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Audio is really not all that hardware intensive. I used to run 256 tracks of 16-bit ProTools on a Mac II with no DSP or extra hardware. Granted, a digital machine is not like other audio hardware, like a u67 or 89, but if you owned those, you would never ask for hardware "updates." But fucking hang on to your hardware and software if it works, and stop updating. New hardware is not going to sound any better. Also... Ardour is good stuff. Digi keeps fucking their customers over, and fuck Windows, are you shitting me? If not a Mac DAW, then a Linux DAW or FreeBSD DAW is the obvious replacement... not Windows. Fail. But all that matters is what it sounds like, so maybe you win.

As someone who has had a quite decent midi keyboard for some years, and a linux user for close to 20.. yes, she would be quite happy.

The jack backend is absolutely lovely for connecting everything together, and there are a myriad of sampled synths and modelled synths available. In terms of mixing/recording ardour is a popular choice but again with jacks architecture there are plenty of choices.

While there still may be some things that can be hard to do on linux.. I cannot off hand think of any.

So where are all the examples of this myriad of sampled and modeled synths?

As someone who has had a quite decent midi keyboard for some years, and a linux user for close to 20.. yes, she would be quite happy.

The jack backend is absolutely lovely for connecting everything together, and there are a myriad of sampled synths and modelled synths available. In terms of mixing/recording ardour is a popular choice but again with jacks architecture there are plenty of choices.

While there still may be some things that can be hard to do on linux.. I cannot off hand think of any.

By the look of it, https://ardour.org/ is a full multi track recordiing studio while http://www.audacityteam.org/ is a simple wave file editor. There is no comparrison. It is like comparing Photoshop to Paint. Audacity should have given up years ago, especially considering their bar was set so low. It only ever barely worked on OSX.

Try Ardour: http://ardour.org/

Ardour is a very capable DAW, but by itself it's not "A viable alternative to osx (and ms) for multimedia work". AV Linux is, however, a snapshot of Debian testing with numerous setup tweaks and a real time kernel that does make a usable OS for audio work. And includes Ardour, of course.

(if you're interested, watch the AV Linux forum., A new release is imminent...)

Try Ardour: http://ardour.org/

You can argue about Ardour vs. Pro Tools, but basically they do the same kind of job. Many audio professionals use Pro Tools not because it's better than anything else but simply because if you ever send your work to another studio or get another engineer to work in your studio, that's what they'll expect.

Incidentally, Ardour also works on OSX and Windows now, but it's better supported (because more widely used so far) on Linux.

1) http://manual.ardour.org/worki...
2) http://manual.ardour.org/worki...

1) http://manual.ardour.org/worki...
2) http://manual.ardour.org/worki...

Years ago I ran hacked versions of Sonar on an XP system with a basic two channel usb input. For basic recording it worked fine, and Sonar wasn't bad.

Here we are several years later and I have been thinking about getting back into it, and I've researched DAW on Linux and found Ardour, which I haven't tried.

Like others have pointed out, getting drivers of interfaces to work has worried me on Linux, though they show certain M-Audio ones they recommend.

But alas, I've stayed on Windows 7 with Sonar and it is working fine.

Have you looked into this package? https://ardour.org/ And please, no Apple Fan-boy talk. :P

There is no since in bothering with most of the people, they are locked in there ways. It is senseless and futile trying to making then change, they will defend to the bitter end there point of view. Most of us that have seen the light will never make then change there ways, so do not bother. But for those that are tire of loosing there rights of freedom, I will give you some tools for audio & video production. This are few simple distributions that will cover audio and video production and all frequently needed software. My kids are studying audio&video production and graphics design. They use MS & OSX at the university, but they use live sticks when they are not at home. And I tell then the same thing, use Musix, KXStudio, AVLinux, this have all the tools that you are most likely to use & need. From editing audio tracks to music production and music scores, and as to VST plugins you can get everything that you would ever need. And as far of it being out dated software Ardour will keep update in audio plugins for a modest fee. And when I say modest fee I do not mean $200 it $5.00 a month, but it best explain other read some forums you will see. https://community.ardour.org/n... Granted Linux is not all in one fix for all that is wrong in this world, but one step at a time we will get there. And as for the privacy with MS & OSX that will never simply go a way, they will be forced to comply with big brother more and more. So it is you choice. All that most of us are saying is that you are making choices that will make a difference in the future. If you give all your rights now, you will not have any in the future. You will be the same slave that so call are fighting for in other countries. Freedom is a very lucid and limited thing, and I called a thing because it is almost none existent today. Every day you have given your right under the pretext of security. Well security was defined in the middle ages. I will protect you, so I will own you. So how well did that turn out, is that what you want for your future.

Where are the usable pro quality Linux apps ?

SmartGit: http://www.syntevo.com/smartgi...

IntelliJ IDEA: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/...

Ardour DAW: https://ardour.org/

Ardour has a dependency on GTK, as per this, so Gnome would seem the more natural fit. I use mint/mate myself, but as others have pointed out you might want to consider a special purpose a/v distro. Several exist, based off of most popular general purpose distros. See this.

I know that to get Ardour running smoothly I had to jump through some hoops to set up Jack properly (Jack Audio Connection Kit) and chances are that a specialized distro makes that kind of thing a bit easier.

I wrote a longer post but I lost it, so here's the links:

LMMS ("Compatible with many standards such as SoundFont2, VST(i), LADSPA, GUS Patches, and MIDI")
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

Ardour (A DAW, but maybe useful)
http://ardour.org/

Rosegarden (Best sequencer, with Lilypad notation support, has actual printed literature you can buy)
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com...

Audacity (PCM swiss army knife ;)
http://audacity.sourceforge.ne...

The Cloudsto MK802IV LE, £80 ARM PC-onna-stick for doing music production on (Toys!!! *8D)
http://www.sonicstate.com/news...

Who needs a Mac or a PC when you can run it all on the CPU your phone uses?
Not tried it myself but for £80, I need to get one and have a go.

Why not go open source for DAW with Ardour ?

I really, really tried to like Ardour - went through as many tutorials as I could find, played with it for months.

It just... I dunno, never felt complete. Plus, I had a Macbook gifted to me that already had iLife '09 and Logic Express 8 installed, so I kinda gave up on the whole Linux studio hobby for a bit.

I recently found an ISO of PuppyStudio (with rt kernel!) that I managed to get working, and it has Ardour installed, so I might give 'er another go here in the near future.

Pretty cool stuff out there for free, especially if you're just starting out and are a bit of a geek.

For quite some years now, Ardour has been the apparent frontrunner in the area you are asking about.

I'm a developer, used to work at a big company, now working with mostly startups and earlier companies, sometimes as a consultant, sometimes on salary, doing well for myself.

I was trying to do multitrack recording on a budget, and couldn't afford expensive music sequencing software. The demos limited the number of simultaneous tracks, etc. Eventually through recording forums I happened upon a few folks who were into a more DIY approach and things like Ardour were starting to become viable options. I knew how to steal the paid stuff for Windows but the alternatives caught my interest. I was a little blown away at the time that this kind of thing was available for free.

While then and now it was in vogue to shit on all the sound issues on Linux, it was in the process of resolving those through mystical command line invocations that I came face to face with what was running my computer all those years, and was impressed by the power. After that I was hooked on discovering how the pieces fit together, and became a proficient Linux user/admin. Loved the command line since.

Fast forward a bit through that and I'm a music major trying to weasel my way into DSP classes so I can make my computer make cool noises. It requires a basic CS course (taught in C++, well, basically C with the C++ string lib) as a prereq, so even though I didn't have any interest in learning to program in general, I sign up.

Most of the kids in the class hate it, are either experienced programmers forced to go through the basics again because they didn't have the fundamentals down, or people who didn't want to program but had to take the class. 50% of the kids are gone before the end of the class (starting with 120+). I seem to be one of the few kids sitting in the front, totally jazzed. I forget about DSP, and end up majoring in CS. Still addicted 7 years later.

You never know what you've got an aptitude and interest for until you try it. Until something clicked in those early CS classes, I had a few run-ins with programming in the past and it seemed boring as fuck. I thought being a programmer was equivalent in interesting-ness as being an accountant. Dry, stuck in a cubicle, doing something worthless and boring. All the jobs being outsourced. Zero idea it would be something so creative, challenging, liberating. Also gives a decent paycheck, whether you freelance or sign up for a 9-5. Programmer life is good.

You talk about Pulse being broken and on it's way out, Pulse is a better sound system by FAR then anything offered on Windows and Mac. Windows loves to bring flat sound and dead sounds environments, Linux brings a live environment and options to the music / audio lover.

Pulse is better? Yeah, that's why all professional audio recording/editing work of any consequence is done on Windows or Mac platforms. The only substantial Linux offering in that space is Ardour, and I challenge you to find ANY professional studio that uses it.

The original poster was 100% correct, and you have no fucking clue of what a distro needs in order to be successful on the desktop.

http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ and http://ardour.org/

Of the relatively few people i know that use pro tools, most have never ending trouble with having it actually function (at least on windows). Extra cost, plsus lock in, and lack of flexibility (comparatively) in workflow. I can see why people take issue with releasing something as 'open source' in a format that is hindering to the cause.

Even on Mac. I used to have to use it regularly, and you would still run into headaches. The worst part is, if you have issues, the stock response from (then DigiDesign, now) Avid is, "Alright, try deleting your DigiDesign Databases (easy step, quickly rebuilt by the application) and your preferences." I'm sorry, but if your solution is that I need to delete my preference files (which generally takes a good period of time to set up properly), I'm going to take issue with that, especially because it seems that it's getting corrupted by the software itself. After doing it once, I decided to save a backup of them right after they were configured.

Of course, the only other option is OMF/AAF, which, ironically, last I checked was not officially supported in Ardour, but is supported by pretty much everything else. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't. Of course, if all that's going on is WAV files with no edits/comping/automation, than get off your lazy ass and spend fifteen minutes importing them. Anyone who works in audio, should know how to import however many wav files comprise the actual recording process, and it'll probably suit your mixing style better than someone else's layout.

The fully OSS community hasn't yet put out a really great DAW

http://ardour.org/

I've been hard pressed to find anything I can't do with it.

It's GPL so if there is something you can't live without, write it and contribute!

• Fossil, a simple, self-contained VCS in a sea of increasingly complicated or bloated systems.
• Quantum GIS, ridiculously fast & user friendly, beats IMO even the most expensive proprietary GIS solutions.
• Ardour multitrack recorder. Less unknown, but still could use a lot more love.

And it's not just in composition software or performances like in the article.

There's some nice synth/digital audio workstation software too. These come fairly well packaged with their own sample kits, integrated synthesizers, LADSPA effects, and plugin support for other things like soundfonts and VST effects and instruments. I believe all of them also save music in XML as well. (Perhaps not the same exact format, but I'm sure they'd be easy enough to convert since labels appear to make sense.) XML is kind of cool, because it should be possible to integrate music into other things with scripting that can readily parse it for things like light-shows or 3D animation. (Easy to trigger events in different ways. So now its just a matter of imagination limiting how one would geek-out with music.) In a way the current FOSS music software scene it reminds me of where FOSS 3D software was about 10 years ago. Tons of potential, just needs people to get on the bandwagon so that it can further develop and match or exceed its commercial peers.

Ardour for Linux and OSX. This one is supposed to be nice. (I haven't tried it yet. I'm waiting for somebody to roll out the Win32 binary.) From what I've seen, it's geared towards the professional. (Looks similar to Cubase?)

LMMS for Linux and Windows. From my experience this one is very easy to use (similar to FL Studio, from what many have said), but has many rough edges. So as quick as it is to get going and doing some very complex things, doing some things with fine control or nuance is harder than it should be. But don't knock it, it's very powerful for what it is.

Unison Music Production Studio for ???... They still haven't started much yet. I've heard comments that LMMS is supposed to merge with this. I'm taking the wait and see approach here.

Some examples? Sure. I think the music in these videos represents the software fairly well.
NIN remix in Ardour
An original score made using LMMS.

I'll also mention Audacity even though it's not a DAW, it is a rather nice recording software and it works well for using alongside the other software here. But I'm sure everyone here already knows about this one.

So if you're a musician or perhaps just wanting to play around with music as a hobby, there's plenty of software to look into. No more excuses about not being able to afford it.

FYI you can run VST plugins in Ardour, provided you compile it yourself. This is due to licensing restrictions by Steinberg. Haven't tested it personally though.

Yes. Depending on what you are attempting to accomplish it may not be for you. I use an m-audio delta 44 and have been using it to make music for a couple years now. Have some links, if you are interested:

Jack - Low latency audio server. Allows you to connect together sound applications. Arguably the coolest thing about audio in linux.

Ardour - Multi-track sequencer

Hydrogen - Drum machine

Jamin - Mastering software

LAPSDA - Plugin API

DSSI-VST - Way to run windows compiled VSTs on linux (of course its not always going to work)

Linux has plenty of other software out there. These are just some links to get you started.

There are many reasons one might not want to choose linux for audio tasks. With a windows and mac setup you have many more choices in regards to soundcards, software, plugins, and virtual instruments. It also may take a little effort to setup properly. To get proper latency you may need to use a real-time kernel. You may need to spend a little time configuring jack to get the best results out of your card. A finely tuned linux system can be excellent for creating music. It may not be the best choice, but it works for me and I can avoid dual booting.

If you want a multi-track recording suite, check out Ardour.

http://ardour.org/

Ardour is the only Free software DAW suitable for any serious work. It uses JACK, which is an excellent low-latency audio routing system, but actual audio playback on Linux depends on the ALSA backend, which varies in quality depending on your hardware. Check the Alsa SoundCard Matrix for details. Recent Linux kernels have reasonably low latency by default, but for very tight latency requirements you might need a custom kernel configuration or patches.

I have not documented my settings, but I've followed community develop documentation to get my setup going.

Also, I did not install the Ubuntu Studio Distribution, I instead installed Ubuntu 9.10 first, then used the repositories to upgrade my desktop with the ubuntu studio package, and the Linux realtime kernel.

My sources are as follows:

Upgrade Ubuntu to Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Multimedia Forums

Excellent Tips/Tutorials from one of the users

jackd home page

Ardour Homepage

These are good starting points. The major issue with documentation and tutorials is that Ardour and Jackd are changing so rapidly that the documents outdate themselves very quickly. Like I said, 4 years ago I wouldn't even think about using Linux for DAW work. In the past two years, especially since the freebob and ffdao projects, the scene has exploded.

If you still have questions after this, feel free to mail me. Depending on your hardware I may be able to help with jackd settings and with general questions.

By what measure of success? Effectiveness, sure. But what is the market share of all the Linux distros put together? What is the ratio of Windows to Linux boxes globally or in the US?

How do you define success? Apparently for you, at least in this context, it's market share. That's a bit spurious considering the fact that Linux is Free. What is the market share of Linux anyway? Probably a lot higher than you realize. Oh, you thought only desktop computers ran operating systems? Ever heard of Tivo? Android? Routers? Embedded systems? Servers? I'll bet if you put every device that runs Linux vs. every device that runs Windows you might be surprised about the "ratio of Windows to Linux boxes globally". Besides, Ferrari has low market share. They're a success right?

Says you. You're omitting how many devices don't work on Linux due to a lack of drivers or simple inoperability with Linux. It's improving, but there's a long way to go.

Linux supports more peripherals than OSX; I don't see you bringing that up? You wouldn't happen to have an agenda would you? Besides, I've installed quite a few Linux boxes in my day. It's the very rare exception that I find a device that doesn't just work out of the box. Contrast this with literally every other operating system ever made. And everytime that has happened, I waited a few months for the next kernel update and it did work. A lot of hardware actually works better in Linux. For example, my Verizon USB aircard. In Windows, you have to wait over 30 seconds for it to do its thing and connect and it disconnects requiring pulling it out and reinserting it about once an hour. On Linux, it connects in about 5 seconds and works perfectly for as long as you want. Funny story, I was at my brother's house a couple of weeks back and his Windows 7 box bluescreened so many times, I lost count. Finally, I was like, dude, what does the error say when it crashes? Come to find out the problem was the USB network adapter he had was crashing his box. Plugged it into my netbook running Ubuntu 9.10 and it worked perfectly.

The main flaw i find in Linux is the opposite. It's small because it's small. Developers don't want to double their efforts to sell to a handful of neck beards.

I don't see Linux's smallness as a flaw. Actually, that tends to increase the signal to noise ratio quite a bit. There are quite a few quality software projects that only develop for Linux and/or OSX and refuse to port to Windows because of the inevitable flood of clueless users that would pull in thus swamping the project in handholding. This is a good example. Very high quality software.

As for the "handful of neck beards" comment, didn't you say something about the supposed childish and condescending tone of the GP? Besides, there are quite a few commercial projects that develop for Linux. But, if you stop and think about it, why would there be large amounts of commercial Linux development in any case? One of the possible reasons developing commercial software is such a niche for Linux is that practically anything you need is in the repositories anyway. And quite a bit of Free sofware spanks the commercial alternatives. K3B smokes Nero. Pidgin smokes YIM, AIM, and MSN Messenger. Firefox and Chrome smoke IE, Opera, Safari, what-have-you. And for the stuff where the Free stuff isn't as good as the proprietary bits, it's still pretty good. OpenOffice is pretty good, GIMP is pretty good, Eclipse is pretty good. Why pay for proprietary software when my needs are already met for free?

Wine isn't there either. i use as much FOSS as i can.

That

For the record, Audacity, is pretty hopeless as a pro tools replacment. Ardour http://www.ardour.org/ is great, but as ususal finding drivers for the hardware is a black art...

"I've seen the same scenario play out with Audacity and Pro Tools: people learn how to edit with free Audacity, and then when they become savvy enough to realize what they are missing with the proprietary stuff -- either in the form of missing features or widespread community and commercial support -- they step up."

... to Ardour you mean ? Because Ardour is the "Pro Tools" FOSS equivalent. Obviously if you choose the wrong tool to compare to, the FOSS version will seem inadequate.

Linux may be free, but there's no truly viable MS Office alternative, nothing that matches Exchange, there's no professional level Photoshop, there's nothing to edit videos with, nor post processing, good luck doing complex audio work

Ardour, anyone? It has been around for quite a few years, and is a really great professional grade DAW/production system. Try googling before posting something quite that ridiculous.

If you are a creative professional -- Linux is completely worthless. Sorry, but it is. I wish that were not the case, but there's no professional-level creative apps for Linux.

I guess all those Xara users, Ardour users, Cinelerra users, MainActor users, Blender users, VariCad users, Jahshaka/CineFX users, etc, are completely boned.

Of all the programs available for Linux, few are of comparable quality to those available to Windows or OSX.

That's just stupid. There are programs of poor quality on all of the major operating systems. Linux has its share of badly put-together programs, but saying that "few" are of comparable quality simply illustrates that you don't spend very much time with Linux systems or just have very poor choice in software.

Linux may be free, but there's no truly viable MS Office alternative, nothing that matches Exchange, there's no professional level Photoshop, there's nothing to edit videos with, nor post processing, good luck doing complex audio work

Ardour, anyone? It has been around for quite a few years, and is a really great professional grade DAW/production system. Try googling before posting something quite that ridiculous.

If you are a creative professional -- Linux is completely worthless. Sorry, but it is. I wish that were not the case, but there's no professional-level creative apps for Linux.

I guess all those Xara users, Ardour users, Cinelerra users, MainActor users, Blender users, VariCad users, Jahshaka/CineFX users, etc, are completely boned.

Of all the programs available for Linux, few are of comparable quality to those available to Windows or OSX.

That's just stupid. There are programs of poor quality on all of the major operating systems. Linux has its share of badly put-together programs, but saying that "few" are of comparable quality simply illustrates that you don't spend very much time with Linux systems or just have very poor choice in software.

I'm pretty sure TFA (which is slashdotted ATM) might be referring to some very well-done, production-grade software for pro audio on Linux:

JACK Audio Connection Kit, by Paul Davis, and Ardour - a digital audio workstation also by him (and many contributors of course... really an outstanding piece of software).

These are my favorites and the main pieces around which a DAW is built around.

You can also try looking for Rosegarden, Jack-Rack, Seq29, Qsynth, Zynaddsubfx (a little outdated but still nice synth), aeolus and I'm sure we could go on for a while.

Your hardware interfaces will mostly have a hard time working in Linux, but check out the options, they might be worth it.

There is a LOT of good audio editing software out there for Linux, much of it used by professionals.

Umm, Ardour is the only good audio editing software out there on Linux. And although its getting there, it doesn't compare to something like Sonar.

I'm with you. I've been using Ardour and Hydrogen for years. Also use Rosegarden for keyboard synth. My keyboard is a M-Audio 49-key USB interface, just plug it in and go. I've set up a few audio production systems for friends as well. Shane Bertrand has been recording and mixing his own music on one for 5 years now. A 10 input M-Audio Delta 1010LT sound card, Ardour, and Hydrogen are his main tools. They recorded and produced both CWO albums on this setup. They used 5 mics to record the drummer; Shane's modest system had no problems handling it all, even at more than 40 tracks in a song. He had a Sempron 2500+ and 512MB RAM w/ Kubuntu, just upgraded to a X2 3800, 2GB RAM a few months ago.

Have you ever played with Ubuntu Studio? I use it at home for precisely what you are describing here, except you can make high quality recordings and mixes.

Also, check out http://www.ardour.org/ [ardour.org]

Ubuntu studio comes with Ardour, and if you couple that with a good 96kHz 24-bit sound card like an m-Audio 1010LT or something, you'll have a near pro-quality workstation sans any crap from Microsoft...

Thanks, I'm very familiar with all those. I already have a box I put together at the rehearsal studio with an Echo Audio Layla. It's just convenient at home on the old box in my music room to not have to boot into another OS just to essentially take some musical shorthand on a song idea when it occurs.

I guess my point is that the DRM that's being reported in Windows 7 would essentially make it a non-starter for me and many other musicians. Also, other musicians I know only have Windows machines, so if/when they "upgrade" I'm certain I'll be getting SOS calls from many.

Cheers!

Strat

Have you ever played with Ubuntu Studio? I use it at home for precisely what you are describing here, except you can make high quality recordings and mixes.

Also, check out http://www.ardour.org/

Ubuntu studio comes with Ardour, and if you couple that with a good 96kHz 24-bit sound card like an m-Audio 1010LT or something, you'll have a near pro-quality workstation sans any crap from Microsoft...

While we are at it, can you point me to a Linux program with the functionality of Logic Studio? The reason I orinally bought the Mac was that Linux just doesn't cut it for music production. I have not regretted that decision.

Ardour is a pretty darn good DAW, if a bit lacking in the MIDI sequencing department currently (I understand this is being worked on). I cover MIDI sequencing with Rosegarden and various MIDI synths. I won't try to say that Audio Production on Linux is at the same point it is on Mac (or even Windows), but for home or demo purposes, I have found it adequate. Audio production on Linux will get better faster if more people stick with it and give feedback to the developers.

I think you're out of your depth. My application's design is totally based on MVC. If you think that you can write a modern large GUI application with widgets that expose just "i was clicked", then I'd suggest that you've either gotten lucky or haven't done it. My app is cross-platform (Linux, OS X and Windows), and the non-GUI engine can be controlled via the GUI, network control, or MIDI (independently or all at once). It runs 8 or 9 threads concurrently. Porting it to a new toolkit would take 1-3 man years of work. I can say this with confidence because the port between a major version switch of the same toolkit took about 1 man year. http://ardour.org/ just in case you care to take a look.

I do recording under Linux, and I like Ardour, et al better than I like anything else I've ever used. I haven't owned a Mac, though, and I've SEEN some stuff on Mac that I'd like to use. That being said, the Linux solutions lack a great deal of polish that most people would require, such as graphical plugins (which I think are on their way with LADSPA2; LADSPA being the equivalent to VST). The only thing keeping Ardour from being as flexible as these other applications, IMO, is MIDI support, which is also on its way.

Again, I really like the feel of Ardour over Protools or Nuendo3, but asking someone to go from Reason, a virtual rack (that actually LOOKS like a rack), to Pd, a sound processing application into which you can program anything (but only has visual representation of signal flow, IIRC), is a tough argument to make.

In any case, the decision between Windows and Linux as a recording environment is a no-brainer for ME. The audio subsystem in Windows is shit, Vista is shit, and Microsoft wants me to call and ask permission to upgrade my box. So *I* agree with you. But asking someone else whose brain works differently to make the leap may not be reasonable.

As for visual apps, I think the same applies, despite the amount of applications such as the GIMP, Cinelerra, etc. I would recommend trying Linux. If you have a Mac, Ardour has a native OS X installer, so try it out. Also, to check out the rest of these apps, try Fink (no 10.5 support). And if you decide to make the leap, UbuntuStudio is a great place to start for the uninitiated. It comes with a real-time kernel and system adjustments and a billion multimedia creation apps.

The Linux-style "give it away for free" approach simply doesn't work for programs that are (a) very complex and (b) not widely used. I'm thinking of music composing, CAD, EDA and 3D design tools here.

You are wrong. Take Ardour or gEDA for example. I'm sure you will point out how unsophisticated these are compared to their commercial counterparts, but these programs are quite functional and suitable for 75% of what people need to do. If there were no commercial software counterparts to these, you'd better believe the companies that needed the software would contribute resources to seeing that the free versions did what they needed them to do.

In fact, I'd argue that it is because of commercial software that the free versions lag behind. If a company can buy a program for $10k, they have no motivation to see that the free version is improved. They might not even want to see the free version improved because the high cost serves as an entry barrier into the field to help keep out competitors.

My point here is that if this truly is the information age, then we must have the notion of information as property.

Unsubstantiated bullshit.

Even free software programmers are affected, since IP law also protects their work from being stolen (GPL violations, etc.).

I loathe people who make this specious argument. If there were no copyrights, there would never have been a need for the GPL in the first place. There's a reason it's referred to as "copyleft" license; it's a direct attack on the evils of copyright.

I still need to own a computer, have Internet access, and pay for the electricity to hear it.

On the other hand we are off to a fantastic start. The software to do pro level recording is free. The hardware interfaces to do high quality multi-track recording are down in price. The Behringer U-Control series is quality at a bargain basement price if you only need CD or 48KHZ 16 bit quality.

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=7866464 CD quality for under $50! Works out of the box in Ubuntu Studio.

For starters, I recommend Ubuntu Studio. It is based on the Real Time kernel for low latency capture with no buffer over/under runs (when set up properly) a good USB capture board. M-Audio USB and PCI stuff work well. Avoid firewire on Ubuntu at this time. It still has issues. For software use either Audacity directly with the hardware or use Ardour GTK2 with Jack. Ardor is a little harder to get going with Jack, but the patch bay for effects can't be beat. Industry standard 24 bit 48KHZ sample rates is directly supported as well as CD standard 16 bit 44.1KHZ and 32bit floating point 96KHZ for serious mastering.

Depending on your choice of hardware, recording masters at 2-8 tracks isn't difficult. (I have both 2 channel 16 bit 48KHZ, and 4 channel recording hardware with support up to 96 KHZ samples in true 24 bit glory.) Getting a drum 4 track recording is easy ready for post production EQ and mix-down. After the drum track is down and edited adding compression, limiting and EQ, adding the lead and bass guitar is next, followed by lead and backup vocals. Then the vocals are ready for stereo FX on another track and stereo guitar FX on another track then final post production. Audacity handles 4 drum tracks, 2 guitar tracks 2 stereo guitar FX tracks and 4 stereo vocal FX tracks just fine. It's fun to watch playback of all 18 tracks and have control over each while you tweak it for 2 track mix-down for the master tape at 48KHZ 24 bit and master CD at 44.1KHZ 16 bit. Real-time low latency playback of the drum and guitar tracks is needed for adding the vocals. Sequenced or real keyboard is optional. Vista is not suited for this.

What to avoid...

1 Windows Vista. It is not real-time. To get it to work requires large buffers placing a high latency on your capture. This makes recording a track while playing a track (adding the vocal to the background track) almost impossible without lots of post production to time sync the tracks.

2 Anything SoundBlaster. SB compatibility is another name for re sample. They have no direct capture at 24bit 44.1, 48, and 96KHZ. They are OK for VOIP telephone, podcasting, and speech recording, but will mangle serious music mastering. Your software may chose other same/bit rates, but remember, it is re-sampled, not captured at that rate.

What to get.. Pro sound mixer. Some have the audio capture board built-in. Remember the limitations on fire wire. They are OK on Windows XP. Audacity is free and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some fire ware mixers have 8 track capture! Awesome.. But it is Windows only at this time.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Ardour if fantastic if you want to step up. You have to get jack working to use it. It has a much steeper learning curve to route all the patch cords and you can overload the processor and get glitches. This is for advanced users with hot CPU's.

http://ardour.org/

So if you have a laptop with a USB port, a USB capture device, and a source of quality sound such as a mixing board or guitar amp with line out, you are ready to make CD quality recordings.

Oh, I forgot the other requirement.. Talent.

I MUCH prefer using amarok to iTunes.
I don't how well it compares to logic/cubase/protools, but ardour looks pretty cool, and can apparently use a lot of (most?) VSTs.

Professional audio? Don't even bother. ESounD, ARTS, JACKD, now PulseAudio seems to be the big name in useless sound daemons...but that doesn't mean everyone will standardize on it. As if we needed yet another sound daemon anyway. If the Linux kernel is supposedly so "flexible" that it can be used in any range of devices from computers to cell phones, then why is it that 18 years or more later after the first release, there -still- isn't an easy way to do very low-latency, high quality audio recording on Linux? Linux distributions could _EASILY_ supplant a lot of the Windows based environments for professional audio if the kernel was up to the task. And for those out there who think that Audacity and Ardour are adequate replacements for ProTools...wake up.

I don't know about the rest of your points, but I can definitely argue this one.

If you're looking for "easy" low latency audio recording, I'd think Ubuntu Studio or 64Studio or a host of other alternatives would give you easy access to a preinstalled low-latency kernel and all the audio/video tools you need to make your own high-grade recordings.

Just because Pro-Tools is the piece of software which is handed out with most pieces of pro audio equipment doesn't mean there's no support for them.... My studio has been powered by ardour and JACK for the last few years, and I've been watching more and more people pick up this software. (See the forums and donations flooding into PBD on the ardour page for evidence of this.) Whereas I may have agreed with you a few years ago, saying that "ardour isn't a replacement for protools", I don't think that really holds water anymore. If you really have knowledge of some feature that you want in ardour so badly, go and put your money where your mouth is. I'm sure Paul would appreciate the support, and you'd get the features you want. </shameless plug>

(As an additional anecdote, one of my friends was going to school for audio engineering and mixing in Florida, and mentioned that the school he was going to actually *encouraged* use of Ardour and friends down there ... )

Also, please don't bring audacity into a pro audio discussion. There are plenty of better tools for handling audio than audacity unless you're doing cutting or other simple tasks -- it's more of a "Cool Edit Pro" replacement than anything.

As well as the plethora of free packages such as Ardour, there's a few companies around with commercial linux products such as Syntheway who make linux compatible VST plug-ins, for use with FST or dssi. There's quite a few plugins for different architectures out there, here's a decent list. The linux sound architecture has been, well awkward until just a few years ago, but has come leaps and bounds since then. Advances in wine and vst emulation should push it past XPs capabilities before MS drops support, and the writings clearly on the wall for that OS, and as far as I'm concerned Vista is broken by design. Good luck with the switch.

no, but you could always subscribe to Ardour and help keep alive the development of foremost libre software digital audio workstation.

either that, edit some photos, create some music, even make a nice drawing or perhaps write a book. The fact that the Linux and *BSD excel at IT and programming jobs doesn't mean that's all they're good for, as you'd know had you actually used them.

or you could just troll on Slashdot like you're doing right now, you can use Opera or Firefox perfecly fine for that under Linux, too.