Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

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Fmajor7add9
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Thanks for the talk, it's interesting to see the different takes on this topic.

A few Linux DAW-ish ideas have appeared during disk prep and backup as old hardware crept out of the attic:


Set up touch screen https://ctrlr.org controller surfaces for most used DAW and instrument functions on a Lenovo N20 Chromebook (Intel something, 4gb RAM IIRC) or a noname Windows 10 (Atom x5-Z8300, 4gb RAM) or Android (Rockchip RK3066, broken screen but still touchable) tablet. Use them as 10" remotes in any corner of my little loft. Look ma, no mouse.

Figure out Netjack (yeah!) and send master audio busses to a multitrack recorder on an old Celeron SU2300 @ 1.20GHz 6gb RAM laptop. Not sure why but hey.

If any of them can handle a few Bitwig tracks it might be worth the hassle for those extra 8 loop and stretch and re-pitchable tracks. If I get more into DJ-ing-ish stuff it could be a nice Mixxx companion and music library backup player as well.

Or test punish the devices with a synth or guitarix or something and send that the other way.

To keep the Windows 7 DAW as clean as possible:
Hook up OBS (or similar) screen recording with a netjack feed and remote desktop / vnc / teamviewer / any smooth remote protocol.
Remote control isn't really crucial for this task, just a smooth realtime feed of both audio and video.

Please do chip in if you've got other suggestions for this little side-project :)
merlyn wrote:As a long term solution I wouldn't think Windows 7 is an option.

The setup you've described where you install what you need and leave it sounds good in principle. It's like treating a computer as an instrument like a guitar -- you don't upgrade your guitar every six months, well, I don't.

In practice it's a bit more complicated than that. Even a guitar needs maintenance. The strings need changed, the intonation needs setup and sometimes a guitar has to go into the shop to get the truss rod tweaked. A computer, being vastly more complicated than a plank with wires, can need more maintenance.

Windows is going to become a desktop as a service eventually, so you'll have to jump ship at some point. The question is -- when?

(You may need zircon encrusted tweezers and F A C E G is Fmaj9) :D
Tweezers are included, zirconed and all :) and I actually expect to just freeze both OS and DAW in a stable disk image, keep it mostly offline, kill and strip any CPU and RAM nonsense and go as no/low maintenance LTS as possible with this setup.

Any add-ons will probably be from iPad or Android apps or hardware gizmos like retro synths, Livid guitar wing, PS3 or Wii controller, Fishman MIDI pickup, ROLI keys, stuff like that.

I also found an old Behringer V-amp modeller fx thing that still sounds ok but best of all has MIDI out, also from the two footswitches. So another mousetrap there and more knobs to turn and twist to the beat.

All the best, keep on rocking in the free world
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

I'm back!

Courtesy of https://sourceforge.net/projects/jamulus-os, a Ubuntu Studio fork with boot to RAM GRUB and Jamulus server setup pre-configured. Works fine. A beast on the old USB 2.0 stick though so it's back to square 1 for me now with roll-your-own-buntu and keep its base below 1GB. Because minimalism is superior and the old Asus should also have a chance to play along.

Hope you're well and happy playing music with all these wonderful tools.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by bluzee »

Jamulus is something I've always been curious about. Living on a farm the internet has never been up to snuff unfortunately.

This is a rather old thread, but interesting to read through. I've been doing music exclusively on Linux now for over 20 years and I can remember when Windows wasn't even a consideration for such work. Mac was where it was at but way out of my pay grade. Nice to see they have made some progress with Windows over the years.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

I've only been on Jamulus a week now but am totally blown away, musically and socially. You can browse the servers on low bandwidth, just won't be able to play along in time.

I salute you for 20 years of Linux based music. And regret some of the time I've spent switching platforms and trimming systems.

Can't get Jackrouter to connect to Jack on this Win 7 bloatrobotRAMeater. I'm rebooting to Jamulus OS (=Ubuntu Studio) now to setup a low latency fx chain for my acoustic guitar and feed into Jamulus. And easily route the jams out of there to Waveform, Ardour or whatever. And back in again!
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by matterisvoid »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:31 pm I've only been on Jamulus a week now but am totally blown away, musically and socially. You can browse the servers on low bandwidth, just won't be able to play along in time.

I salute you for 20 years of Linux based music. And regret some of the time I've spent switching platforms and trimming systems.

Can't get Jackrouter to connect to Jack on this Win 7 bloatrobotRAMeater. I'm rebooting to Jamulus OS (=Ubuntu Studio) now to setup a low latency fx chain for my acoustic guitar and feed into Jamulus. And easily route the jams out of there to Waveform, Ardour or whatever. And back in again!
I hadn't heard of Jamulus until just now, looks interesting! I started a free trial to a cloud based music editor that offered similar features, but it wasn't very good. Maybe I'll have to give Jamulus a try.

In regards to the broader topic of getting away from Windows, I certainly don't think there's ever a way to truly escape it. For music production though, I've actually been preferring Linux these past few months.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by GMaq »

Hi

I just read this topic with interest because over the past year I have had to go back to using Windows for the first time since 2006 for Video restoration work with several tools that just don't exist in Linux and probably never will. I have always been agnostic and apolitical about Operating Systems and I hate them all equally (including my own).. The rapid computer OS and hardware spec changes during the period of Windows 95-XP are what basically put me off of using Windows and got me into Linux but in truth Windows deserves some credit for being a long-running platform through XP to Windows 10 with a few exceptions. I was stunned that I could simply pick up where I left off in 2006 with Open Source programs like VirtualDub and run 32bit and 64bit versions of plugins etc. on Windows seamlessly. I thought I would have to grit my teeth to put up with using Windows 10 simply to run a handful of specialized programs but so far it is a pretty intuitive OS to use and all upgrades have been smooth and to be honest the hardware support for my AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX is FAR superior to even the most recent kernels in Linux which are still leaving me with freeze ups and unpredictable behavior on this particular machine. As I said I don't have any deep-seated biases one way or the other and most of Windows snoopy adware features could be switched off with some attention paid during the installation process. So to me as a Content Creator doing more than one kind of work Windows is simply another useful tool in the toolbox, Linux allows me to do great Audio work and my dedicated Linux studio machine is as reliable as the sunrise but I'm very much enjoying the extended Video restoration capabilities afforded to me by becoming re-aquainted with Windows.

Not directly related to this topic just an open and honest view from the other side..
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

GMaq wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:00 pm ...Not directly related to this topic just an open and honest view from the other side..
Interesting full disclosure pragmatism from a hardened distrobaker :)

Another OS side-note:
I'm hunting old firewire interfaces with ADAT in/out or FW extra host ports for daisy chains. So a smaller external interface can be a gateway to a 8 channel mic pre when needed. 10-15 years old top of the line MOTU, Presonus, Focusrites with 8 mic pres are listed at around 150€ now.

Because of missing Win 10 drivers someone just gave me a M-audio 1814, another one is selling a 410 for 5€.

I'm using the old M-audio FW driver on Win 7 already and isn't updating that ever. To upgrade the whole chain from PC to audio hardware to USB 3 with the same number of channels is at least x 6-8 in expense to get the exact same audio into the box.

Focusrite and Presonus (and probably others) have made very well-designed software mixers to route anything in and out of these boxes, save presets, adjust clock sync, etc. That controller software will probably not be Wine-able.

The Linux enthusiast workaround is to run Windows as a VM with metal access to the audio interface, beneath the hypervizor (aka VFIO or PCI passthrough), during recording to route i/o's as needed, then mix afterwards in Ardour on Linux. Or just get on with it and dual boot for those occasions.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by GMaq »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:22 pm
Focusrite and Presonus (and probably others) have made very well-designed software mixers to route anything in and out of these boxes, save presets, adjust clock sync, etc. That controller software will probably not be Wine-able.
Yes this is true sadly, I had a Presonus VSL1818 for a few years that worked well enough on Linux and I recall visiting a friend with the same interface on Windows and i was really taken aback with how sophisticated the built in Presonus Mixer utility was, it even had EQ's and compressors built into the drivers..
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

GMaq wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:33 pm
Fmajor7add9 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:22 pm
Focusrite and Presonus (and probably others) have made very well-designed software mixers to route anything in and out of these boxes, save presets, adjust clock sync, etc. That controller software will probably not be Wine-able.
Yes this is true sadly, I had a Presonus VSL1818 for a few years that worked well enough on Linux and I recall visiting a friend with the same interface on Windows and i was really taken aback with how sophisticated the built in Presonus Mixer utility was, it even had EQ's and compressors built into the drivers..
The Saffires could be a gateway, as I learned from a guy on reddit, they store settings inbetween boots. So you set it up as needed in Windows, reboots to Linux or standalone usage, and the connections are kept as is. For Windows usage they also have 2 internal loopbacks to route to any other software. Like we would in Jack but ASIO driver users can't natively on Windows (unless they install Jackrouter).
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:22 pm Because of missing Win 10 drivers someone just gave me a M-audio 1814, another one is selling a 410 for 5€.
same Win 7 only drivers story for the Focusrite Liquid Mix btw, DSP emulated hardware processing on external firewire device, seen for 50€ used today

only the tech savvy users can get it working on Win 10
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 3#p6375843
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by merlyn »

For balance what we need is a vicious rant about how bad Windows is ...

Windows 7 is bad.

I recently bought a keyboard (qwerty style) with a backlight that needed a firmware update to stop certain keys (ironically one of them being the Windows key) burning my eyes out my head. You guessed it the firmware update app is only available for Windows. It's that Linux sinking feeling you get when you realise "this is going to take some time."

So I installed Windows 7 in a virtual machine. It's truly horrendous. Looks horrendous, feels horrendous. What I really hate about it is that it keeps asking me if I'm sure I want to do that. "Are you sure?" The first few times this was a kind of novelty. On the 20th time I was getting annoyed with it. "Warning! This might actually do something. I mean who actually does anything on Windows?" Just do it the Microsoft way and you'll have an easier life.

Then I ran into driver signing. That's a great idea, isn't it? So secure. Or alternatively a nice earner for Microsoft who charge hardware manufacturers for the great honour of having their drivers signed. Trivial to over-ride, so why is it there? Was the shield that I had to click on to perform an administrative task supposed to scare me into not clicking?

I have used Windows 10 and not only do you get all that you also get Cortana. Hooray!

All my friends use Windows, but they don't really. They use Cubase or Ableton and Windows is a mere inconvenience that gets the computer booted. If I thought they knew what they were doing I would suggest they don't run explorer.exe at startup and just use Cubase or Ableton as their graphical environment.

So I can see that it's the software you run that is important, not the OS, and if certain software is only available for Windows then Windows it will have to be.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by pax-eterna »

hahaha! Now I'm even more confused about making the switch :?
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

pax-eterna wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:38 pm hahaha! Now I'm even more confused about making the switch :?
me too ! :)

And user reports suggests that Cakewalk and Ableton can run in Wine so my cant-get-away list is shortening. Choice of interfaces could still turn things around again but not before extra effort is done towards either virtualization of Windows with metal access to interfaces (aka VFIO or PCI passthrough) or some sort of remote Windows box with audio synced up to Linux.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by merlyn »

GMaq wrote:... the hardware support for my AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX is FAR superior to even the most recent kernels in Linux which are still leaving me with freeze ups and unpredictable behavior on this particular machine.
Do you have amd-ucode installed? It's propietary but recommended.
Arch Wiki wrote: These updates provide bug fixes that can be critical to the stability of your system. It is highly recommended to use it despite it being proprietary.
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Re: Why I can't get away from Windows (for now)

Post by tavasti »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:57 pm And user reports suggests that Cakewalk and Ableton can run in Wine so my cant-get-away list is shortening.
At least Ableton 10 Lite runs ok (don't have license for anything else).

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