Tracktion on Linux

Ask questions and get answers about how to make music in any particular way. Hardware or songwriting or whatever.
Post Reply
User avatar
JonPorobil
Beat It
Posts: 5682
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:45 am
Instruments: Piano, Guitar, Harmonica, Mandolin, Accordion, Bass, lots of VSTs
Recording Method: Cubase 10.5
Submitting as: Jon Eric, Jon Porobil, others
Pronouns: He/Him
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

Tracktion on Linux

Post by JonPorobil »

A friend of mine on Google+ just pointed out that Tracktion has an Ubuntu version of their DAW in beta right now.

http://www.tracktion.com/?linux

He said it works "Excellent" on Linux, and I asked whether he meant really excellent, or just excellent compared to other Linux DAWs. He said it was excellent by any standard, and that it's a "proper sorted out DAW."

I haven't run Linux in ages, because the main thing I use my desktop for these days is to boot into Windows 7 and record on Cubase there. Are there any other Linux geeks out there who have heard of this, tried it out, or are willing to try it out? I might use the upcoming three-day weekend to install a new Ubuntu* partition and test it out, too.

*Alas, it seems to be Ubuntu only. If I can get it running successfully on Ubuntu, I'll be more than willing to push the limits and see if it'll run on other distros... provided I can find the time.
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito

Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
User avatar
josh
Push Comes to Shove
Posts: 329
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:43 pm
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Kazoo, Vocals, Keys
Recording Method: Reaper, 4-Track Cassette
Submitting as: Zack Facco
Location: Cambridge, MA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by josh »

I run Linux and have done the vast majority of my recording on Linux for years. This is a really exciting thing to hear. I've used Reaper on Linux via the WINE system (basically, let's you run Windows programs on Linux) and that works amazingly. Only problem is that MIDI sync doesn't work well, which means it can't really be connected to Renoise (which works perfectly on Linux). I currently use Mixbus, which has some very great pluses, but also has some bugs and short comings... I'm definitely going to look into this. Never heard of Tracktion... but I'm about to do some research.
User avatar
josh
Push Comes to Shove
Posts: 329
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:43 pm
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Kazoo, Vocals, Keys
Recording Method: Reaper, 4-Track Cassette
Submitting as: Zack Facco
Location: Cambridge, MA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by josh »

Oh, interesting I think I have heard of Tracktion before as the DAW that comes with Mackie, but I didn't know it had changed hands. Looks pretty interesting. I might try messing with it a little, but I'm doing the RPM Challenge right now and don't have a ton of time to mess around with new software at the moment. But I definitely will soon. It's exciting. Recently Lightworks created a Linux version, which means professional grade video editing is available for Linux, too.
User avatar
JonPorobil
Beat It
Posts: 5682
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:45 am
Instruments: Piano, Guitar, Harmonica, Mandolin, Accordion, Bass, lots of VSTs
Recording Method: Cubase 10.5
Submitting as: Jon Eric, Jon Porobil, others
Pronouns: He/Him
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by JonPorobil »

josh wrote:Oh, interesting I think I have heard of Tracktion before as the DAW that comes with Mackie, but I didn't know it had changed hands. Looks pretty interesting. I might try messing with it a little, but I'm doing the RPM Challenge right now and don't have a ton of time to mess around with new software at the moment. But I definitely will soon. It's exciting. Recently Lightworks created a Linux version, which means professional grade video editing is available for Linux, too.
Yes, I'm finishing up a new album, so I don't have a ton of time for this either. I'm really excited for a Linux-based DAW that actually works, though!

As a side note... WINE can run Reaper now? I've missed a lot in the last few years.
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito

Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
User avatar
josh
Push Comes to Shove
Posts: 329
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:43 pm
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Kazoo, Vocals, Keys
Recording Method: Reaper, 4-Track Cassette
Submitting as: Zack Facco
Location: Cambridge, MA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by josh »

Oh yeah, for a while now! In fact I just checked my email, I switched to Reaper in 2011. If MIDI sync isn't an issue for you, I *highly* recommend Reaper via WINE. It's rock solid and supports VSTs. And it actually generally supports MIDI, just not MIDI sync... Which is frustrating, because the feature is actually already there, it must be some weird little bug. I like Mixbus's built in compression/saturation/eq scheme (works like a mixer strip), but it's built on Ardour and Ardour is junk. Sorry to say. So there are lots of little annoyances. It also doesn't support VSTs and comes with basically no built in plugins.

BTW, I just did a quick tour of Tracktion. Not enough to say for sure what I think, but it at least works on a basic level. There's no manual yet though, so good luck figuring out how to use it. Also, no mixer panel! It's pretty slick looking though.
User avatar
fluffy
Eruption
Posts: 11028
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 10:56 am
Instruments: sometimes
Recording Method: Logic Pro X
Submitting as: Sockpuppet
Pronouns: she/they
Location: Seattle-ish
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by fluffy »

WINE's actually gotten really good in the last decade or so. I use it a lot for weird random proprietary tools that don't have Linux or MacOS equivalents, and for a while I was using it for gaming on my Mac (until game developers started actually supporting OSX, and the dirty little secret there is that a lot of OSX builds of games are actually the Windows build bundled with WINE).

The problem I've always run into with audio on Linux wasn't the software per se, so much as the crappy state of hardware support, especially for multitrack and MIDI. Which isn't to say that things like Ardour et al were any good, because they weren't - it's just that even getting the basics working was always out of reach well before I even got to the point of even being able to try Ardour out beyond seeing its shitty UI.

I might give this a try on one of my Linux laptops, although I don't have a decent USB audio interface and it'd take a LOT to get me to give up on Logic at this point.
User avatar
josh
Push Comes to Shove
Posts: 329
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:43 pm
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Kazoo, Vocals, Keys
Recording Method: Reaper, 4-Track Cassette
Submitting as: Zack Facco
Location: Cambridge, MA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by josh »

UPDATE: I ended up exploring a bit more when Tracktion 6 was released. It's pretty cool software. Very different then any I've used before. Very modern and sleek. Unfortunately, they don't have a 32bit version available currently and I switched to a 32 bit OS to try and fix some issues I was having with Mixbus. I really like Mixbus, but it's extremely fragile. It needs everything to be set up just right otherwise it falls on it's face. I can't understand why those guys would have picked Ardour as a base for their project. That program has always been a mess :-/
User avatar
JonPorobil
Beat It
Posts: 5682
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:45 am
Instruments: Piano, Guitar, Harmonica, Mandolin, Accordion, Bass, lots of VSTs
Recording Method: Cubase 10.5
Submitting as: Jon Eric, Jon Porobil, others
Pronouns: He/Him
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by JonPorobil »

Did you mean that they don't have a 64-bit version, josh?

Now that my album is out, I'm parceling off some time to get Ubuntu back on my machine so I can try this. Architecture is a pretty important detail. :-)
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito

Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
User avatar
josh
Push Comes to Shove
Posts: 329
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:43 pm
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Kazoo, Vocals, Keys
Recording Method: Reaper, 4-Track Cassette
Submitting as: Zack Facco
Location: Cambridge, MA
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by josh »

No, they don't have a 32 bit version, so you'd want to install a 64 bit OS if you want to try it. 64 bit is the way to go these days anyway. It won't be very long before 32 bit support gets dropped on a lot of software. I can't run Lightworks either for example, which is a pretty good program. Didn't really consider all that before I switched, but I really wanted Mixbus to run reliably...
User avatar
fluffy
Eruption
Posts: 11028
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 10:56 am
Instruments: sometimes
Recording Method: Logic Pro X
Submitting as: Sockpuppet
Pronouns: she/they
Location: Seattle-ish
Contact:

Re: Tracktion on Linux

Post by fluffy »

Yeah, over in the Mac world, 32-bit has gone the way of the dodo; there's still 32-bit apps (mostly older stuff and Java apps) but the OS itself is 64-bit-only and all the interesting new features require 64-bit. Even on iOS they're requiring all newly-built apps to have a 64-bit build.

This does mean that older computers are left behind, but given that even cheap-ass Atom chips are 64-bit now, I don't have a problem with this.
Post Reply