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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?"

16 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 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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!
  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.

  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.

  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. 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..

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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
  11. 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 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?