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You should check out JUCE: http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/juce.php a very good cross-platform library. high quality C++.

Seems odd that nobody has mentioned JUCE yet.. http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/juce

It's a nicely-written Qt-style C++ library. Dr Dobbs actually rated it more highly than Qt in their Jolt awards a couple of months ago: http://www.drdobbs.com/blog/archives/2010/09/jolt_awards_and.html

I've never been a big fan of run-time loaded UIs, always preferred the code-generators instead. It just feels better if you can see the code that's going to run, and if you're using a lot of custom components it's more flexible.

Juce and its "Jucer" UI builder is my favourite for this stuff - it generates c++ code with comment-tags for squeezing custom code into the generated sections. A particularly cute feature is that a Jucer document is just a compilable cpp file, with all of its UI metadata stored discreetly at the end in a commented-out block of XML.

Since Qt's evil empire is getting heaps of free publicity out of this topic, I feel morally obliged to give a quick plug to my favourite toolkit - JUCE. Same kind of deal as Qt, but IMHO the code is a lot nicer to work with. Unlike Qt it doesn't have a big corporation behind it doing aggressive marketing, but I feel it deserves to be on a lot more people's radars...

Traction2 is built using JUCE. JUCE is an all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform applications. Both of which were built by Jules of Raw Material Software. On April, 25th 2005 JUCE was released with Linux support.

There is talk that this powerful, unique, and user-friendly audio application could be ported to Linux. If anyone else wants to support such an idea, e-mail Mackie or see this thread on KVR.

Traction2 is built using JUCE. JUCE is an all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform applications. Both of which were built by Jules of Raw Material Software. On April, 25th 2005 JUCE was released with Linux support.

There is talk that this powerful, unique, and user-friendly audio application could be ported to Linux. If anyone else wants to support such an idea, e-mail Mackie or see this thread on KVR.

JUCE is an all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform applications.

It's particularly good for creating highly-specialised user interfaces and for handling graphics and sound.

The intended users are developers like me, who are writing large, complex applications in C++ and who would like to use just one clean, high-level API rather than a bunch of different libraries for different purposes or platforms.

JUCE is an all-encompassing C++ class library for developing cross-platform applications.

It's particularly good for creating highly-specialised user interfaces and for handling graphics and sound.

The intended users are developers like me, who are writing large, complex applications in C++ and who would like to use just one clean, high-level API rather than a bunch of different libraries for different purposes or platforms.

I'm hoping that Tracktion will be the first killer Linux music app.

It's not open source, but I'm using it on Windows and it's a great inexpensive program (well worth its meager $80 price tag). The developer has stated that if it should ever happen that can't make a living anymore developing it, he will open it up for everyone.

The OS X port should be finished by August, and the Linux port will follow that in the fall.

ptfree is not the same as protools - ptfree is limited in the number of audio and midi channels, does not work with any of the digidesign hardware, and has limited plugin usage

read more
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/ptfree_qa.html

in general, the midi implementation in protools is limited compared to emagic's logic audio

other really good music production suites that won't break the home studio bank

Tracktion

Fruity Loops

Reason

some electronic music producers who use the big software tools occasionally screw around with the cheaper packages and then show how you can make the original song using them - such is the case with Infected Mushroom's "Dancing with Kadafi"
http://www.infected-mushroom.net/Studio/Html/Studi o_Menu.htm

My only advice to you is to ignore the software market as much as possible, and decide on a *stable* platform that does the job that you need - musically - and then leave it at that.

So many people get into music software and lose all impetus to make music because they're always "trying out" the latest and greatest tools/releases from over-zealous manufacturers who release things at a blinding pace.

It *is* possible to get a basic set of tools working under Linux for music writing. Such things as Ardour, Rosegarden, etc. are all viable solutions - though I wouldn't encourage you to get involved with Linux for Audio right now if you're finding that you're already not making music because of computer issues.

Try taking *Just The Basics* out of a package. For example, maybe you don't *need* all the features of Logic, which is getting in the way of your creativity. There is a *lot* of 'keeping up with the Joneses' facter in the musical instrument business these days.

If you want cheap, easy to use, and more importantly PRODUCTIVE software, try the fringe:

Raw Material Software Tracktion

Cheap, works, is easy to use, and easy to configure.

If you're on the Mac, try:

Intuem

But always remember this: If you're not writing music at a pace with which you are satisfied, your music tools are not working.

Scale them back as much as possible. Just because "Joe DJ" uses "Brand X" does not mean that you need to go through the nightmare/headach configuration that they went through only to end up getting 'endorsed' ...

These are all heartening developments, but I have a feeling I'm still a few years away from being able to make music with any Linux system as easily as I can with Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 in Win2K, especially with all the plug-ins and software synths I'm using now. Once Linux audio gets to the point where I can:

1. run a pro-quality sequencer/studio that can mixdown audio fairly intuitively (Under-the-rader programs like Muzys and Tracktion qualify here...),
2. use software synths and effects plug-ins in said sequencer/studio,
3. wrap at least some of the existing VST and VSTi plug-ins I have now (and that list grows every day), and
4. do all of this in an environment that doesn't crash or dump core more than once a week,

Then I'll switch to Linux, and I won't look back. I'm happy to see progress in the 2, 3 and 4, but 1 is the dealbreaker. The lack of the decent software sequencer/studio with soft synth support is the one thing keeping me from making the switch. On the other hand, the fact that it's gotten this far gives me some faith that I won't have to wait forever...

I've used all the big music applications - cubase, logic, cakewalk, etc. and hated them all, but the most interesting thing I've seen for years is a new sequencer called Tracktion - it's got a fantastic, simple functional interface - no menus or dialogue boxes - and after the first minute of thinking "huh??" you're flying!

The best bit is that it's all written and designed by this one guy on his own (in his spare time!) - an awesome bit of coding! He's written the whole thing on top of his own GUI library(!)and judging by the activity on its support forum it's evolving at an amazing rate! It's missing a couple of features, but this is a sizzling bit of software and worth checking out for anyone who likes good UI design!

oh - and the demo tunes are hilarious, too!