Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Support & discussion regarding DAWs and MIDI sequencers.

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

What are your favourites?

Ardour/Harrison Mixbus
56
39%
LMMS
8
6%
Qtractor
18
13%
Rosegarden
6
4%
Tracktion Waveform
13
9%
Renoise
5
3%
Bitwig Studio
9
6%
Reaper
20
14%
Muse
4
3%
Other
5
3%
 
Total votes: 144

Death
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Death »

Michael Willis wrote:For what it's worth, I have the opinion that Ardour and Mixbus should be considered different DAWs for the purposes of a survey like this.
ufug wrote:Hey, why isn't Jokosher in the poll? :)
Well, the maximum number of entries for a poll is 10 which only leaves one more choice left to put on there which I was trying to save for any successful Linux DAW that I was ignorant to. Also, just my personal opinion, but Mixbus seems to just be Ardour with a modified mixer that has built in DSP as far as I can tell. Maybe that's just my ignorance though.. As for Jokosher - never heard of it. But I am always interested in looking into new Linux DAW's so am trying to look it up now. But the website (http://www.jokosher.org) doesn't seem to be working to well right now. I'd like to look at some good screenshots and videos of it - know any?
milo wrote:I agree with Michael Willis - your choice of software environment for music production is purely pragmatic, and there is no shame in using a Windows/OS X tool that you like. There are many factors in the equation (in no particular order): cost, freedom, workflow, interface, stability, software capability, technical expertise, creative style, curiosity, etc, etc. These factors weigh differently for different people, and even for the same person they will weigh differently at different times, and even for different songs.

These days I am using Ardour mostly, because I am not doing a lot with MIDI, and it is a really great environment for recording multiple takes on guitar and vocals. But I have also done some LMMS work recently, and I often use Hydrogen for my drum tracks. I've read enough comments from Qtractor fanboys on this forum that I am curious to give it a try. Maybe on my next song. I have also used Audacity in the past, but I don't recommend using that for anything non-trivial.
Yes. I'm not one of those Linux users that needs everything to be free and open source. I don't think that always makes sense for developers who wish to actually make some money from their work (we all know what happened to the music business once it all became available for free!). FOSS is awesome too though for obvious reasons. I respect both!

Honestly, as an FL Studio user, I just find it hard to leave that sequencer, piano roll and general flexibility of midi clips behind. FL Studio is so bloody good at it and I'm so accustomed to it! It's hard to explain how good it is to people that have never spent much time with it.. I'm not at all ashamed of using Windows software either. I just want to use all Linux software someday so I can become more of an advocate for Linux and music making on this platform. Qtractor is very cool though. I really like it and I think it's my favourite so far. I just have a couple of serious issues with that program which is why I haven't switched to it. The lack of PDC is a big deal for me. I also don't like the way that you can't make windows permanently stay on top of other windows - it disrupts my workflow too much. I spoke to the dev about it on this forum and it sounded like nothing would be done about these things anytime soon. Still, it'll stay there in my mind and I can imagine myself using it one day, or maybe switching to Ardour or Mixbus if the midi improves enough.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by ufug »

Death wrote:
ufug wrote:Hey, why isn't Jokosher in the poll? :)
Well, the maximum number of entries for a poll is 10 which only leaves one more choice left to put on there which I was trying to save for any successful Linux DAW that I was ignorant to.
Sorry @Death, it was a bad joke about how things are sooo much better now than they used to be. I think Jokosher has been dead for a long time. It was briefly hyped as a GarageBand for Linux but it never really worked (or at least, I could never get it to work).
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by sysrqer »

On the subject of mixbus vs ardour, it's true that mixbus offers a lot of nice additional features but I don't think it should be viewed as ardour pro as such or even better necessarily, it has some serious drawbacks when it comes to routing that ardour does not suffer. As far as I can tell the mixbus aim is to be software for mixing and summing, possibly recording and arranging if you don't need to do anything with layers/panning/grouping or bussing to non mixbus busses.

It's a serious drawback for me to the point where I can't even consider it a viable option so ardour and mixbus are quite different and which is better depends largely on what you need/want to do.I think mixbus doesn't aim to be a daw but has most daw features, although the vision is more towards having a virtual console.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Death »

ufug wrote:Sorry @Death, it was a bad joke about how things are sooo much better now than they used to be. I think Jokosher has been dead for a long time. It was briefly hyped as a GarageBand for Linux but it never really worked (or at least, I could never get it to work).
Ah that's ok haha. I've only just come back to using Linux a matter of months ago so I might've gotten the joke otherwise :P
sysrqer wrote:On the subject of mixbus vs ardour, it's true that mixbus offers a lot of nice additional features but I don't think it should be viewed as ardour pro as such or even better necessarily, it has some serious drawbacks when it comes to routing that ardour does not suffer. As far as I can tell the mixbus aim is to be software for mixing and summing, possibly recording and arranging if you don't need to do anything with layers/panning/grouping or bussing to non mixbus busses.

It's a serious drawback for me to the point where I can't even consider it a viable option so ardour and mixbus are quite different and which is better depends largely on what you need/want to do.I think mixbus doesn't aim to be a daw but has most daw features, although the vision is more towards having a virtual console.
I see. I didn't realise Harrison had changed much about it other than the mixer section. I just didn't notice anything else in my time with these programs. I spoke to a guy from Mixbus years ago (Ben something or other I think..) and he said it was only intended to be a virtual mixing console. I just interpreted it as meaning "Ardour isn't good when it comes to midi so neither is Mixbus" :mrgreen:
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by sysrqer »

That's probably a fair conclusion but very much dependent on your needs and how you get on with the way they do midi. I think it's pretty good overall but there are some significant bugs when it comes to looping midi. There are high hopes for ardour 6 to address these problems but apparently it involves a lot of work so we'll see. I think it will be solid, they know the workflow issues.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Death »

sysrqer wrote:That's probably a fair conclusion but very much dependent on your needs and how you get on with the way they do midi. I think it's pretty good overall but there are some significant bugs when it comes to looping midi. There are high hopes for ardour 6 to address these problems but apparently it involves a lot of work so we'll see. I think it will be solid, they know the workflow issues.
Yes. I'm very excited to see the midi progression. It's the main issue for me. I play guitar in some of my songs but I mostly make electronic music these days so midi is very important to me..
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by jonetsu »

This is why I use Mixbus32C for mixing: great sound. And Bitwig for creating: great (MIDI/Audio) flexibility for expressing ideas.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by bhilmers »

Death wrote:I'm very excited to see the midi progression. It's the main issue for me. I play guitar in some of my songs but I mostly make electronic music these days so midi is very important to me..
Same here. I need the ability to record live instruments and program soft synths. I don't even consider using anything that isn't a monolithic DAW these days. The last two years I've taken quite a liking to Ardour and it's getting closer to being my main tool.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Michael Willis »

bhilmers wrote:Same here. I need the ability to record live instruments and program soft synths. I don't even consider using anything that isn't a monolithic DAW these days. The last two years I've taken quite a liking to Ardour and it's getting closer to being my main tool.
What midi editing features would make Ardour better for your workflow?
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by bhilmers »

Michael Willis wrote:What midi editing features would make Ardour better for your workflow?
Honestly, Ardour has everything I "need." Some of the way it handles editing is genius, and in other ways it's frustrating (but that's just something that comes with practice). If I had one "want" it's not MIDI specific. I wouldn't mind having more dynamic control over automation points. Different easings and stuff, like how some editors let you draw Bézier curves in the automation pane. I know that's not easy to implement.

Ardour is a pretty spectacular DAW. I plan on donating to the project once I finish my taxes.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by bluebell »

bhilmers wrote:
Michael Willis wrote:What midi editing features would make Ardour better for your workflow?
Honestly, Ardour has everything I "need." Some of the way it handles editing is genius, and in other ways it's frustrating (but that's just something that comes with practice). If I had one "want" it's not MIDI specific. I wouldn't mind having more dynamic control over automation points. Different easings and stuff, like how some editors let you draw Bézier curves in the automation pane. I know that's not easy to implement.

Ardour is a pretty spectacular DAW. I plan on donating to the project once I finish my taxes.
It would be cool to have MIDI editors as plugins, so we could choose between them. Ardour's audio routing combined with Qtractor's MIDI editor would be nice.

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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by tavasti »

Poll in KVR 'Which DAW would you choose if all things were equal?'

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=520515

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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Basslint »

tavasti wrote:Poll in KVR 'Which DAW would you choose if all things were equal?'

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=520515
Well, of course if all conditions are given, people are going to vote what they already think is the best. But reality doesn't work that way :lol:

And as far as I know KVR is oriented toward electronic music production, so it's natural the DAW voted the most is Ableton, which is optimized for that.

I don't think many people who voted tried Ardour. After all, it's not "industry standard" like Cubase or FL Studio, so many people probably went directly to them.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by Death »

jonetsu wrote:This is why I use Mixbus32C for mixing: great sound. And Bitwig for creating: great (MIDI/Audio) flexibility for expressing ideas.
I haven't tried 32c. Is the sound really much better than the regular version?
Basslint wrote:
tavasti wrote:Poll in KVR 'Which DAW would you choose if all things were equal?'

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=520515
Well, of course if all conditions are given, people are going to vote what they already think is the best. But reality doesn't work that way :lol:

And as far as I know KVR is oriented toward electronic music production, so it's natural the DAW voted the most is Ableton, which is optimized for that.

I don't think many people who voted tried Ardour. After all, it's not "industry standard" like Cubase or FL Studio, so many people probably went directly to them.
Yeh there's not many DAW's you'll get to know well in your lifetime seeing as they take years to master. Most people will probably only ever know no more than a couple of them well. So the problem with these polls is that we're most likely to just vote for the one we know the best and have stuck with. But it still says something about which ones we clicked with the most when trying some out before picking one to really get into.

As for Ardour, it's probably mostly Linux users that use it who are in the minority of people using this type of software so you wouldn't expect it to do so well in a poll that includes all the non Linux DAW's too. It's always been pretty clear to me that it's one of the most popular ones on Linux. More users on other operating systems would probably dig it too if they'd heard about it and tried it.

Ableton is really nice though. I could easily go back to that program.
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Re: Your favourite Linux DAW's in 2019?

Post by tavasti »

Death wrote:
jonetsu wrote:This is why I use Mixbus32C for mixing: great sound. And Bitwig for creating: great (MIDI/Audio) flexibility for expressing ideas.
I haven't tried 32c. Is the sound really much better than the regular version?
https://mixbus.helpscoutdocs.com/articl ... mixbus-32c

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