Help and suggestions wanted ... recording on Linux

[EvelBist]

I'm not getting the master I want using just a Boss BR-600. I know, its a poor workman who blames his tools, but I just want to know if there's some program that runs on Ubuntu Linux that I can cut and paste sections, see noise spikes and clean them up, etc. I dont think a hardware device alone is going to give me the control I need. Any suggestions? What is a decent but not too expensive program? Thanks!

[Caravan Ray]

Audacity is free. You can use it to cut and paste sections, see noise spikes and clean them up, etc.
I sometimes use it to find any stray spikes.

I don't know whan an "Ubantu" is. I know it runs on mac and Windows.

[EvelBist]

Hey CR: Ubuntu is a flavor of linux. I've heard of audacity. From your description, its sort of basic and you use it for trivial tasks, right? What about something somewhat more extensive. Maybe not protools level, but shows some capabilities to get a newbie's feet wet ...

[roymond]

Rosegarden. You know about google, right?

[EvelBist]

Rosegarden. You know about google, right?

yeah, i think so - its a place to buy sunglasses, right?

I'm just looking for real reviews of software, i have read some about Reason, Audacity, Protools. I know a guy who is using Prosonus. But everyone who has an opinion on what they are using is gold to me. I'll check out Rosegarden. thanks

[jb]

Audio on linux is STILL a recipe for heartache. Just a heads-up.

Rosegarden. You know about google, right?

yeah, i think so - its a place to buy sunglasses, right?

I'm just looking for real reviews of software, i have read some about Reason, Audacity, Protools. I know a guy who is using Prosonus. But everyone who has an opinion on what they are using is gold to me. I'll check out Rosegarden. thanks

[Caravan Ray]

Hey CR: Ubuntu is a flavor of linux. I've heard of audacity. From your description, its sort of basic and you use it for trivial tasks, right? What about something somewhat more extensive. Maybe not protools level, but shows some capabilities to get a newbie's feet wet ...

Garageband is the one I swear by. Functional and idiot-proof. That would be my recommendation. But you gotta have an Apple.

[jast]

There's Ardour for Linux. But seriously, Linux can't really compete.

[EvelBist]

ok, i tried out hydrogen last nite. I was verrrry impressed with its rhythm creation technique. And "ARDOUR" is supposed to seamlessly work with it, so tonite i'm going to download it and try them both together. I 'll post a review as someone may want to use linux tools in the future.

I also changed the title of the thread to cite linux as the target os. I guess I should have done that from the beginning, but now that opinions on windows and mac - based DAWs are in, those can be tried if the linux ones dont work out.

[ken]

I did some tracking in Ardour a while back and it worked just fine. I don't know how the editing works or anything else though.

[Generic]

If you're just doing basic track editing, then Audacity or Ardour should do the job for you. If you wanted to record a song completely in the Linux environment (and if you wanted it to sound good), then you're probably out of luck.

I read an article once about why Linux just doesn't process audio input very well. It got highly technical, but the gist was that the Linux kernel deprioritizes certain types of memory functions in such a way that recording audio will always introduce a certain amount of lag, or something like that. It is, as far as I can tell, an insurmountable problem.

[EvelBist]

I read an article once about why Linux just doesn't process audio input very well. It got highly technical, but the gist was that the Linux kernel deprioritizes certain types of memory functions in such a way that recording audio will always introduce a certain amount of lag, or something like that. It is, as far as I can tell, an insurmountable problem.

audio output seems fine, so perhaps the problem was with input? maybe the problem has been fixed since the article.

[irwin]

Ardour is fine. The routing is a little complicated but once you figure that out it's a pretty standard DAW environment. The biggest problem I had was not Ardour's fault at all, but a lack of decent plugins.

I never had a problem with glitchy audio while using it, but maybe I don't tax my DAW as much as some do.

I would not recommend audacity. It's fine for sound file editing, but terrible for multitrack work.

I've heard of people running Reaper under Wine, that might be worth a shot if your architecture is supported by Wine/Windows.

[HeuristicsInc]

Guys at work talking about this just recently. Word is you would do better to have a Linux distro specifically engineered for audio:

I've been using Red Hat/Fedora for years for audio because of the support from the Planet CCRMA group at Stanford, who develop a real-time kernel for Linux, which is highly recommended for doing any audio work (it gives audio processes priority over everything else, so you have less chance of hickups in your audio due to other processes trying to grab CPU time).

Hope he doesn't mind me copying that here
-bill

[EvelBist]

some more info discovered:

ubuntu Studio is a distro that is targeted at music/art production. I havent been able to decipher if the current 12.04 release has a realtime kernel built in, but i know there is one available for earlier releases. It looks like some have successfully rebuilt the realtime kernel for the current release however.

Ardour is totally free, though they want you to volutarily pay $45 to download. On their forum is a section where users post their creations, and they sound very good IMO. So using Jack (the inter app connector), hydrogen (the rhythm box), Ardour and an interface device (m-audio 1010lt, or similar), one could get a minimal home studio DAW up and running for less than $200. The computer has to be available first, of course.

[fluffy]

The $45 is only for Mac users, I thought. On Ubuntu et al it's just apt-get install ardour, for exactly $0.00. I have it installed but haven't gotten around to trying it.

[Generic]

Dave Leigh, who records as Spintunes' "Dr. Lindyke," records exclusively on Ubuntu and hasn't had any trouble with it. EvilBist, do you want me to ask him if he'll talk to you about it?

[fluffy]

In my experience, whenever a Linux user does something exclusively on Linux and has no problems with it, it's because they've never done it on another OS where things actually work right without a lot of futzing. Which isn't to say that you can't get accustomed to it or anything, but it does often require a higher level of dedication than most people want to get into.

I'm simply amazed at how many people on Linux simply put up with Audacity, for example, because they don't realize how terrible it is for anything but the most trivial operations (and it makes trivial operations overly complex to boot). And don't get me started on people who think GIMP is just as good as Photoshop (who clearly have never used Photoshop for more than the most trivial things).

That said, as long as Ardour has some sort of latency compensation, that takes care of the majority of the problems of Linux's architecture anyway. And to be fair, the Mac has the same issue - Logic and GarageBand (and I'm assuming Cubase and ProTools) just do a really good job of hiding it.

[EvelBist]

just an update: i bought a W7 64b i3 machine. i still have a ubuntu machine, will put ubuntu studio on it and report back then with ardour loaded. But i'm going to try reaper on the w7 machine for now with a focusrite 2i2. It will be my first foray into DAWs. wish me luck ... ok, i'm dreaming, whatever.

[Mostess]

I tried a Linux set up a while back (Ubuntu). I got Ardour working after dealing with something called JACK. I got my hardware set up right and got to recording. It was sheer nonsense. There were these tiny buffer under-runs that would happen once every few seconds because the OS would ignore the incoming data for a microsecond here and there and the little missing bits would add up to a latency problem. It turns out it's kind of a fight between the audio people who want to prioritize their processes and the OS developers who demand there is always a dedicated hook for OS processes to do other things. At the time, the audio people had figured out how to override most of those hooks, but not all of them. So long story short: it wasn't worth the week I spent tweaking the hardware and OS.

tl;dr: Use Win or Mac.