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Ask Slashdot: Best Cross-Platform (Linux-Only) Audio Software?

Posted by Soulskill on from the audiophiles,-now-is-your-time-to-shine dept.

blogologue writes "I have played the guitar for some years now, and these days I think it's good therapy to be creative with music, learning the piano and singing as well. So far I've been using Audacity as the tool to compose improvisations and demos. I haven't done much audio work before, but it is already becoming too limited for my needs. Being a Linux-fanboy since the mid-nineties, I'm now looking for a good audio processing/editing/enhancing setup that can run on different platforms, the most important being Linux. Are there any suggestions for Open Source or proprietary audio editing software that run on Linux?"

41 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Ardour by orcundead · · Score: 4, Informative

    Great mutlitracking software, simple enough and straightforward if you know your way around other DAW environments like Pro-Tools or Cubase, keyboard shortcuts can be easily customized.

    1. Re:Ardour by marcello_dl · · Score: 2

      Depending on your workflow, sharing audio sessions with other people can be as simple as exporting relevant tracks making sure they are easily resynced together (for example exporting the whole audio interval for each track), or as difficult as "You gotta have same audio program and plugins and same versions". If your sharing problem involves sw programs or versions, your problem is worse than sharing, it's archiving.

      There is no guarantee that today's most used audio will be viable tomorrow, so I suggest to keep plain audio and midi of your stuff always and pick the sw that you prefer.

      There are multimedia distros with live DVD: avlinux, dream studio, artistx, ubuntu studio...

      Check out their offerings, it's not like you can't download a fully functional copy. Audacity is great for simple retouches, you want a DAW or a sequencer with audio editing functions for anything more complex.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    2. Re:Ardour by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2

      Correction: crippleware if you don't build it from source.

      My bad. Sorry. Actually, just to be clear, the OP's submission (pre-editing) does, to be fair, mention "proprietary or open-source"...

    3. Re:Ardour by BitZtream · · Score: 3

      Best cross platform .... Linux only ...

      What exactly are we describing as cross platform and what exact shitty software won't work on one Linux box versus the next?

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:Ardour by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Great mutlitracking software, simple enough and straightforward if you know your way around other DAW environments like Pro-Tools or Cubase, keyboard shortcuts can be easily customized.

      I'm sorry, but Ardour is not "great". I believe in Linux and OSS, but if you need to make a living in music or sound, you are not going to be using Ardour. The music production community is always open to new technologies, and if Ardour were anything like a professional-quality application, it would be used.

      There are many great ways to use Linux in a production environment. You can have a Linux box as your sample server, use it to off-load effects and plugins and for rendering. But we still have a ways to go before Linux can be used for DAW production. You can get it done, but it's not nearly optimal.

      At least once a year, a take a run at the latest incarnation of Ardour. If you're a database programmer and want to play like Jonathan Coulton in your spare time, then fine. You can make Ardour work the same way you can use a folding camping shovel to dig a foundation. But if you want to dig a lot of foundations, you're going to want to invest in a back-hoe. And there is no Linux back-hoe for music.

      NOTE: The fine people at Cockos, who make Reaper and their active community (which is the finest DAW software at the moment, in my opinion) support the use of their software in Linux using Wine. http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=26690

      They also encourage the use of Linux in production and post-production via gigabit connections (for offloading processes and rendering and plugins and sample streaming, as I described above). If you are a dedicated Linux zealot, I would suggest starting with Reaper. It's very inexpensive compared to ProTools and it's much more robust and even refined.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Ardour by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Also, Cockos offers an unlimited, unborked evaluation copy of Reaper. But the license is really cheap, so I highly recommend supporting them.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:Ardour by u38cg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ardour is not lacking, rather the issue is the rest of the stack is more trouble than it's worth. For a serious studio a Protools licence is not a big deal. And very few people build from scratch on a GNU platform - mostly because most people are starting out as teenagers with no interest or exposure to FOSS.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    7. Re:Ardour by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think what he means is that it can't be Windows-only or Apple-only, but Linux-only is fine. I'm sure he doesn't mean "will work on any distro" by "cross-platform", he just wants it to work on his box.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    8. Re:Ardour by IANAAC · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think what he means is that it can't be Windows-only or Apple-only, but Linux-only is fine. I'm sure he doesn't mean "will work on any distro" by "cross-platform", he just wants it to work on his box.

      Both the headline and the summary are just laziness.

      Had the submitter taken 5 minutes and done a search, he would have found plenty of software available - and cross-platform at that - to do what he wants.

      Or maybe it was just an excuse to link to his soundcloud page?

    9. Re:Ardour by harrkev · · Score: 2

      I vote for Reaper too. Great program at a very reasonable price, no stupid DRM, and updates included.

      Do you have a laptop AND a desktop? Install the software on both, no problem. No USB key needed.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    10. Re:Ardour by ffflala · · Score: 2

      ...maybe running a VirtualBox instance with Linux and Ardour is a viable option, not sure if there will be lagging in recording audio and so on though.

      Yes, there will. In order to effectively multitrack, latency needs to be minimized, to the order of magnitude of a few microseconds. A real time kernel --direct input access to the iron-- is used to minimize latency. A virtual OS, I believe by definition, will never have real time kernel access. As a result the latency will suffer. I'd be surprised if you can get less than 10 ms with a virtual OS, and I think that anything over 6 is going to be useless.

      OTOH, if you're working with music in which temporal precision is not a primary necessary --for example atmospheric or ambient sounds-- latency won't present (much of) an obstacle. Nor will it if you're working with single tracks.

    11. Re:Ardour by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      Had the submitter taken 5 minutes and done a search, he would have found plenty of software available [...]

      It's a good thing that all open source audio software systems are robust and high-quality, and nobody has ever had a problem with audio under Linux.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  2. Ardour by astro · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  3. Wat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Cross-Platform"

    "Linux-Only"

    Pick one.

    1. Re:Wat by blogologue · · Score: 3, Informative

      It was a different post and got edited a bit. :) I prefer cross-platform, but if it's only available for Linux, that's OK too.

      --
      The blogologue
    2. Re:Wat by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      The secret of getting good answers is to ask good questions.

      It wasn't at all clear if "linux-only" was OK or not, and that makes a HUGE difference to the answers.

      --
      No sig today...
    3. Re:Wat by BrokenHalo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I had been about to mention that submissions usually get put through the mangle by some so-called editors(*) before making an appearance in public. You are probably fortunate that it is comprehensible at all.

      *term used loosely; my original (edited) choice was less polite, but possibly more informative.

  4. Cross Platform Host Bitwig by six025 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Forget using an audio editor for song composition, what you need is a proper audio host (commonly called a DAW).

    The options for Linux have been a bit lacking but that is about to change with the impending release of Bitwig. Developed for Mac / Win / Linux, it functions similar to Ableton Live, which is incredibly popular for a good reason - it's unique take on music arrangement means it is great for jamming, live performance and experimenting with ideas. Check it out here:

    https://bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio

    Peace,
    Andy.

    1. Re:Cross Platform Host Bitwig by polyp2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yup - Im holding out for this one too. For the moment Im very much into Renoise - its pretty amazing. I use it exclusively on Linux and get great results... take a look : https://soundcloud.com/polyp

      --
      Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
    2. Re:Cross Platform Host Bitwig by six025 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Will there be a command-line version und can I pipe it to /dev/snd ?

      I'm guessing the answer would be no ;-)

      Sox (free, open source) is what you want for that type of processing.

      http://sox.sourceforge.net/

      Peace,
      Andy.

  5. Re:Cross Platform Host - PyDAW by six025 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is another option for Linux which is open source - PyDAW. Check out the project here:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmodsynth/

    Although I have no experience with PyDAW, it has been in development for some time and should be very stable.

    Peace,
    Andy.

  6. Best Big (Small) Car? by seyyah · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm looking for contradictory things.

  7. Qtractor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Qtractor:

    Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt4 framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.

    Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.

    http://qtractor.sourceforge.net/qtractor-index.html

  8. DSP and AudioLazy by hexxa_decimal · · Score: 5, Informative

    If Audacity is becoming too limited, perhaps you

    1. Need more multitrack features (Audacity is more an editing tool than a mixing one)

    2. Need a DSP (Digital Signal Processing) package so you can create your own audio processing patches

    As Audacity uses LADSPA plugins, you'll have the same ones in Ardour and any other DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software. Another DAW would give you other analysis and another UI, but unless it goes beyond LADSPA/LV2, you'll have the same audio processing plugins. A "next step" here would be working with audio directly by programming, designing synthesis models, filters and so on. Usually that's not easy, but that's what many contemporary music composers do all the time.

    For the asked "good audio processing/editing/enhancing setup that can run on different platforms", I suggest you try AudioLazy (https://github.com/danilobellini/audiolazy) as part of this setup. It's an open source DSP for Python. Functions like "lowpass", "highpass", "resonator" gives you some common linear filters, and you can make your own [time variant] linear filter with the "z" object, besides basic operations (e.g. multiplying signals), synthesis (ADSR model, table lookup, FM synthesis, etc.), non-linear processing (e.g. getting the "arctan" of a signal to distort it), etc..

  9. There are many options by AntiSol · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's lots of open-source audio production software out there. Ardour, mentioned by others, and for midi composition I quite like rosegarden. There's also a bunch of other software which follows a more unixy philosophy - it does one thing and does it well but it's designed to be chained together. For example, there's jack, a low latency audio framework designed for audio production. It has a nice patch panel which allows you to link the output of any jack-enabled software to the input of any other jack-enabled software, ad nauseum. There's also an insanely huge pile of LADSPA plugins available for any software which supports them (most open-source stuff). There are many, many open-source software synths: timidity and fluidsynth being only the tip of the iceberg. One which may be of interest is bristol - it's an emulator for many popular and famous old synths.

    But when it comes down to it, I use FL studio. It's proprietary and not very highly regarded amongst some (snobby) audiophiles, but FL Studio runs quite well in wine, though it may require some tweaking to get it working smoothly. I like FL studio for its intuitive interface and bundled synthesizers. It's easy to use for a beginner with little audio production experience but it has enough knobs and dials that you're not lacking for options when you want to start getting more technical.

    I highly recommend running FL studio in it's own wineprefix so that you can tweak to your heart's content and so that other wine programs don't interfere with it. Since wine and FL both support ASIO you can plug FL studio into jack and use all the awesome open-source jack-based tools out there in conjunction with FL.

    For the open-source crowd, there's the inevitable open-source recreation: LMMS (Linux Multimedia Studio). When I last played with it it was very new and immature but it did support using VSTs through wine and it looks like it has matured well - I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

  10. Guitarix by DrNico · · Score: 5, Informative

    As everyone has noted, Ardour is great for recording. Another really useful tool is Guitarix which is a fantastic guitar amp and effects modelling piece of open source software. Plug your electric guitar directly into your computer via a USB interface (I use my Rocksmith connector) and you can amp/effect model in Guitarix and record as you play in Ardour. Add the Hydrogen and you've also got your drums playing and sync'ed as you record. As well recording, these make a great set of tools for guitar practice.

  11. Re:please correct me if you can by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hardware audio sync is antiquated and unavailable because audio chips are not running simultaneous A/D. They are doing multiplexed A/D (far cheaper) so there is no such thing as true zero-latency recording of multi-track audio on PC audio devices (or any others for that matter).

    There is nothing you can do in a PC to correct this latency because the information is just not there. You get your track 2 sample a sample time after your track 1 sample. Of course, the chips are actually running samplerate*n_channels so the per-track sample rate is still what you want it to be, but the samples are all interleaved.

    To do true zero-latency recording of multiple simultaneous tracks requires a multi-channel simultaneous A/D, which is rare anymore because of price competition. You can't hear the difference anyway, despite what "audiophiles" tell you anyway.

  12. Re:Flamebait by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2

    Calling fine software (audacity) that millions of users use 'crap'...

    No, he was talking about "Adaucity", which is apparently so obscure, not even Google can find any developers associated with it. So that program might indeed be crap, but we'll never know.

  13. LMMS or Qtractor or Traverso and JACK by muridae · · Score: 2

    The windows release of LMMS is a bit buggy and finicky, but once I installed it in Ubuntu Studio (I could go source-only route, but letting someone else manage the package dependencies is easier, k?) it ran very well. With JACK handling the low latency interconnects between the usb midi adapter and the soft synth, and from the soft synth into LMMS, or from a simple app with some ALSA out to a software effects rack (Ubuntu Studio comes with a few) with JACK connecting that to LMMS, it all just seems to work. JACK is the glue that ends up tying all the pieces together, but if you are a Linux audio geek you either know that or are going to get very familiar with it very quickly. The other two I have very little personal experience with, but they are other big name DAW in the Linux world that I have yet to see mentioned.

  14. AV Linux by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 4, Informative

    AV Linux (http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html)

    Has Ardour, LMMS, JACK and many other multimedia tools configured to work together. Can run either as live DVD or install to your harddisk.

    --
    Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
  15. Re:If you want to get serious about audio... by Katatsumuri · · Score: 3, Informative

    I agree there is benefit in open solutions especially in open/standard file format support, but I don't think an OS choice makes sense as a #1 priority, which was GP's point.

    For a nice quick overview of top 15 candidates for a good modern DAW see http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-15-best-daw-software-apps-in-the-world-today-238905/1

    Choosing Linux as OS does limit your options here severely.

  16. Get your priorities in order by Rob_Bryerton · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way; just a bit of warning first. It's may sound mean, but I'm trying to help a fellow musician by snapping him out of his misguided fantasy land. Before you mod me down, think about it people: if you have access to professional tools, why would you not use them? You'd be a fool not too, correct?

    Being a Linux-fanboy since the mid-nineties...

    There's your first problem. Get over it; an OS is only a tool, a means to an end."I'm a Craftsman fanboy". "I'm a Snap-On fanboy." Sounds pretty silly, right? That's because it is silly. A tool is just that. It is either high-end and suitable, or it is junk and unsuitable for the task at hand.

    If you're serious at all about your music, you use OS X or Windows. That's where the action is. Full stop. That's where the the real music software will be found; nowhere else. Swallow your pride, choose one of those 2 OS's, and get on with making music. Honestly, this is like GiMP vs. PhotoShop, but on a whole other level. There is NO comparison. Get on with life, and leave Linux in the server room, where it belongs. ALL of the pro-level tools (and most of the toy stuff, too) is on OS X and Windows. Why are you restricting yourself? You're killing your potential and being held back by insisting on using third-rate tools. And for what? Because you're a "fanboy"? Good God, man, grow up!

    I say this as someone who makes their living as a Linux sysadmin. I use OS X at home, because I don't let a misguided sense pride get in the way of making music, among other things. You use the right tool for the job. PERIOD. Honestly, who intentionally sabotages themselves?

    Mod me down, boys...

    1. Re:Get your priorities in order by six025 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah there is more software available on MacOS or Windows in this field but you are way way way overstating your case.

      The GPP is absolutely not overstating the case. I love Linux and open source, but it really isn't ready for audio recording and MIDI processing, let alone the myriad of other apps and plugins required for effects processing and mastering. I would be extremely surprised if there are any serious audio professionals using Linux as a DAW.

      As for the rest of us: inspiration can be difficult to find. When an idea for a song strikes your chosen platform and toolset must be ready to record perfect audio with low latency now. No configuration, no messing about. Load host, press record, start playing. Anything else is a compromise and will hamper your creativity.

      OS X and and Windows allow this to happen with very little configuration. The plugins are available, both free and paid. Linux does not. It may do in the future with host like Bitwig being made available (soon ...), but until that day it's Mac or Windows for consistently repeatable high quality audio work.

      Peace,
      Andy.

    2. Re:Get your priorities in order by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      Get on with life, and leave Linux in the server room, where it belongs.

      No, linux belongs on students' old PC's - real server computing is done with ULTRIX, IRIX, OSF/1, or HP/UX.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Get your priorities in order by ffflala · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you're serious at all about your music, you use OS X or Windows. That's where the action is. Full stop.... Why are you restricting yourself? You're killing your potential and being held back by insisting on using third-rate tools.

      Please, revisit this preconception of yours. At first I was tempted to dismiss it with something antagonistic like "oh, shoosh," but that would be counterproductive. There's an underlying stereophilic assumption you're making here that I hope you will honestly revisit.

      Consider a longer-term view: the past century of music reproduction technology. 100 years ago you'd be dealing with piano rolls, player pianos; a bit later, '78s. Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, even the earliest Miles Davis was recorded under these relatively primitive conditions, and the music transcends the limitations of the tools. A few decades later the Beatles were cutting Sgt Pepper's with a fucking four track. Less than a decade later Queen gave us Bohemian Rhapsody, again using tape. Pink Floyd's The Wall.

      There are countless examples of great music with limited technology. The functionality that all of these production studios had was much more limited than what you can do with Ardour.

      The "grow up!" part of your comment really irks me. There are long term, RMS reasons for using free software. Professional artists are faced with a complex IP structure in which the use of proprietary solutions risks unintentional effects on your artistic output, such as surreptitious audio watermarking.

      I don't wish to sound dismissive. At the risk of doing so, it sounds like you're a sysadmin professional, not a music professional. I don't understand why you feel comfortable giving career advice directed towards those in the music industry. Can you explain a bit more about your own experience earning a living from creating and producing music?

    4. Re:Get your priorities in order by ffflala · · Score: 2

      Your experience, which I will take at face value, isn't the point.

      There is an *inherent* appeal in free software to composers, sound designers, producers, and the kinds of creative people who want control over the tools they use in their creations. Think of like painters who could afford drums of whatever paint they'd like, but ultimately prefer to mix their own paints, or the kind of composers and performers who were building their own analog synths in the 60s.

  17. Nothing. In my Professional Opinion. by Schezar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is nothing. There is no good solution for you. That was the answer in 2005 when I first asked it, and that is the answer today.

    Even an ancient copy of Cool Edit Pro running on Widows XP is more usable, useful, and powerful than any audio software available natively on Linux. Your non-professional, non-Windows options all share many (if not all) of these problems:

    1. Limited basic functionality
    2. Extensible only through writing your own code
    3. Difficult (impossible) to configure
    4. Literally the worst UIs you will ever see in your entire life
    5. Often unable to work with digital mixers and audio interfaces

    In the time it would take you to get something useful and functional working in Linux, you could spend the cash you would have made working minimum wage on Windows and Audition (or just pirate a copy of Cool Edit Pro).

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
  18. Thank you to the submitter by mcgrew · · Score: 2

    I'm looking for the same thing, something better than Audacity. Since I've been buying recordings for almost half a century I have a lot of analog recordings that I've been digitizing. I have an ancient Dell tower running Windows XP, and the only thing I use that computer for is digitizing using EAC, a free but Windows-only program. I can sample an LP or cassette (which of course takes as much time as playing the record) then spend five minutes telling EAC where it changes tracks, then burn it to CD. I havent' found the tools to do this in Audacity.

    I hope I can find a good Linux program, otherwise I'll have to unplug my modem every time I fire up the sampling computer. I'd rather just throw kubuntu or Mint on it.

    So I'll be looking at responses and checking out any linked sites.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  19. Question Closed by Outtascope · · Score: 2

    This question has been closed as not constructive by ... oh wait, wrong forum.

  20. Rosegarden by HalAtWork · · Score: 3, Informative

    Rosegarden is an amazing piece of software, very close to garageband. Supports midi, notation, sampling, multi tracking, control external synths, really full featured. I don't know why it isn't mentioned more often.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  21. Fedora or CentOS + PlanetCCRMA by ffflala · · Score: 2
    Try this: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

    Planet CCRMA at Home (CCRMA is pronounced ``karma'') is a collection of free, open source rpm packages (RPM stands for RPM Package Manager) that you can add to a computer running Fedora, 17, 18 or 19, or CentOS 5 (not all applications are built on the 64 bit version) to transform it into an audio workstation with a low-latency kernel, current audio drivers and a nice set of music, midi and audio applications (what if you are not using Fedora or CentOS?).

    In particular, familiarize yourself with qjackctl and the jack server that it controls; it's a bit like the *nix concept of piping I/O, but for sound and sound apps.