Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Discuss your workplace, instruments, amps, and any other gear.

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hefxthoth
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by hefxthoth »

Name: Cris
Usage: music composition and production. Sound design

This is my main list of audio software at this moment:

OS:
- Ubuntu Studio

DAW/scoring:
- Reaper + stock/JS plugins (easily satisfies all my needs)
- Renoise (I have fun tracking, but not my first choice now. One of the bests samplers I know. Great tool for sample based sound design and stem based compositions sketches)
- Musescore (I use to arrange music; learn and practice music theory)

Synths:
- Surge/Surge XT (almost all I need to make instruments. I love macros to make subsynths inside this beast)
- Yoshimi (a gem for pads and keys)


Special mention to software I've been making use of in the past, or I use punctually now:

- ardour + LSP plugins + Robin Gareus meters (in my opinion, the best GPL tandem for mixing and mastering)
- CALF plugins (great sounding modulation effects)
- dexed (I've learned a lot of FM synthesis thank to this synth)
- TAL noizemaker (good sounding analog/substractive synth)
- Helm (the synth that opened up the road to modern sounds on linux)
- SunVox (not open source, but a gem to make creative experiments)
- Pure data (a canvas to the workshop level)
- Cabbage (The best framework for CSound I've know. Unfortunately, never succeeded installing it on a linux system)
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by glowrak guy »

Part of my setup is a Nux 'Mighty Plug' MP-2, a $75 miniaturized amp/effects studio that plugs into your guitar's cable jack, and has headphone and usb ports. The extensive editing possibilities are done wireless with an app on your phone or tablet. The factory app is augmented by an open-source competitor by 'Tuntori', with more and better features. It's found welcome homes in my Alesis QS8 synth's headphone jack, the audio output of my IK Uno synth, and input of my old ART effects rack, and also via usb connection in AVLinux, to whatever software is looking to be amped up a bit. There are seven sound slots to be cycled through by the one big button on the face of the unit, lit up a different color for each one. So handy as a preamp-pedal replacement, whether using the phone app or not.

Here's one of many reviews:

https://youtu.be/YKlX_nnkDkc
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by mrz80 »

It's a never-ending journey, a trail to be tracked by the scattered remains of previous iterations of the setup littering the side of the road behind me. :D

Let's see where we are now...

Name: Still Bruce, tho if I buy any more gear it'll be "Mud" (at least with the wife! :D )

Computer: home built PC - 4GHz FX8350
I upped the RAM to 24GB and finallyFinallyFINALLY replaced that ancient GT730 with a GTX960 I got for a (comparative) song on Facebook Marketplace. The M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8R is working quite well. The little Chinese brick amp and the NHT SuperZeros are still doing yeoman service, and besides, I still don't have room for anything bigger.

Keyboards:
This is where things REALLY got shook up! Some judicious bargain hunting landed an Arturia Keylab49 (OG, not the MkII) with keybed issues. Arturia tech support came thru and found me a new keybed, so no problems there. Now I just have to up my debugging chops and get the MIDI Control Center working under Wine if I can.
The other BIG bargain score was the $50 (yeah, I didn't think I read that right first either!) Alesis QS8.1 I found on CraigsList. I contacted the seller to see if she'd mistyped, but it was for real. Keyboard wasn't working, and someone had abandoned a decent keyboard in the apartment she'd just moved into. Turned out to be an easy repair, tho I do still have the dreaded task of pulling the keybed apart and cleaning all the contact patches.
Last cheap online acquisitions were a pair of Alesis SR-16 drum machines (first one was mostly dead, but I should be able to fix it).

Guitars:
There's a sea of six strings behind me, headed up by the "daily driver", a heavily modified Ibanez ART-420 with a pickup transplant (Dimarzio SuperII, Duncan JB, Roland GK-3). I've finally landed a second GK-3, so one of my backup guitars (probably the black Tele that's wired like the Ibanez) and play in the GR space as well. Speaking of GR space, I picked up a GR-50 to put in the rack, and an SY-1000 to use in the guitar rig at church. Still haven't done any remedial work on the cheap P-bass. That's way low on the totem pole at present.

Software used:
I'm on Xubuntu 22.04 with the Studio stuff provided via ubuntustudio-installer. I tried and greatly disliked KDE; I decided to stick with XFCE. In the never-ending pursuit of fewer xruns I also went with the Liquorix kernel. Thanks to the magic of Yabridge and WINE, I'm rocking a slew of plugins, the favorites these days DCO-106, Eight Voice, OdinII, Surge-XT, ExactLite, DecentSampler, and Spitfire LABS. Oh yeah, and of course Aeolus because pipe organ. Haven't done much with VCVrack lately. Too much other cool stuff to play with. :D

Current projects: I had to rebuild the desk a couple times to make room for (and shore up the structure to support) the godawful heavy Alesis. Durn thing weighs sixty POUNDS; I hurt my back hauling it out of the seller's car when I bought it! Had to widen and lower the desktop. Also just threw together a couple of stands to hold the Keylab far enough up that I can still reach all the buttons on the QS8.1. Next up will be remounting the monitors and speakers so they're centered on the new, wider desktop.

The new, improved, desk, with the sunken and widened center section to accommodate that Alesis monstrosity
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The rack now sports a couple of patch bays so I don't have to crawl under the desk to hook things up nearly so often
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The quick and dirty supports I gen-ed up for the Keylab. Eventually I'll make a third and put a proper shelf up for some future expansion space
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mrz80
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by mrz80 »

Going PORTABLE! We're heading off to Alaska and I wasn't able to put together any working ham radio gear for the cruise, so I figured why not work on some music? So I put together this setup that'll fit in my backpack and leave enough room for the camera and lenses I always take on vacation. :D The most portability was the chief criteria, so no proper USB audio adapter or USB hub desired. Eventually I'll probably get a Focusrite or M-Audio or somesuch, but the little SB does a decent enough job.

Computer: Late 2011 Macbook Pro - 2.4GHz i5 2 cores 2 threads/core, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 1TB external USB HD for backup and overflow, 13" display
Audio: Creative Soundblaster Play 3 USB audio i/f, yet another pair of Sony MDR V150 'phones with an AntLion mic stuck to 'em
Keyboard: M-Audio Axiom AIR 32 Mini

Software: Xubuntu 22.02 w/ Ubuntu Studio packages, low latency kernel, still comparing/waffling between Rosegarden and a combo of Ardour and MuseScore. The usual collection of plugins - Cherry DCO-106 and EightVoice, PG-8x, OdinII, SurgeXT, Triple Cheese, ExaktLite, Dexed
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by OccinticLady »

Newer setup, consider this an update.
Two 5-octave keyboards, one Miditech, one Korg minikeys, a Monologue, a controlPad (Korg), an M3r (Korg) and a mixer....
O, and a shoerack to put the small stuff on there... :wink:
Of course, the two laptops are part of the consiracy... :lol:

SoundSetup.jpg
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by agp »

Hi, This is my home/hobby studio

Music Software:
TuxGuitar, Ray Session, Carla, Stochas, Surge XT, Elisa, Bitwig, Mixbus, Transcribe!

Music Hardware:
Tascam us2x2, Mackie big knob, iLoud micro monitors, ath-m50x headphones,
Arturia keystep 32, Korg nanoKontrol 2

Instruments:
Volca Drum synth, Ray34 bass, Ibanez short-scale acoustic bass, Gretsch short-scale bass, Glarry Pbass

Bass rig:
Aguilar TH350, Avatar 2x10 cab, MXR bass compressor

Computer Hardware/Software:

Fedora 38
pipewire
Dell Latitude 7410
Intel i7
16gb ram
touchscreen

PopOS 22.04
pipewire
Lenovo Legion 5
Ryzen 7
64gb ram
Nvidia GPU

Issues with the system (problems, complaints): gnome has issues with some paid plugins so i've stopped using these for now. I'm planning on testing out distrobox to circumvent gnome limitations.

Overall rating: I dig it!

Image

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by James Hart »

First post... I've been a *nux user since last Century :roll: but never for audio. Gave up on Linux as a desktop in early y2k but figured it was time to give it a ago again. My old setup was an AMD tower with a mix of 6 and 10 year old hardware in a quiet case and Noctua fans. Never dug Win10 and spent a couple weeks with 11 on my replacement machine and hated it... so mid summer I installed Ubuntu Studio to play with. A few weeks back I decided it was solid and slick enough to move my audio gear over to it.

I am forever a bassist (started in 1980) but have also played guitar since about 1984.

Computer:
2022 Dell Precision 5560 with i9, 32GB, and a 2TB drive. Running a 27" (3840x2160) monitor in addition to the built in touch screen display (3840x2400). I'm looking to add a second internal 2TB drive and need to pick up an external SSD case for my 4TB data drive out of my old tower.

Software:
Reaper & Elisa

Hardware:
M-Audio Air 192|14, couple Black Lion Audio preamps, bunch of mics, Sony MDR-7506 cans, and a vintage silver face Sony receiver (85WPC) pushing a pair of JBL 4408 Studio Monitors.

Instruments:
Basses:
2006 Bee Basses Worker Be fretted 7 string
2003 Benavente 51p fretted 5
2004 Benavente 51p fretless 6
1983 Ibanez RB924
2017 Guild Starfire II
early y2k SX short scale P bass
late 90s Englehardt EM-1 Upright bass
Guitars:
1968 Guild Starfire V
1968 Framus 6/276 Standard (6 string Banjo)
1983 Ibanez RS315 (with Tele pickup replacing the stock humbucker)
2020 Guild D-40 Traditional
2021 Fender Player Tele (with SD La Brea pickups and vintage hardware)
2023 LTD Eclipse NT '87 in Rainbow Crackle
Effects:
Korg Tuner, RMC3 wah, Beano Boost, KoT, FFM3, Mister O, Lucky Cat
Amplifiers:
Fender Custom 68 Deluxe Reverb (22 watt 6v6 1x12 combo)
Egnater Tweaker 40 (40 watt 6L6 head)
Ashdown CTM-200r (200 watt KT88 bass head)
Bag End D12-B (I have a pair of these 2x12" Bass/KB/Guitar cabs in oiled birch finished plywood)

set up at my rolling desk when I first installed Reaper on this laptop

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by GMaq »

Nice!

Great hardware/guitar collection! Love the Guild stuff!

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tmray
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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by tmray »

Name: Tom Ray
Band: Lorenzo's Music

OS: Ubuntu Studio

DAW: Ardour

Plugins: LSP, Guitarix

Soundcard: Behringer U-PHORIA UMC1820 and Behringer ADA8200 Microphone Preamp
Image

The band here is a shot of our studio
Image

We've recorded only using open-source software since 2017

In a recent video on our YouTube channel, we talk more about our open-source music process
https://youtu.be/jb6OKIBdSGE

Last edited by tmray on Fri Jan 05, 2024 7:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Singer/Songwriter for the open-source Creative Commons experimental rock band Lorenzo's Music.
Everything we make is done using only open-source software and tools
https://www.lorenzosmusic.com

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by James Hart »

GMaq wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 6:31 pm

Nice!

Great hardware/guitar collection! Love the Guild stuff!

Thanks, the 68 was my Grandfather's from the early 70s until he passed in the early 90s. I had a 61 Jazzmaster of his from the mid 80s but it was in rough shape by the time I sold it in the mid 90s. The bass is getting an Alembic style bridge put on it eventually and I've already rolled the fingerboard edge and cleaned up the fret work... killer little bass!

I rearranged my desk after that shot and now have my other Black Lion pre set up as my bass and guitar direct input when practicing or putting scratch tracks down without amps & mics. It is a killer Neve 1073 clone

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Here is the acoustic collection (as well as the drum kit):

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by GMaq »

James Hart wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:11 pm

Thanks, the 68 was my Grandfather's from the early 70s until he passed in the early 90s. I had a 61 Jazzmaster of his from the mid 80s but it was in rough shape by the time I sold it in the mid 90s. The bass is getting an Alembic style bridge put on it eventually and I've already rolled the fingerboard edge and cleaned up the fret work... killer little bass!

I rearranged my desk after that shot and now have my other Black Lion pre set up as my bass and guitar direct input when practicing or putting scratch tracks down without amps & mics. It is a killer Neve 1073 clone

Cool! I hadn't heard of the Black Lion Pre's, very interesting... The 68 Deluxes are a great amp, I bought one for my son with Blue tolex and I have the 68 Vibrolux reissue.. Unfortunately I've found they aren't terribly reliable and tube quality is pretty spotty these days unless you have access to NOS tubes. For what Fender is charging and for point to point wiring the component and build quality is a bit disappointing... I have friends with the popular and much cheaper circuit board Hot Rod Deluxes and they've had much better reliability :roll: Both of my silverface amps bought at different times had bad soldering on the Vib/Rev footswitches and I had to re-solder them..

Anyway... Nice gear!

There's a forum section here for sharing your music if you've got some stuff to share!

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by James Hart »

My Deluxe is just about 2 years old with fairly low hours on it... but it already needs the filter caps done! Sounds great still, but hums like nobodies business. At some point this winter I need to get it sorted, I've been looking at a few popular mods to see if I may want to try any myself while I have it open.

Thanks again for the comments, I've been a long time working up to having a tool for most any tones I'm looking for. Once I have some stuff worth sharing recorded on my new Linux setup, I'll definitely share.

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by mrthraz »

Image

Mixxx with Mixmeister in WINE on Ubuntu Studio

Image

F.L.Studio in WINE on on Ubuntu Studio.

Proprietary DAWS

  • FLStudio 21*Wine

  • Renoise 3.4

  • Mixbus32C

Open-Source Linux DAWS

  • Ardour 7.5

  • LMMS 1.30

  • Zrythm 1.0.0

  • Rosegarden 22.12.1

  • MusE 4.1

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

mrthraz wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2024 4:39 am

Image

Mixxx with Mixmeister in WINE on Ubuntu Studio

Image

F.L.Studio in WINE on on Ubuntu Studio.

Nice setup. Do you use the Zoom recorder to record DAW-less or as an audio interface?

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Re: Please share your gnu/linux music production setup

Post by mrthraz »

Linuxmusician01 wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2024 10:44 am
mrthraz wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2024 4:39 am

Image

Mixxx with Mixmeister in WINE on Ubuntu Studio

Image

F.L.Studio in WINE on on Ubuntu Studio.

Nice setup. Do you use the Zoom recorder to record DAW-less or as an audio interface?

as an interface mostly, fader control and transport for the mixers in my daw's

Proprietary DAWS

  • FLStudio 21*Wine

  • Renoise 3.4

  • Mixbus32C

Open-Source Linux DAWS

  • Ardour 7.5

  • LMMS 1.30

  • Zrythm 1.0.0

  • Rosegarden 22.12.1

  • MusE 4.1

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