I recently switched my OS to ubuntu studio, trouble with DAWs

[HighTyrolPlaysMusic]

I switched my OS to Ubuntu studio about 3 weeks ago. But, I have had trouble getting any of the DAWs installed to work. I have been makinjg music on lmms on windows for a bit over a year. But, I can't get anything VST related to work. I also tried installing some sound fonts and virtual orchestra packs and they didn't show up in the folder. I am guessing that is because Linux/Ubuntu/LMMS doesn't work with .dlls. The OS came with a few preinstalled synths. Including Synth 1. I can open those in operating system. But they are not accessible within LMMS. Although, If I have to give up commercial and freemium VSTs to be able to make music on linux. I am willing to do so. However, in that case, I need to actually be able to tell if a synth or plugin is libre. And and idea of how to work with whatever format it's based on. Which I don't have now.

I had also been hoping to learn Ardour to gradually move to a more powerful DAW. Due my increased use of recorded samples and tracks in my songs. As, LMMS doesn't support directly working with audio. On that front I have been watching a lot of video tutorials and got the basic config done for my midi keyboard. However, for some reason it doesn't seem to actually do anything to the midi tracks? Even though the programs terminal feed shows any kaeys I press and their acceleration plainly. And, my keyboard doesn't have any special buttons or knobs. I also still don't know how to get plugins to work with ardour. I know it has a virtual patch board. But, I don't know how to add stuff to the patchboard. So, in total Ardour is currently in an unusable state for me. The audio editing features are even more confusing. Although, I am very familiar with audacity. Trying to wrap my head around Ardour is hard.

I want to be able to make cool music with the increased security, and better memory management of linux. Although, if I have to I could try dual booting windows to get LMMS to work. I would rather not have windows on my machine. although, maybe some of my problems would be solved if i knew how to use wine. I got it installed. But, I haven't figured out how it would work with most stuff. Even if I could just left click and run a VST plugin with wine. Which it doesn't seem like I can do. Would it still work with LMMS or Ardour.

[ancares]

Hello and welcome to Linux! I am not an expert, but I think that maybe I can give you some guidance on what you ask. If I'm wrong, I hope someone corrects me.

About .dll and VST you are right. VST is a proprietary plugin format (I believe it belongs to Steinberg), native to Windows. The native Linux formats are mainly LDASPA or LV2. Anyway I know there are ways to get VSTs working on Linux. I think you can do it with a program called Carla, but I don't know what the exact procedure is, because I only use native formats. Wine may be necessary for the installation of some, but honestly, I try to avoid using Wine for anything as much as possible, it is usually a hassle.

Regarding what you say about LMMS, I don't use that program anymore, I work mainly with Ardour. I used it a little when I had Windows, but when I tried it on Linux I remember that I had problems detecting the plugins, just as you. I guess you have to use Carla (which if I'm not wrong comes by default in LMMS) to locate the plugins you have installed, and load them through this program. Anyway, I think you can also have more problems if you work with the LMMS appimage version than with the deb package.

On the other hand, there are hundreds of free and libre Linux plugins that you can use to replace most of what you use in Windows. To begin with, I would recommend that you take a look at the KXStudio page and even install its repositories to download the packages you need directly from there. This is very convenient because you make sure that the plugins are correctly installed on the right location. For example Ardour will find them automatically.

There are also pages like libreav.org where you can also see a very complete catalog of this software, classified by type, etc.

Finally, I heavily recommend that you take a look at the Unfa videos on YouTube, which will undoubtedly help you a lot. It has a fairly long one dedicated to the analysis of plugins that he uses, and also one dedicated to the configuration of hardware that can be usefull for your needs.

Hope that helps!

[Kott]

About .dll and VST you are right. VST is a proprietary plugin format (I believe it belongs to Steinberg), native to Windows. The native Linux formats are mainly LDASPA or LV2. Anyway I know there are ways to get VSTs working on Linux. I think you can do it with a program called Carla, but I don't know what the exact procedure is, because I only use native formats. Wine may be necessary for the installation of some, but honestly, I try to avoid using Wine for anything as much as possible, it is usually a hassle.

VST (2.4) and VST3 are native on Linux too

[HighTyrolPlaysMusic]

If VST 2.4 and 3 work on linux, does anyone know of any tutorials for how to get them to work with lmms or ardour.

I have looked at the unfa tutorials, and they helped me get my midi setup to the point I am at now. I listened to some of his plugin rec videos. But, I still haven't been able to figure out how to make music in it. I have spent about a day trying to figure it out. And will come back to it when I have more time.

In other news, I am really excited because I was able to convince my brother to switch to Linux. He only does like games, web browsing and art. So, he doesn't have much fiddly stuff to get switched. so, I'll be helping him with that later this week.

[TAERSH]

Why not trying Qtractor?
It's much easier to handle - especially when it comes to MIDI and/or cutting audio parts within tracks.

[Largos]

You can run Windows .dll inside Carla (a plugin rack, you can use as a plugin), you need to have the "bridge" installed though. In a terminal if you type "apt search carla", it will show you a list of carla packages. The one to run windows dll will be carla-bridge-wine64 or carla-bridge-win64, This will allow you to add windows vst to it.

It won't work with all windows vst, but works with most.

For the record Windows vst2 are .dll, Linux vst2 are .so

[HighTyrolPlaysMusic]

thanks, it looks like I already have Carla installed based on when I ran the command. So I just need to run that from within my DAW. I didn't know Linux vsts had a different extension. So, I take it Carla is a .so? I am not sure how to get that going yet but I should be able to find Carla stuff by searching for stuff. I didn't even see the VST opener in lmms. which is normally there in windows. But, i think I might be able to get that working in Ardour. As Ardour's plugin system is easier to understand. Even if literally everything else about it is confusing.

[Largos]

I've not used vst with LMMS but according to their documentation, only 32 bit works and it looks like don't bother. https://lmms.io/wiki/index.php?title=Working_with_VSTs

For Ardour, go to the view drop down menu and make "Show Editor Mixer" is checked. This will show the Mixer option for each track, which will make adding audio fx easier. Carla has multiple versions but Ardour already knows where it is (/usr/lib/carla), so just look for it in the plugin list. "Carla Rack"

[milo]

Welcome to Linux! I did my OS migration years before my audio migration, so I hope you manage to pull off both at once.

I highly recommend that you read the Ardour manual. That is the fastest way to get up to speed on how it works and how to use it. https://manual.ardour.org/toc/

Also, the recommendation to try Qtractor is sound, because it is more geared to midi applications than Ardour is. If you're coming from LMMS, then there may be less distance to Qtractor than Ardour.

[HighTyrolPlaysMusic]

does Qtractor support working with audio in daw? Or is it midi only?

[autostatic]

Qtractor also handles audio.

[Nachei]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned LinVST. It's a converter that turns .dlls into .sos that you can use right away in Linux (no Carla needed). I use it in Ubuntu Studio and like 99% work perfectly after doing the conversion. My DAW is Reaper but I guess with Ardour it will be the same.

https://github.com/osxmidi/LinVst/releases

[TAERSH]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned LinVST. It's a converter that turns .dlls into .sos that you can use right away in Linux (no Carla needed). I use it in Ubuntu Studio and like 99% work perfectly after doing the conversion. My DAW is Reaper but I guess with Ardour it will be the same.

https://github.com/osxmidi/LinVst/releases

No! Not in general!

Perhaps there's some people (like you) who can run Windows .dlls files in Carla or even run the converted .so files directly without the use of Carla. But this didn't work on my side. I had to convert the .dll files to .so files and still I need to use Carla to run Windows VST PlugIns. I'm using Qtractor and it doesn't even recognize the converted .so files as plugins to be used directly.

Using Carla as plugin host works perfectly.

[Nachei]

No! Not in general!

Now that I think of it, I got directed to LinVST through Reaper's configuration for Linux wiki, and I've never tried it in other DAWs; I always assumed, as LinVST's documentation doesn't mention this or that DAW, that it would work in all of them, but alas, here I find there's evidence otherwise. I apologize to the OP for the possible confusion; if you're able to make LinVST work, I find it's preferable to having to use Carla (one more program, additional routing...) but it took me quite a while, and maybe it's not the best option for a beginner...

[Gps]

About LMMS.

First thing to look at, is if wine is installed.

If it is you can try the appimage file of LMMS.
Download, set rights to executable, and double click it to start LMMS.

https://lmms.io/download#linux

I use LMMS on openSUSE, I can load vst ( 32 bit) and have carla inside LMMS.

We can't yet automate knobs in carla though, in lmms, but I had amsynth working in LMMS through Carla.