continuously by the lazy loading which I hoped to stop
| at the first 10 items. There's this much DAW software for Linux
| nonetheless? Makes me question what other niche software fields
| I'm completely oblivious of.
| diggan wrote:
| > document.querySelectorAll('.bg-card.text-
| center.p-2.rounded.relative.h-full')
|
| > NodeList(524)
|
| That's a lot of quality audio software for Linux :) (Edit: I
| realize now there is a counter in the top right... Oh well)
|
| Happy to see it, although I personally mostly use Windows for
| audio stuff... If Ableton worked on Linux I'd probably leave
| Windows behind.
| fractalf wrote:
| hehe! ..I come from Ableton on Win7. But, Bitwig (formed by
| ex-Ableton devs) saved the world for me as it is a) similar
| but better than Ableton (ofc subjective) and b) it runs on
| Linux! Check it out, take it for a spin!
| diggan wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation! I've already tried out
| Bitwig (and most of the DAWs I've come across). It's just a
| habit thing that I still use Ableton.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| Spent ages awhile back delving deep into sorting audio tools into
| a multi-dimensional framework, convinced that deciphering their
| taxonomy would unleash their full potential. It's frustrating how
| there are no comprehensive directories for these tools (Linux or
| not for that matter)
|
| I applaud your initiative and suggest you give more thought to
| categorization.
| fractalf wrote:
| The good'ol "organize your stuff" problem. The problem with
| "categories" is that a) usually a "thing" can only belong to 1
| category and b) a category often belong in a hiarchy of
| categories and can only be 1 place. So that is why I've used
| _tags_ instead, which is more of a many to many "flat"
| releation. Not sure I understood your comment correctly? ..I've
| certainly given this quite some thought already, but nothing is
| perfect
| CrypticShift wrote:
| > Nothing is perfect.
|
| I agree, and moreover, the more complex the taxonomy, the
| more likely you'll find people who disagree with it. So
| perhaps you're right that a simple tags list is the best
| "simple" solution, and I'm not saying your list is deficient.
|
| One thing I had in mind is allowing an "AND" operator, like
| searching for "vintage" AND "eq"
|
| > a) usually a "thing" can only belong to 1 category and b) a
| category often belong in a hiarchy of categories and can only
| be 1 place
|
| That's why I love hierarchical tags (where tags can have
| multiple parents) : You can put a "thing" under more than one
| category/tag while a tag can belong to more than one parent.
| However, it's true that this is rarely implemented.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| To my knowledge all VST plugins can be used on Linux (via Wine).
| Is that not the case? Here is a page that describes the process
| of using a single Wine instance to wrap all VSTs in the system:
| https://z-uo.medium.com/vst-and-vst3-on-linux-mint-20-with-l...
|
| There could possibly be a clearer name for this effort, since
| both Reaper and Bitwig run on Linux natively and are top notch
| DAWs (actual DAWs, not VST plugins). Plus VCV Rack, which is not
| technically a DAW but close.
|
| Linux native VST plugins is a way more precise description. DAW
| is a very specific software category. It's like calling Prettier
| extension for VSCode an IDE.
|
| Edit: seems like both linuxvst.com and linuxvst.org are
| available.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > To my knowledge all VST plugins can be used on Linux (via
| Wine). Is that not the case?
|
| Yes, although I would recommend Yabridge rather than linvst.
|
| https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge
|
| It should be already packaged in some Linux distros, but
| building and installation are straightforward. Basically it
| installs some libraries and an executable which once called
| will convert a Windows plugin in .dll form to a Linux+WINE
| loadable .so library. You install a windows plugin through WINE
| the usual way: setup.exe etc (or just drop the dll if that's
| the way it is distributed), then once it is installed, call
| yabridgectl adding the path of the new plugin dll, then call
| yabridgectl again but this time adding the option to convert
| plugins (going from memory, can't test it here), then you'll
| have the Linux loadable .so library in the same path of the
| windows one. now just add the same place to your Linux DAW
| plugins path and it will automatically see and load the
| converted plugins. If you install a new windows plugin, just
| repeat the two above steps.
|
| One nice and often overlooked feature of loading plugins
| through the WINE compatibility layer is that many 15+ years old
| still great plugins that stopped working on Windows ages ago
| now are perfectly usable again on Linux, with the only problem
| of having to work with a much smaller GUI since they were
| created when 1024x768 or smaller desktops were a thing, so they
| can appear stamp sized on today's monitors, but size aside they
| work fine.
| malermeister wrote:
| Shouldn't that last point be fixable by specifying a scaling
| factor in winecfg?
| squarefoot wrote:
| Possibly yes, but I'm not sure how to do that on a per
| plugin basis, as it would otherwise break modern ones with
| larger GUIs.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Yep. I used Bitwig with Yabridge for a year or so. There are
| a few weird ones that really don't work, but things like the
| Arturia suite worked OK.
| 1920musicman wrote:
| How is audio interface driver/console support on Linux?
| Would something like UA Apollo work out of the box?
| squarefoot wrote:
| It's mind blowing the number of quality, often even FOSS, Linux
| audio software that is appearing these days, I can't wait to try
| some of these on my latest music laptop installation, which is
| confined to my own rehearsal room and works only as a plugin
| host. Unfortunately I had to use Reaper (plus yabridge for
| Windows plugins compatibility, which works great) as a host
| because Carla requires Jack which defaults to non usable state at
| every installation and is a nightmare to set up in a reproducible
| way, moreover saving in Carla is broken so after an an hour of
| careful plugins setup one loses everything upon closing. Right
| now we probably need more a much simpler plugin host that does
| just that and just works rather than new plugins.
|
| About Jack, let me repeat this one more time _Jack is not
| necessary at all to obtain low latency, ALSA is more than enough_
| ; if you're writing audio software, having Jack support is nice,
| but please don't depend on it as it just complicates things.
| amlib wrote:
| > Carla requires Jack which defaults to non usable state at
| every installation and is a nightmare to set up in a
| reproducible way
|
| I've been using linux audio for the last 15 years and I've been
| trough it all. However, things have much improved since I've
| switched to Pipewire. No more need for a bespoke implementation
| of the jack daemon, it's implemented natively right there in
| Pipewire, vastly simplifying setup and removing any annoyances
| that keeping the Jack daemon working entailed. As a bonus any
| jack client/jack graph visualizer, including carla, gets a
| direct view to all Pipewire clients, not just native jack
| clients. You can then use Carla to route audio directly from
| your hardware inputs and outputs trough, for example,
| pulseaudio client (blissfully unaware of whats happening) and
| then trough as many jack clients as you wish. It's truly a
| magical(tm) piece of software.
|
| As for Carla, make sure you are in the "Multiple Clients" mode,
| activate the experimental features and check "Enable plugin
| bridges" and "Run plugins in bridge mode when possible". This
| seems to make it more stable and make it so that if a plugin
| crashes Carla will disable it and at worst you will lose the
| related plugin parameters.
|
| I've been running Carla with Pipewire for more then a year as
| my system wide DSP stack (almost like a virutal AV Reciever)
| and its fairly stable.
| bwanab wrote:
| I noticed that SooperLooper is missing. One of my all time
| favorites.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Highly configurable, safe, extremely stable, very low latency,
| high performance and throughput and even realtime if one need or
| want. Pipewire put an end to the mess was the confusing ballet of
| pulseaudio and Jack and everything else is maturing nicely. These
| characteristics put (desktop) Linux on a position that the
| competition simply can't beat.
|
| They may have had a head start because of very popular and
| critical software that is un-portable, but the technical
| superiority is on our side.
|
| AFAIK, there have been some professional successful DAWs for
| Linux and I can only think it will grow over time.
|
| I saw people using OBS with a few USB cameras with reasonable
| quality making good quality webcasts and I'm sure that is also
| doable in the DAW-land. The future seems bright for musicians and
| recorders who can now be free from proprietary software and build
| a reasonable good studio at home using non-imorally-priced
| hardware.
| dash2 wrote:
| This optimism pairs nicely with the next post ("can anyone
| recommend a sound card... I couldn't get anything working...")
| Blackthorn wrote:
| > but the technical superiority is on our side.
|
| Linux has a bit of a Thunderbolt audio problem though. Apple
| dragged the world into compatibility with class compliant USB;
| there's no equivalent for Thunderbolt though :-( we're back in
| the bad old days of individual (nonexistent) drivers per
| device.
| qwertox wrote:
| I love the information density of this page. Screenshots, proper
| naming and ownership of the plugins with links, free vs paid
| including price, links to YouTube.
|
| The best site I've seen so far for this type of content.
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| I opened an issue to get some more projects added:
|
| https://codeberg.org/fractalf/linuxdaw.org/issues/44
| louthy wrote:
| O/T: Can anyone recommend a decent PCI based pro sound card with
| Linux (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian) support?
|
| I'm trying to de-Windows myself, but my pro-audio setup is the
| gap I can't seem to fill.
|
| I currently have an RME HDSPe MADI FX [1] which allows me to
| bring in 96 channels of 96khz audio via 3 MADI connections. They
| connect to my AD/DA convertors [2].
|
| I found source for a driver [3], but couldn't get the thing
| working, and it doesn't seem particularly well
| supported/documented.
|
| Moving toward Dante or AES67 is also an option (because my AD/DA
| convertors support those formats) if there's any software
| solution that can support those formats, but there's minimal
| online info. So if anyone's gone this route I'd love to know how
| you got everything working!
|
| [1] https://www.rme-audio.de/hdspe-madi-fx.html
|
| [2] https://www.ferrofish.com/portfolio/a32pro-dante-
| converter-m...
|
| [3] https://github.com/adiknoth/madifx
| fractalf wrote:
| Why do you want/need a PCI based card? Most audio interfaces
| run off USB these days and Linux supports almost all USB audio
| class-compliant cards.. Personally I use NI Komplete Audio 1
| and Behringer UMC 1820 (yes, on Linux with pipewire and Bitwig
| you can use multiple cards!)
| louthy wrote:
| > Why do you want/need a PCI based card?
|
| Because I don't know of any USB device that can do 96
| channels of pro IO. Also, it always seemed preferable to me
| to avoid the issue of 'yet another wire' and 'yet another
| source of latency'.
|
| Being attached to the PCI bus always felt like the most
| robust approach to getting audio in with the lowest latency
| (which it is on Windows).
|
| I'd probably prefer to look at Dante/AES67 before USB, unless
| there's a compelling reason not to. Mostly because it gives
| room for future expansion where a fixed soundcard doesn't.
|
| > yes, on Linux with pipewire and Bitwig you can use multiple
| cards
|
| How are you clocking the cards? If they don't share a single
| clock then you're gonna get phase issues. The idea of going
| back to a word-clock does not appeal to me! I'd much prefer a
| single device with one clock. The fewer moving parts, the
| better.
| fractalf wrote:
| > Because I don't know of any USB device that can do 96
| channels of pro IO
|
| Holy crap, that's a lot of input channels, didn't know it
| was possible. I also have a Behringer ADA8200 that connect
| to the 1820 (ADAT) which gives me 16 inputs. I'll admit
| it's not enough to run all of my gear in at once and this
| is just a home studio. I can imagine 96 channels is very
| useful. Maybe 6x my setup would work = 96 inputs ;)
|
| > How are you clocking the cards?
|
| You are obviously more advanced than me, not sure what you
| mean here. I'm using the NI card basically just for the
| output and the Behringer for inputs, 24/48. When recording,
| if there is a latency (which normally Bitwig can "fix")
| it's just a matter of moving the audio a couple of ms.
|
| > PCI
|
| I've had earlier problems with PCI cards, in that they pick
| up a lot of internal noise from the motherboard, so I've
| stayed away from that after firewire/usb cards became
| available
| louthy wrote:
| > Holy crap, that's a lot of input channels
|
| 96 output too. I have a lot of outboard gear, my SSL
| Sigma alone is 32 in/out for mixing, that's before I get
| onto all my outboard compressors, EQs, reverbs, synths,
| drum machines, and modular gear. I use the soundcard
| pretty much as a virtual patch-bay, I can send and return
| to any piece of gear in my studio like a plugin (get
| Bitwig to measure the latency and automagically
| everything syncs).
|
| > You are obviously more advanced than me, not sure what
| you mean here.
|
| Because digital audio is in discrete time-slices, you
| need to sync the slice starts so all devices are aligned.
| Otherwise you can have subframe issues where phasing
| becomes a problem - in the worst cases it can cause audio
| glitches (which I've had with older AD/DA convertors).
|
| This can be solved by using a Word Clock [1], which is
| the 'old' way, or via AES/MADI/Dante - which all have
| their own clocking protocols. The devices all need to be
| clocked by the same source, which you can't do by pairing
| devices in software.
|
| My current soundcard is connected, via MADI, to my
| 3xFerrofish-A32-Pro AD/DA units. The soundcard is the
| source of truth for timing. The AD/DA devices all sync to
| the soundcard and therefore have no phasing issues.
|
| > I've had earlier problems with PCI cards, in that they
| pick up a lot of internal noise from the motherboard
|
| Sure, if you plug analogue sources directly into the
| device. But my analogue inputs/outputs are all going into
| my AD/DA convertors, which are separate units. They are
| digitising the audio and by the time it arrives (via
| MADI) into my soundcard it's already digital. That means
| no chance of any noise from the computer.
|
| Probably what I need is something like this [2], it seems
| to have Linux support, but unfortunately isn't produced
| any more! I seem to find that a lot with these Dante
| devices. Maybe I'd be better with AES67 as that's an
| open-standard that is compatible with Dante, just I
| haven't found anything yet!
|
| In theory (because Dante/AES67 is over IP) a virtual
| soundcard can be written, I certainly have a powerful
| enough machine to run it, but again I haven't found
| anything yet. I'd write it myself, but I have a million
| things going on, and that's a distraction I don't need!
|
| It does seem like there's a bit of a gap when you get to
| the real pro end of audio, which is a shame because the
| stability of Linux would is a huuuuuge selling point when
| producing music.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_clock
|
| [2] https://www.audinate.com/products/dante-enabled/four-
| audio/f...
| davidthewatson wrote:
| I've seen a lot of bad marketing copy, but this deserves to be
| placed on a pedestal of achievement for its tongue in cheek
| projection of how seriously they took the creation of such a
| funny thing:
|
| "The Fart Machine is not just any ordinary guitar pedal or plug-
| in. Using our unique rectal microphone technology, we have
| modeled every component of the human bowel system, and now the
| Fart Machine can turn any sound into flatulence. This technology
| provides an unprecedented level of control over your fart sounds,
| enabling you to create a range of unique and unforgettable sounds
| that will leave your audience in awe."
|
| I miss music software and its sampling and remixing culture.
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