(Solved!) Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

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Largos
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by Largos »

You can buy OEM keys on websites for not much money from people who probably aren't supposed to be selling them like that. I too am in the camp of "I just have windows for a few games". The wine compatibility is advancing at pace, so hopefully I'll switch it to a separate Linux Based OS for games instead soon.
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GMaq
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by GMaq »

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 12:14 pm The latter combo (the triad of terror) is a nightmare to get working together... although it does appear to give canadians something to do besides drink beer and play hockey.
Pro Audio anywhere is a 'nightmare' (the hyperbole is getting thick in here, lets' say 'inconvenience') to properly set up..

I just installed Windows 10 in the past 4 months for Video upscaling and restoration work, to work with Audio stuff I installed Ardour for Windows and just like 15 years ago I had to install ASIO4All (an outside application) to get decent Audio performance and that's not with any Pro interface.. just using the Mobo sound chip... so is that significantly less of a nightmare...? *shrugs

In AVL-MXE I use all existing stuff that has been in Debian repos for years: no Cadence or Studio Controls or other specialized Audio frontend from another repo... Yes, I do need this:

https://github.com/brummer10/pajackconnect a handy script by our fellow member tramp, and instructions to make a Deb package!

That is the outside piece that glues it together, is that really a whole lot different than having to go find and install ASIO4all for a Windows system?

Specialized tasks require specialized knowledge on every platform... Now... don't you have a democracy to destroy or something??
Last edited by GMaq on Wed May 19, 2021 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

GMaq wrote:don't you have a democracy to destroy?
Not me. I was never even near the Capitol Building this year.

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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by TAERSH »

Wow.

I never expected to create that much replies and information.

Thanks at all!
Just curious, what are those costs involved if you would jump to windows?
I'm not up to date about current prices of Operating System, Cubase, WaveLab, Synthesizer PlugIns etc.pp. Though, I guess appr. 2000 - 3000 Euro (without the computer)?
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by tramp »

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 3:44 am So which group of people do you think are going to produce the better system?
You could wining, or make it work. That, works on any platform.
I must admit that I'm this day's don't have a idea how I could capture a mic in windows this day's. Go away with realtime effect processing. Does that works with windows now? Great!
On the road again.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by TAERSH »

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 3:44 am So which group of people do you think are going to produce the better system?
I don't know. All I know is: in my Cubase and XP SP2 I never have anything like those Xruns in GNU/Linux. These Xruns sometimes having an amount so, the audio output gets really ugly and doesn't hurt one's ears only but also the speakers/headphones.

In my Cubase I can record 16 audio tracks simultaneously (need this because of the huge drum kit) while listening to recorded stuff from internal MIDI tracks and other recorded audio tracks. Never experienced the audio output being similar to what I described above. In my GNU/Linux and Qtractor I get the first Xrun already after a template is loaded. When using WinVST PlugIns in a song the amount of Xruns increases heavily.

Luckily those Xruns don't appear when exporting a song to stereo audio file.

Don't know, but perhaps this has also to do with my CPU?

It's a AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six-Core Processor running mostly constant at 3599 MHz.
The XP/Cubase machine has a dual core Intel CPU running at 2.1 GHz.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by GMaq »

@TAERSH

You are not wrong that some systems work much better with lower latency than others with Linux even with RT kernels etc. etc. Even though I distribute an Audio Distro people tell me all the time "Its so fast I run my hardware at 64fpp no Xruns etc etc." but I personally have NEVER been able to get any computer of mine lower than 512fpp reliably, that is with RT Kernels and every possible tweak in the Wiki done. Now in my case using a full Mixing board with zero-latency hardware monitoring super-low latency isn't a huge concern for me. It just shows even if you do everything right a LOT depends on your system hardware and the types of interfaces and peripherals you run.

As far as Windows... we live in a cross platform Wonderland now and many of the great apps we use on Linux like Ardour, Mixbus, Reaper are all available for Windows (or came from Windows originally) as well. On top of that there are immense numbers of free VST's and a lot of the great synths (Helm, Vital, Surge etc.) and stuff available for Linux were already available for Windows so why on earth would you need to spend thousands of Euros?? You don't HAVE to use Cubase or Logic... why not Reaper or Tracktion or Ardour?

Cost examples:

Windows 10 - $200.00 USD but it will work unregistered with only a few minor limitations..
Reaper - $60.00 USD
Ardour - $12.00 USD minimum monthly subscription (ie one dollar per month)... Of course I suggest making it more than that!!
Most cross platform commercial plugins are very reasonably priced and there are a lot of open-source ones for Windows for free

That's just scratching the surface... Spending 1000+ Euros would be way overkill, you could have a great setup on Windows for a fraction of that (if you indeed want it). I don't suggest you do that.. but on the other hand people have to work with whatever suits them.. "better" or "worse" are so subjective and misleading... one person's "better" is another person's totally useless so you have to go with whatever works for you.
Last edited by GMaq on Thu May 20, 2021 12:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by TAERSH »

...You don't HAVE to use Cubase...
Yes I know.
But I'm a Cubase user from the beginning on Atari 1040/Mega ST and later Cubase_VST24 on AMD K6 CPU (Year 2000/2001).
On my XP machine there's Cubase LE4 unlocked via dongle, so it can record 16 tracks simultaneously.

I have another GNU/Linux OS based on Ubuntu 18.04.
It's also able to record 16 tracks simultaneously on that XP machine via Ardour and FFADO.
But sometimes Ardour (or FFADO?) won't recognize the Phonic Helix MK2 hardware mixing board.
On the other hand: That Ardour5 version is buggy and crashes quite often. Ardour5 also sometimes has problems to load projects. It loses plugin synthesizers from the channels/tracks (replaced by place holder then) or crashes immediately when the tracks appear in the GUI.

I think, when I would pay for a Windows OS, I would like to have at least Cubase and WaveLab. But there's also lots of closed source / commercial VST plugins I would like to have some...
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by robbert-vdh »

TAERSH wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 6:17 pm In my Cubase I can record 16 audio tracks simultaneously (need this because of the huge drum kit) while listening to recorded stuff from internal MIDI tracks and other recorded audio tracks. Never experienced the audio output being similar to what I described above. In my GNU/Linux and Qtractor I get the first Xrun already after a template is loaded. When using WinVST PlugIns in a song the amount of Xruns increases heavily.
With minimal configuration bridging should barely have any noticeable overhead. Did you see the performance tuning section in yabridge's readme? I've listed some tweaks there that really help a lot with reducing the overhead of plugin bridging through Wine. Yabridge 3.2.0 greatly decreased the overhead of bridging VST2 plugins, and in the current master branch (which will eventually become version 3.3.0 after I've implemented some more things) I've also optimized the VST3 plugin bridging to have slightly lower and more consistent overhead.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by GMaq »

TAERSH wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:30 pm
...You don't HAVE to use Cubase...
Yes I know.
But I'm a Cubase user from the beginning on Atari 1040/Mega ST and later Cubase_VST24 on AMD K6 CPU (Year 2000/2001).
On my XP machine there's Cubase LE4 unlocked via dongle, so it can record 16 tracks simultaneously.
I also recorded with Windows for many years starting in the mid-90's and I was a big-time Cubase guy and used it for years up to LE4.. I would think if you were to start over on Windows with the latest Cubase version that it would be as different from those ancient versions as starting something new like Reaper... You use Qtractor right? If you can go from Cubase to Qtractor then pretty much any modern DAW will be no problem for you and they all probably now have numerous features that even Cubase LE4 doesn't have..
Last edited by GMaq on Thu May 20, 2021 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by sunrat »

GMaq wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 9:59 pm Ardour - $12.00 USD minimum monthly subscription
*$1.00 USD minimum monthly subscription :D

It is very accurate what you say about some systems working better that others using the same software and tweaks. Pretty much all systems can benefit from audio-specific tweaks whether Linux or Windows.
Re LinVST, no noticeable extra overhead here compared to native Linux plugins. I guess the only certainty with different systems and setup is YMMV.
I can use 128 fpp with not too much sweat although my useage doesn't stress it much, but usually run at 512fpp for no sweat. I recently tried the Debian default RT kernel and could not achieve anywhere near the same performance just testing with xruncounter as I get with Liquorix. AVL RT kernel is next on the list to test. Next rainy day. :wink:
The only Windows audio I've done for years is recording live gigs up to 30 channels in Mixbus on Win10. The Digico UB MADI interface didn't work OOTB in Linux unfortunately. Worked in Win10 after installing driver.
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by GMaq »

sunrat wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 12:14 am
GMaq wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 9:59 pm Ardour - $12.00 USD minimum monthly subscription
*$1.00 USD minimum monthly subscription :D
Lol, clarified above!
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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by tavasti »

TAERSH wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 5:05 pm
Just curious, what are those costs involved if you would jump to windows?
I'm not up to date about current prices of Operating System, Cubase, WaveLab, Synthesizer PlugIns etc.pp. Though, I guess appr. 2000 - 3000 Euro (without the computer)?
If you can live in Linux without Cubase, WaveLab (don't know what it is), etc; why they are mandatory in Windows?

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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by tavasti »

GMaq wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 9:59 pm Ardour - $12.00 USD minimum monthly subscription (ie one dollar per month)... Of course I suggest making it more than that!!
That is not minimum. Minimum is pay one dollar for download, and keep using it.

Sure, I also recommend paying more. I personally use Mixbus, get update for each version, and also support Ardour with some amount every year.

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Re: Windows Audio vs. Linux Audio

Post by Toejam76 »

@TAERSH
Excuse me if I am talking old news, but I got entirely rid of xruns with:

-Running realtimeconfigscan (https://github.com/raboof/realtimeconfigquickscan)
UbuntuStudio got that configured by default except setting the CPU governor to "Performance".
Not sure if that is even necessary. On demand seems to work fine.
- Disable network scanning. Had xruns if wifi is on.
- JACK is set to 128 buffers/ 3 periods. (Focusrite Scarlett Solo)
Reaper says 2.9/5.8 ms latency. Anything lower and xruns happen.
- Device needs to be on a single highspeed USB HUB because IRQ conflicts. Looks like that's still a thing.
CPU usage is not an issue (Ryzen 3400g), but DSP gets close to 80% sometimes depending on the plugins, but still no xruns.
Btw Ardour crashed every single time I've tried it and Reaper never. Maybe it just doesn't like closed source plugins :)
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