Hey,
atm i am considering switching over to linux on my main pc. I have some experience with different distros ( i have fedora on my laptop) but i am not sure if it is really worth it. I mainly use my PC for Music Production, some Gaming and graphics stuff (Affinity Suit).
For my music production i use a lot of stuff from Native Instruments. I have a Maschine mk3 as my hardware DAW (in combination with Maschine Software) and NI Komplete with lots of vsts. I also have some Arturia vsts and vsts from smaller companies (all paid). My Software DAW is Bitwig (wich has native Linux support). After some research i found out that there are ways to get at least some software from NI running with yarbrigde, but this does not account for my Maschine mk3 and seems very tedious and unstable. Also it is suggested that i have to use older versions of my software as the current version of Native Access does not run at all. I am willing to put in some effort but all of this seems a little bit too much. I also found out that you can run windows in a vm and give it direct access to hardware so i could Use my Maschine mk3 and all of the software of course. My main concern with this is, that i will end up using windows anyway so why bother switching to linux if it is basically just a host for Linux in this case.
Do any of you have experience with the soft and hardware i use under linux? Or maybe some suggestions how i could solve my problems? Is running windows in a vm a viable solution or should i just stick with windows? Any input is welcome and much appreciated!
The big issue is not the DAW. Reaper will work fine (as well others, I’m sure). The issue is plugins, particularly wrt extended functionality with NI stuff (Maschine, etc.), and a variety of other ones, from Plugin Alliance, etc.
Yes, you could probably get a lot of this stuff to work (though to what extent, I don’t know), but it will not be supported. If things start having issues, or if a new version comes out, there are no guarantees. I had a wierd glitch with a certain PA plugin but since I was using Reaper, they wouldn’t support it - this was on windows.
Also, although you could likely get your interface to run, it’ll not be supported.
In the end, if the fun for you is the challenge of making it work (even with duct tape and bailing wire) then go for it. It would honestly be fun.
However, if the goal is to make music, you run the risk of spending valuable time grinding away on compatibility issues - time that could be spent doing the music thing.
There’s a reason why people gravitate towards MacOS for music - it just works, even more so than with Windows. That said, I just can’t stand Apple computers (it’s the walled garden that gets to me - YMMV - it’s a personal choice) and settle for Windows on a home built PC with a healthy dose of WSL.
The other big thing holding me back is Adobe - lightroom, mobile, cloud, are all very much part of what I need. No joy there in *ix-land.
FWIW, I exclusively ran linux (and FreeBSD) for several years. Switched back to windows for the sake of compatibility with my workplace.
Let us know what if you end up trying it out - I am tempted to test it out too, but I am unlikely to switch.
Last time I tried to use low latency audio on a Windows VM the latency was still horrendous. You could get closer to the desired result via some non-trivial virtualization where you passthrough a whole USB controller to Windows and you plug your hardware in it. Unfortunately that still isn’t as low latency as native Windows. It might be possible to get there via further optimization like CPU core pinning but I didn’t get there. I keep a laptop with Windows for the purpose.
TL;DR: Windows VM for low latency audio isn’t an option.
Sounds like you have some investment into hardware and software not really designed with linux in mind. Running windows in a VM could work. There might be issues with graphics though if your VSTs/DAW have a lot of eye candy, as you’ll usually use a virtual GPU with a VM. You could always try a windows VM inside windows whether it works OK, before committing to linux + VM. An alternative could be to have a dual boot setup. You could use linux for day to day things, and reboot into windows to do music production.
This is a great comment. If it’s dabbling then absolutely, have fun! But it’s a real self-administered kick in the nuts to squander serious investment in SW/HW just for bragging rights, cool as they are.
Dual boot is probably the (annoying) answer. Not sure on the efficacy of a windows VM for music production.
I did some music production on windows, had a lot of vsts and everything worked pretty well. I then lost interrest for a while and switched to linux in the meantime. After starting again, I realize, how much easier it was on windows. While the bitwig plugins are great, there are so many things, like some effects plugins missing, that I really want to have. Of course carla and wine works quite ok, but it still isn’t the same as native running plugins. My suggestion is to stick to windows if you do music production somewhat professionally, but if you have the time and motivation to work with a limited set of instruments, go for it. It can only change for the better in the future.
yabridge works really great for working with Windows plugins. I have quite a few of them working out just fine—at least with Bitwig, which is a native application.
That said, I’ve also seen some plugins that did not work. In particular the problems can be related to license management; they probably get confused of what kind of system it is running on…
In my view yabridge is easy to use, but on the other hand I have a decent amount of Linux experience, so perhaps the experience can vary.
I might sound like an old fart but here’s my 2 cents.
I was exactly in the same situation in 2005. I was heavily invested in commercial products but I wanted to switch to an all open source workflow. My advice would be to start small. First dual boot with windows. Get your DAW working at a basic level. Then get your hardware setup the way you are fully comfortable. Then try to get your visual instruments to work.
Keep in mind that it will be a somewhat different workflow. Linux is highly modular. You can definitely achieve the same results but sometimes with more tools. Jack is an amazing sound system which is now seamlessly integrated into the system with Pipewire. It makes routing your audio stupidly simple and opens up a whole different universe of possibilities.
All this is coming from someone that’s using an all open source approach for almost 20 years now.
And if it does’t work, it doesn’t. No need to swim against the current.
