I think my minor gripe would be Ardour’s relatively inferior audio and MIDI editing to Reaper. But Reaper looks real ugly on Linux. So it’s hard to decide which to use.

Linux isn’t all peaches and cream… but Windows? Please…

As big a fan, user, supporter and maintainer of Linux as I have been over the years, I have to say, MacOS X Catalina and Logic Pro X are the best platform I’ve ever used for music production.

https://soundcloud.com/loheatmusic

Linux is the best platform I have found for working on professional grade audio. It is true that there are some configuration items to deal with, but no more than with the Windows or Mac OS’s. I know some of you may find that difficult to believe, so I will take some specific examples.

Sound cards: Like with all hardware purchases, you should make certain that it will work with your OS. This includes both Windows and Mac as well. Most pieces of hardware will specify system requirements, inculding OS, processor, and RAM. You should pay close attention to this BEFORE you buy if you wish to avoid surprises.

Every piece of connecting hardware on every OS uses a driver. Period. The difference is driver management and, unless you are tech savvy in the first place, it doesn’t matter what OS you are running if you have a driver issue: you will need help.

Many mixers today provide multi-channel USB audio streaming and the AES67 protocol for audio over ip is in early stages of adoption. Many of these mixers will simply connect to your Linux workstation with no requirement for the user to do anything. As long as the relevant module (driver) is on the computer, the OS quietly loads it and the device just works.

If the device fails to work there are three likely possibilities:

1: Manufacturers are always looking for some new secret sauce to make their product stand out in the marketplace, sadly this may mean that there is no hope of running this device on Linux without a lot of probing and coding time. AVID is notable in this regard. Point of fact, there are some AVID sound cards with perfectly acceptable specs, even by today’s standards, that the company does not support on any platform and yet they also refuse to release the relevant documentation to allow for community support on any OS (Open Source is not limited to the Linux platform, it simply refers to a project for which the source code is available to everyone, e.g., the uncompiled program)

The driver has not yet been mainstreamed. This is more likely in newer unique hardware. USB audio limits this because the protocol for connecting via this means is a fairly mature standard. AES67, for ethernet connectivity, is still in its infancy.
The driver has been removed from the mainstream. Let’s face it, there is a limit to how many devices can be actively supported in the mainstream. If every device that made sound since the advent of the computer age was supported out of the box we would require a much larger hard drive. With Linux, however, removed from the mainstream does not mean unsupported. You just need to find the project where some stubborn tech is maintaining the code and install the driver.

Here I am at somewhat of a loss to give advice to newbs who have no interest in learning the command line. I have been using Linux and supporting various unices, Mac (OS 9 and X), and Windows for so long that the command line on all of these OS’s is second nature to me. I find it provides the most amount of information in the shortest period of time because I can quickly get the computer to tell me what I want to know and display it the way I want to see it. The bottom line here is that I am so comfortable with the command line on all these platforms that I have not payed very much attention to the management GUI’s on any of these platforms and, as this is a comment and not an actual article, I feel disinclined to spend the time on research. There is a GUI tool for managing kernel modules (drivers) on Linux, beyond that I can tell you no more.

So, to my recent purchase: I recently purchased a Behringer X32 and connected it via USB. All 32 tracks showed up right away but none of them worked. I looked at everything on the computer and found no issues. The driver was right where it should be, it was the latest rev, the DAW showed the device, but there was no sound making it to the configured tracks.

So it was off to google where I very quickly found the answer: upgrade the firmware on both the mixer and the X-USB sound card. There was even a youtube video. I did so and instantly everything worked. The point: USB audio just worked wonderfully, it was the mixer that was the problem.

Lest you think this is a one off, I recently did some work on an Allen & Heath QU-16 and connected it to my laptop to record the event. This time running Debian 10 and the purchased version ($45) of Ardour, which also runs on the Windows and Mac OS’s. Once more the device simply connected and worked. I didn’t even have to open a terminal window.

Control Surfaces:

The last piece of hardware I will discuss and my latest purchase, an SSL nucleus (original series, NOT the series 2) This DAW control, interface, requires two connections, an ethernet connection for MIDI in order to control the DAW, and a USB connection for audio and sending keyboard and mouse commands from the macro buttons on the surface. Again everything worked, although I did have to go through a little hoop to get the Ardour profile loaded into the Nucleus, but that is outside the scope of this comment and would have been the same on Mac as it was the Nucleus that was the issue.

Wrapping up hardware: Dante is not AES67 compliant, although it appears it may be moving in that direction. Audinate has stated that it has no plans to port (recompile) its virtual soundcard to Linux, so at the moment Linux and Dante are mutually exclusive.

VST plugins: Since information is constantly changing, I will simply paste this link: https://manual.ardour.org/working-with-plugins/

Huge pros for me: With Windows, the monitors move around from time to time, with Mac you either spend huge amounts of money or everything, including extra displays, is supported by external devices. With Linux you get the simplicity and cost effectiveness of commodity hardware combined with unmatched stability. NOTE: Once it is set up, it just keeps going and going and going. I have a mail server running in my basement that has been running for fifteen years. Almost every piece has been replaced, including the motherboard and power supply, but it’s been done a piece at a time and the OS load is the same one as was done back then. Although it has been upgraded from etch (version 4) all the way up to Jessie (Currently 9.13) by simply using the distribution update utility. Since my studio is new, so is my DAW, so only time will tell how long it will run without an OS reload. Probably I’ll do it with each new major Ardour release. The point of all this: Linux is worth any extra work in getting it set up because of the stability factor. It is just a wonderful thing to know that your DAW will just run when you get up in the morning and start to work on your next project.

John Tatum
slidesinger.com