Are there any big artists that use FOSS software?

[ufug]

I use Linux for music because I use Linux for software work. As such I did not run Windows nor Mac for years and years.

Exactly!

If you were not already using Linux for software work (or some other compelling reason either as a professional like yourself, or hobbyist like me) and approached a computer as a non-technically savvy musician, there would be no compelling reason to choose Linux, let alone FOSS.

I'm am not all all down on Linux for making music or I wouldn't be doing it myself. I love it! But everyone here knows it takes some work and a significant investment of time to get to that place where it seems easy. Audio engineers or bedroom producers who are not into Linux can either choose to make 10 new tracks or poke around jackaudio.org/faq. And that's just the start of the curve.

The only people who think making music on Linux is easy or accessible for average musicians are people who enjoy using Linux already.

"Are there any big artists that use FOSS software?" Even if the question were rephrased to "Linux" instead of FOSS, I think the the answer will be no, not yet.

Someday it will happen, and we'll have 100 new users here saying "I can't get sound to work!".

[jonetsu]

Exactly!

All right.

Although I do not agree at all with your perception that configuring audio for audio production on Linux is difficult. I just recently moved everything to Xubuntu 18.04 LTS and it went pretty well all things considered. And I'm not saying that as someone who works in software. What I mean is that today there's no reason to not have simple setup steps.

After one does need those steps on WIndows and Mac to configure audio for audio production. Already the audience is being narrowed down by the simple fact that those people are interested in getting pro audio out of their computers. So it's not fair to compare perhaps with a typical lambda user.

This said a question arises: why would one 'fiddle' around setting up audio on Linux in the first place ? Eg. why would that someone not follow clear steps pertaining to a specific distro (and use that distro). The answer is that there are so many different information sources around, established at various dates in Linux history and by people of various backgrounds. Who to follow ? Who to believe ?

If one gets AV Linux for instance (hi Glen !) does he also get full instructions regarding which audio interface to purchase and how to set it up ? (I don't know, I'm asking).

There's a fair amount of reproducibility in setups. This is not that much of a jungle. One gets the OS, one gets a sound card that the OS recommends. What else is there ? The mobo can be an unknown, but not by that much. The rest takes place between the keyboard and the chair, and between the audio interface and the speakers.

Someday it will happen, and we'll have 100 new users here saying "I can't get sound to work!".

And so, I quite disagree. Yes we see every week one that asks how come the audio on my machine does not work ? But then it goes back to having proper setup guidelines I believe. And if there are such guidelines, how can one find out about them ? The internet is vast and many pages are not dated.

[zoco]

I'm pretty sure mixbus will have been used on some well known songs but that's isn't FOSS is it?

As far as i am informed it is a cooperation between hardware mixbus and ardour. So partly foss i would say? Disguised foss? Sneaky hidden foss?

Mixbus is a customised Mac OS X version of the open‑source program Ardour (which, unlike Mixbus, is also available for the Linux platform). Broadly speaking, it combines the existing Ardour recording and mixing functionality with a custom mixer. Mixbus itself is thus not open‑source, as the mixer uses proprietary code developed by Harrison Consoles. Many of the features described in this review are, of course, common to Ardour and Mixbus, but for the sake of simplicity I'll refer to Mixbus throughout.

The Ardour DAW is clearly a great program on its own (more info at www.ardour.org), but let's face it: potential buyers are going to be lured to Mixbus for the Harrison mixer. Mixbus's mixer was designed by the same engineers and designers who develop Harrison's hardware mixers. Besides the layout, the knobs and sliders have the same response as their hardware counterparts. Some knobs allow you to use your scroll wheel to dial in minute changes. At first, it seems limiting to not be able to tweak every parameter but, in fact, hidden menus do offer a lot of configurability — and of course you can't change the configuration of a hardware console in real time.

[jonetsu]

As far as i am informed it is a cooperation between hardware mixbus and ardour. So partly foss i would say? Disguised foss? Sneaky hidden foss?

Sneaky ? Have you browsed the Harrison Mixbus forum ?

[zoco]

I didn't mean sneaky from the mixbus side. I think most of the musicians recorded in Mixbus don't know this as they don't care, so sneaky for them. I don't believe anyone behind the tables will inform them about the used software.

And i think there must be studios using Mixbus as Mixbus already has an established name in producers land. So there must be those musicians also then without knowing party using FOSS what the question was. I even think some behind the table don't realize they are using FOSS when using mixbus.

[jonetsu]

There must be a perceived need. Like what are the drawbacks of using Windows/Mac as a OS for professional audio production when compared to Linux. I mean outside of the availability of professional audio applications. What could motivate studios to consider Linux as a better OS to work with, what concerns professional studios have in using Windows/Mac that they could wish they could get rid of, that even perhaps cause them annoyances.

Listening to a Rob Papen streaming (1) (Rob Papen is a well-known maker of software synths), he mentions at one point: "I upgraded to Windows 10 by accident. ... WIndows 7 was very stable. And the last update doesn't want to run on the computer. It's causing constant problems. It's a pain in the butt. If you run Windows 7, keep it running."

That's the type of thing which would position Linux in a favorable spot for acceptance by the software makers to produce plugins that are Linux native.

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycdd4c7aZ80

[Musicteacher]

Setting up a system for audio is difficult regardless of the operation system used.

Any really big artist will just walk into a recording studio and focus on making music. So: If the studio uses FOSS, the artist will, if not, he/she won't.

I switched to linux because I was using linux anyway (for my everyday job). So linux was installed on my notebook. I wanted to have a good piano-sound in my band, so I installed pianoteq and used it.

I had a nice windows-7 based system for music (cubase 7 or so, sibelius) which stopped working sometime (killed itself after an update, typical windows problem).

I then bought a win10-computer. Here: no drivers for m-audio-delta 1010LT. No drivers for m-audio fasttrack pro. Also, I found that the old machine (which killed itself on windows 7) forks quite nicely with linux still (even though there is a hardware-problem sometimes when turning off the machine). That's what I mean by "it's difficult with all systems". The difficulties lie on other spots, that's it. Some things are MUCH easier with linux, some not.

The really big disadvantage of linux in this area is the lacking support for commercial plugins. I appreciate all the work put into wine and such, but that's not the real thing, to be honest.

If someone puts a lot of work into something, there must be a way to earn money from it. In some areas, this is well possible with FOSS. So, for instance, google pays developers to work on the linux kernel, they are running their servers on it and make billions of dollars with it. Really very commercial, but still FOSS. And, quite nicely: All big players in the internet-world work on the linux kernel (google, amazon, microsoft) and there is profit for everyone.

But what if a small company does a really cool sampled instrument which took a whole lot of work and money (rent a recording studio, record it, pay the artists, and so on), how would that work with an open license?

Sorry, I am getting off-topic here. There is other work I should do, that is probably the reason

[jonetsu]

The really big disadvantage of linux in this area is the lacking support for commercial plugins. I appreciate all the work put into wine and such, but that's not the real thing, to be honest.

It could be better, but all things considered it works pretty well. If you do not have a set list of Windows plugins you already own to that you have to make work on Linux. Which is not my case. A plugin does not work ? I drop it. A plugin offers very nice sounds but has some quirks ? I consider if I'm willing to work around those in my work flow. I've done so far a good number of sketches and longer pieces using both Windows (Rob Papen, Sonic Charge, KV331, Image Line, IK Multimedia, Melda, Voxengo, LinPlug, Psychic Modulation) and Linux (pianoteq, u-he, Tracktion, Monoplugs, OvertoneDSP, DiscoDSP, MOK, Redux, Loomer) plugins. That offers a wide palette of 1) sounds and 2) things to learn about them to be able to use them creatively. I do not run the Big Names Waves, Kontakt, Falcon, whatever and I do not really care after all as I have more than enough to learn and use for the coming years. Listen at some of the output I made on soundcloud in the signature's links below.

If someone puts a lot of work into something, there must be a way to earn money from it. In some areas, this is well possible with FOSS.

Absolutely. And conversely, the lack of earning anything can have a detrimental effect. Enthusiasm and dedication are very nice, it's a driving force, although in the end not one that will bring bread and butter to the table.

[Musicteacher]

I use pianoteq, and besides that I use FOSS plugins (mostly calf, Guitarix) only. Virtual instruments: Setbfree, Yoshimi, AVLDrums.

When on windows, I used to use Halion quite a lot, but that does not run via WINE (as far as I know, mostly because of the license-dongle).

But that's me, I am NOT a big, well known artist

[Musicteacher]

By sheer coincidence, I stumbled across this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmWC5dGVvH4

I was interested what kind of synth the korg oasys is, and found that it's linux-based! The succesor, Kronos, too (even though there might be a gpl-violation included, see here: https://kronoshacker.blogspot.com/2015/ ... ronos.html ).

So, considering that Roger Hodgson is a big artist, he is using FOSS, as he is using the OASYS Probably a well known fact to many, but not to me until now.

[pink]

Brian Eno

I don't know how much and for what he is actually using FOSS, but he posts stuff like this on twitter: https://twitter.com/dark_shark/status/1 ... 7297620992

And based on some of his writings (though quite old), he seems to be (at least) a fan of the FOSS idea:
http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_in ... dec09.html

I also vaguely remember seeing some documentary about him, where he was tinkering with Arduino for an art installation.

[zoco]

The really big disadvantage of linux in this area is the lacking support for commercial plugins. I appreciate all the work put into wine and such, but that's not the real thing, to be honest.

Isn't there a way to force them to support linux? Or at least help to get it supported, sharing sources or cores with linux developpers? For them it is forbidden to force you to windows as far as i know.
Brings the situation that linux can not force them to give it away for free.

[Musicteacher]

No, force is almost never a good thing.

It was an important step for Steinberg to put the vst headers under a free license. Now it is much easier to write vst-plugins for both platforms. I have not yet done that, but I did some other platform-independent development. If the libraries are good, it's just a matter of a simple recompile.

Linux gains marketshare whereever it has a real advantage over other operating systems. See supercomputing: 100% linux marketshare. Professional film rendering: I don't know the numbers, but I read that Hollywood is almost exclusively Linux.

Interesting tweet from Brian Eno. Maybe it is meant like that: Hey people, look there is a distribution made exclusively for music. Install it and get started right away! If you start from scratch, I believe that installing a specialized linux-distro will get you going faster than when doing that with windows / mac.

[zoco]

No, force is almost never a good thing.

Normally i tend to agree.
But it seems to be a good thing for windows and mac and too often not for linux? Doesn't a conflict needs to be equal and fair?

[Musicteacher]

I don't see your point. Who is forced into using windows? There is no law for that or something, right?