Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

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MCJosiah
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Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by MCJosiah »

So I am a young rapper & beat maker that does Alternative Hip Hop & for years I've used a variety of different DAWS but my main DAW is FL Studio.

FL Studio is freaking amazing & it was worth the $200 I paid for it but I'm really starting to not like Windows anymore for many easy to see reasons. I mean I would love to keep Windows on a separate partition, & I do, but I'm ready to switch from Windows to Linux as my main driver while keeping Windows as my secondary OS for iTunes for syncing music too my iPods & iPhone 4S(I own a iPod Touch 4th Gen 32GB, a iPod Touch 2nd Gen 8GB, & a iPod Nano 2nd Gen 2GB, & my dad owns a iPod Touch 2nd Gen 8GB) & for having FL Studio run on a native OS so I can use it for some of my projects or projects I do for others, mainly older projects that I working on in FL Studio years ago.

I installed KXStudio 14.04 on my little laptop(A Dell Inspirion with a AMD A6-9220e APU @ 1.6Ghz, 4GB of RAM, 32GB SSD, & 256GB MicroSD Card), & I dual-booted Windows 8.1 Pro with KXStudio 14.04 on my workstation(A Dell Presision T7610 with a Intel Xeon Quad-Core @ 2.5Ghz, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD & a 4TB secondary HDD).

I don't care about using slightly older OS's as I keep both of these machines completely off the internet. As long as they get the job done. I only connect them to the internet when I have too like for setup(When installing or reinstalling OS's), or when I buy a piece of digital software & need the internet to authenticate the software(Like FL Studio & the various goodies that came with my audio interface). After I'm done with setup or activating stuff, I generally completely disconnect my laptop & workstation from the internet & use a separate computer for internet(The living room media center computer from which I'm typing right now).

The reason I went with KXStudio instead of Ubuntu Studio was cause my laptop was too slow to run Ubuntu Studio & I don't know how to set up Lubuntu properly for music production yet so after digging around & alot of trial & error I found KXStudio to be the best version of Linux for my laptop. Not only that but the KX Studio plugins & apps worked pretty well after setting everything up correctly(Like getting the jack-pulseaudio-alsa going correctly & forcing 16-Bit along with setting everything I know how to to 16-Bit).

On my laptop I mainly installed FL Studio 9.1(the oldest version of FL Studio you can still legally activate from your account as of October 11th, 2019, mainly cause I have a cheap laptop, lol!!!) using WINE HQ. I was gonna say that for mixing & mastering purposes, FL Studio does a incredible job just on the laptop as I made a little beat using LMMS 1.2.0 & tracked it out then loaded it into FL Studio & was able to do a really good basic mix on it.

For recording, on my laptop I've been playing around in both Audacity & Ardour. I have 2 Audio Interfaces, a M-Track 8 Channel audio interface from 2008 & a Focurite Scarlett Solo. I plan on using my 8 channel for my workstation & my little 2 channel as an on-the-go Audio Interface.

I'm still setting up my workstation(More like cleaning it & replacing the old 1TB HDD Boot Drive with a much faster 256GB SSD Boot Drive), so I've mainly been doing testing my laptop with my Scarlett Solo & so far it runs with flying colors though both LMMS & Ardour. I recorded a little bass freestyling to the metronome for about 8 minutes straight at 16-Bit/41Khz & I don't remember getting really an X-Runs. Just like 1 or 2 very small glitches.

The main problems I have been dealing with though is like on the LMMS that comes included with KXStudio can recognize Carla Rack but when I try using LMMS 1.2.0(The new one thats an App Image), that version of LMMS doesn't recognize Carla Rack. I don't mind using just the 1.1.3 version that comes with the distro I installed, but it doesn't have a controllable metronome & even though I plan on using Carla for my Windows Plugins on Linux, the vestige plugin never seems to work on the LMMS versions that come with the distros even with WINE HQ fully working while the vestige plugin on the newest release of LMMS works perfectly fine as long as you have WINE HQ installed.

Which brings me to another little issue I'm facing & that is I'm having trouble getting Carla to pick up any of my Windows VST's. I downloaded over 2000 free VST's so I could stock up & not have to connect my computer to the internet that much & would have a large library of plugins to use. It told me somewhere I needed to install these other packets or addons so I guess I gotta go into a terminal & do that later, lol!!!

I was gonna say one other little annoyance I had was that specoficly in KXStudio I couldn't find a way to just permanently delete items without sending them to the Trash first. It might seem trivial but on my laptop with a 32GB as a boot drive, it's difficult to delete folders with large collections of media on external devices like my 128GB Thumb Drive & 256GB MicroSD Card cause the Trash runs out of space before deleting the whole folder(I was cleaning out all the old videos & pictures from my Micro SD card to have it like a secondary drive for my laptop). I'm pretty sure there's away to delete stuff permanently maybe via command line but I don't know the commands to run to do it.

What ever the case other than those few little issues I'm dealing with, I'm really loving Linux more than Windows right off the bat for music. There's just so many options & possibilities you can do with this stuff that you can do with the commercial software like FL Studio & Abletion but for free almost all across the board.

Also since I have Asperger Syndrome, as I learn the KX Studio, Jack, & other music production stuff of Linux, I'm really seem to like it more as the Linux music system seems to be better more built for the way my brain & others brains like mines work.

Does anyone here have tips they can give me or maybe solutions to some of the small issues I've been dealing with? Any advice it welcomed!!!

Here's my YouTube channel just in case y'all wanna hear some of the stuff I correctly got out. I'm actually working on alot of new material right now: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC04l4l ... subscriber

Well anyway my name is MC Josiah & I would like to say hello to the Linux music community!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

MCJosiah wrote: I installed KXStudio 14.04 on my little laptop
Welcome to the forums! :)

Unfortunately, KXStudio as a distribution or as a repository for general audio software is no more. It's only for certain VST's and certain software like Carla that the maintainer of the repo develops. See the News section on the KXStudio website.
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

MCJosiah wrote:[...] LMMS [...] I don't mind using just the 1.1.3 version that comes with the distro I installed, [...] the vestige plugin never seems to work on the LMMS versions that come with the distros \
I don't know why, but all distro's compile LMMS without Vestige support. Was one of the many reasons to use the KXStudio distro. But those days are gone, elas...
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by tavasti »

MCJosiah wrote: The reason I went with KXStudio instead of Ubuntu Studio was cause my laptop was too slow to run Ubuntu Studio & I don't know how to set up Lubuntu properly for music production yet so after digging around & alot of trial & error I found KXStudio to be the best version of Linux for my laptop.
You can install Ubuntu Studio, and when it is installed, install package lubuntu-desktop and possibly lubuntu-restricted-addons and lubuntu-restricted-extras. That way you get recent OS, and have better possibility to get recent apps there.
MCJosiah wrote: The main problems I have been dealing with though is like on the LMMS that comes included with KXStudio can recognize Carla Rack but when I try using LMMS 1.2.0(The new one thats an App Image), that version of LMMS doesn't recognize Carla Rack. I don't mind using just the 1.1.3 version that comes with the distro I installed, but it doesn't have a controllable metronome & even though I plan on using Carla for my Windows Plugins on Linux, the vestige plugin never seems to work on the LMMS versions that come with the distros even with WINE HQ fully working while the vestige plugin on the newest release of LMMS works perfectly fine as long as you have WINE HQ installed.
Maybe in Ubuntu Studio there would be properly built LMMS with carla support? Or if you have distro where Carla is properly built and working, building LMMS from sources is not really bad task.

In general, I would recommend trying to avoid need for windows plugins. In the long run, time spent on finding suitable native linux plugins will result more time spent on real music making than strugle on making windows plugins work. It is possible to get most windows plugins working ok, but it may take some time & effort.

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by milo »

Welcome to the forum!

Deleting files in Linux is easy. I will introduce you to one of the most dangerous commands of the Unix/Linux terminal: rm. Please be aware that indiscriminate use of this command can torch your system and all of your data. I myself have lost months of priceless and unrecoverable photos and videos of my family by misusing this command. You have been warned.

Start by reading the help page, and please read it thoroughly before continuing:

Code: Select all

rm --help
If it weren't for Asperger syndrome, we wouldn't have half of the technology that makes modern life possible. We welcome Aspys with open arms in the Linux world!
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by Michael Willis »

milo wrote:If it weren't for Asperger syndrome, we wouldn't have half of the technology that makes modern life possible. We welcome Aspys with open arms in the Linux world!
Just for context, this means a lot because Milo works in the medical field as a neurologist.

I haven't ever been diagnosed as such, but I'm fairly confident that I'm "on the spectrum".

Josiah, you have clearly already made great progress on your foray into using Linux for audio production. I can tell that you are not afraid to try new things, and you are asking the right kinds of questions. I'm not familiar with LMMS or how to get windows VSTs working, so I can't help much with that, but I encourage you to keep up your efforts and keep asking questions, there are plenty of people here willing to help.
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by bluebell »

milo wrote: If it weren't for Asperger syndrome, we wouldn't have half of the technology that makes modern life possible. We welcome Aspys with open arms in the Linux world!
I am no expert but isn't part of being an Aspy honesty and forthrightness? Shouldn't we all try to show more of that instead of being afraid to tell the truth because it might offend someone?

Linux – MOTU UltraLite AVB – Qtractor – http://suedwestlicht.saar.de/

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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by MCJosiah »

Linuxmusician01 wrote:
MCJosiah wrote: I installed KXStudio 14.04 on my little laptop
Welcome to the forums! :)

Unfortunately, KXStudio as a distribution or as a repository for general audio software is no more. It's only for certain VST's and certain software like Carla that the maintainer of the repo develops. See the News section on the KXStudio website.
Thanks!!! Yea I know it's outdated & stuff but it runs on my laptop. I'm thinking of giving Ubuntu Studio 19.04 a try again. Last time I tired it, it kept freezing at install. Even Lubuntu alone would freeze so I had to use the alternative ISO when I installed Lubuntu on it.
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by tavasti »

MCJosiah wrote: Thanks!!! Yea I know it's outdated & stuff but it runs on my laptop. I'm thinking of giving Ubuntu Studio 19.04 a try again. Last time I tired it, it kept freezing at install. Even Lubuntu alone would freeze so I had to use the alternative ISO when I installed Lubuntu on it.
If your laptop is bit too old for installing Ubuntu Studio, you most likely can install lubuntu/xubuntu, and afterwards add all stuff which is in ubuntu studio. Installing needed programs as you go is easy. Making configurations may need bit more studies to find out what are changes, but that is great way to learn more about your system.

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by MCJosiah »

tavasti wrote:
MCJosiah wrote: Thanks!!! Yea I know it's outdated & stuff but it runs on my laptop. I'm thinking of giving Ubuntu Studio 19.04 a try again. Last time I tired it, it kept freezing at install. Even Lubuntu alone would freeze so I had to use the alternative ISO when I installed Lubuntu on it.
If your laptop is bit too old for installing Ubuntu Studio, you most likely can install lubuntu/xubuntu, and afterwards add all stuff which is in ubuntu studio. Installing needed programs as you go is easy. Making configurations may need bit more studies to find out what are changes, but that is great way to learn more about your system.
Yea I'm thinking about doing so. Well it's actually a fairly new laptop. Like it's a 2018 Dell laptop but a super-super low-spec & low-power one. It has a AMD A6 9220e SoC/APU clocked at 1.6Ghz with 4GB of DDR4 single-channel memory & a 32GB SSD.

It's performance is probably that of a modern $50 to $100 Windows Tablet or a High-End Gaming/Music/Production Workstation from around 2004/2005 I'm guessing. But it has incredible battery life. I can get around 6 hours of use on a full charge.

I mainly got it cause I wanted a small easy to carry laptop that had a long battery but I could afford(I couldn't spend more than about $90 on a laptop at the time).
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Re: Yo, What's Up Everyone? MC Josiah here!!! New to Linux music production!!!

Post by dharya »

Thanks for the information.
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