Why using Linux for music production?

[bluebell]

The interface of a Synthesizer needs to guide the user into fast and enjoyable discovery of sweet spots. As inventor of the device you have to define what those sweet spots sound like. Simple as that.

That's the reason why Yamaha's DX7 was so successful

[A.O.S.]

The design idea of a Synthesizer comes down to feature reduction. I've been in that pit as a developer for a bit myself a decade ago, developing reaktor 5 synths. It really sounds weird saying it like this, but i do it anyways, in gaming terms: feature reduction is like removing the fog of war to an area, you can see your sound target clearer and if the human brain gets bored by the available targets, then it will abuse the device and do really unintended stuff with it and that is where the real creativity lies. Just bombarding a user with options thickens the fog to a state of total blindness. Users don't want to be blinded.

I absolutely agree with your posting. You are describing exactly what I mean. A synthesizer interface whether hardware or software should be efficient in terms of leading the user to sweet spots.

I own a Hydrasynth Explorer, too. It's a hardware synthesizer with a vast and very deep engine. There are virtually endless possibilities to create sounds. So you should take the "explorer part" seriously. But the interesting thing is, that there are always some sweet spots during your journey through soundscapes. It is a rare piece where the engineers and designers managed to walk the razor thin line between really complex but very useable.

Some FOSS projects definitely give you a full blown Synthesizer Engine with all the soldering spots accessible, instead of a condensed down sweet spotty device. This forces the end user into the role of a developer, lots of end users don't want to be in that role, so the adoption rate for the project is low.

THIS!

[glowrak guy]

Some random rememberings of various milestones, not in chronological order, and ommissions are errors of memory, not judgements of quality:

Hey, I got lucky.Really really lucky!!! My hardware all worked with the various distros I tried. Still to this day.
Ubuntu Studio 8.04 was tucked away in a Linux Format cover disc. PCLinxOS was also there, stable and inviting.
Fedora 5 and the CCRMA project from Stanford University, way over intellect and my pay scale, but things just worked.
Studio Dave Philips, and his many articles in The Linux Journal Magazine, helping educate my numb skull, and at least 'feel' more intelligent
The Suse-Linux based JackLab distro featuring, wait for it.................wineasio!!! This opened the door to windows plugins in wine/Reaper
SynthEdit...this dev system meant mere mortals made hundreds of vst/i plugins, and importantly, great sound designers were learning their craft.
Computer Music Magazine, monthly content, specials, and along came U-he's Zebra CM*
WINE...it kept improving, as did Reaper.
jackd and qjackctl**...this meant useful performance, and easy setup/connectivity for my 'lucky hardware'.
RT Puppy Studio, and AVLinux, two very different but very effective environments in which to play and compose and record
Linux Daws, Reaper, Bitwig, Mixbus/Ardour, Qtractor, Renoise, Muse, Rosegarden and more
Apps with lifespans, Hydrogen, Rakarrack, Guitarix, Yoshimi/ZynaddSubFX, Surge, Odin2, Vital, K1, nord emulators, Air Windows, yada yada yada
LinVst and Yabridge plugin wrappers, making a majority of windows plugins possible to use in most wine enabled linux distros.
Guitarix adding NAM, Neural, and AIDA support, making wonderful machine-captured guitar environments part of linux musicians daily bread.
Way too many excellent plugins, tools, and collection to list, that as a team, contribute to reasons why I use linux.

*The world-class U-he synths and effects eventually ported to linux, with no-nonsense installers and registration, and several fine free plugins.

** I suppose the one software with the greatest and most influential effect on my decision for linux, is Rui's qjackctl
For so many years, it is the entryway and pathway for hardware and software to coexist in an efficient and
attractive environment, that simplifies the tasks of being a linux based musician. And as the future unfolds, he's still
coding for the foundations!
Mi dos centavos

[Linuxmusician01]

[...] Just bombarding a user with options thickens the fog to a state of total blindness. Users don't want to be blinded. [...]

[somewhat off topic] Well said.

[tavasti]

Most of the commercial plugin world tries to sell you the next big hardware emulator plug instead. Software that is deliberately programmed to emulate the wonky characteristics of some hardware unit.

This is something I cannot understand. Sure, I am not nostalgy driven at all. For me, everything was worse at old times. Sure, my knees were in better shape, and most likely I looked bit better, but that last thing is fixed with not looking to mirror.

But this emulating old hardware, get sound of old times, why? I want my music sound good, not something that someone else made.

It's interesting that you are mentioning the airwindows project. This is an absolutely great project. I like the minimal UI approach, because their VSTs are often extremely efficient to use.

Airwindows plugins are possibly fine, but finding usable plugin from them is hard. What they do and how to use them are documented in long videos. I personally feel that Airwindows plugins are for people who are somewhat interested in music making, but actually they want to spend their time on watching videos instead of making music. Sure, watching 200 airwindows videos is better way to spend time than hang on Tik Tok. And after those videos, you have plugin that makes some subtle change in audio. Or dozen which do that same thing, and choose which one of them to use.

I agree that there are a lot of synths out there that are overblown in terms of feature richness. But that's not just FOSS projects that have that problem sometimes. Look for example at NI Absynth. Most people use it as a preset bitch with integrated random knob. Everything else with it is to complicated. I even think u-he diva is too feature rich. If i want a modular system, i use one.
...
The interface of a Synthesizer needs to guide the user into fast and enjoyable discovery of sweet spots. As inventor of the device you have to define what those sweet spots sound like. Simple as that.

This is much matter of taste. I like synths that have all the possible features. And that definition of sweet spot sounds similar why I don't want Windows, I don't want OSX and I don't want Gnome. If someone, is it operating system, desktop system or wife that tries to guess what I want, things go wrong. And same goes to synth, I want synth where I select what I want. There can be some helpers, but if I want 'do not guess, let me select' there has to be that way.

I don't feel like making sound design all the time, and I am not that pro that I can make every sound I want, so therefore good set of presets is mandatory. And not just bunch of presets, but they should be organized, and there should be preset browser which allows you to search presets with different aspects. Something like different characteristics of sound you can select, and it gives you list of presets that match. This is mostly thing where FOSS synths fail (and also most commercial synths). And quite understandable, making large set of good presets and classifying them is huge work.

I am fan of Zyn, I learned old UI before new came in. But Zyn presets aren't possibly the best available, and definitely finding suitable isn't that easy as I would want. Tranzistow would have great sounds, it has great presets, but presets are mess, without any classification. I most likely would be ok with its UI if that would be documented, but because it isn't documented, learning that is too much work. And indeed, Tranzistow is just on other end of spectrum you are talking about

[A.O.S.]

Airwindows plugins are possibly fine, but finding usable plugin from them is hard. What they do and how to use them are documented in long videos.

It totally agree. They are missing a simple index where all their plugins are listened with a short description. The videos are interesting, but the UI of their plugins are so simple that you can simply try out what happens when you turn the knobs.

Tranzistow would have great sounds, it has great presets, but presets are mess, without any classification.

A Synth VST I didn't know. But a good example why I won't even try it out. Unclear license and the author definitely excludes commercial use, without any possibility to obtain a commercial license. I always consider this as a problem. Even if someone is not planning to sell own music productions, there can be enough cases, where the line between non-commercial and commercial is quite blurry.

[glowrak guy]

An Airwindows rack plugin was created by baconpaul of the Surge Synth team, to make the collection easier to use. Linux version includes lv2, clap, and vst3 in the archive. Might be worth a try.

https://www.airwindows.com/consolidated/

https://youtu.be/8_mO9r_xEuw

[Largos]

It totally agree. They are missing a simple index where all their plugins are listened with a short description. The videos are interesting, but the UI of their plugins are so simple that you can simply try out what happens when you turn the knobs.

https://airwindowscheatsheet.aboni.dev/

[sunrat]

An Airwindows rack plugin was created by baconpaul of the Surge Synth team, to make the collection easier to use. Linux version includes lv2, clap, and vst3 in the archive. Might be worth a try.

https://www.airwindows.com/consolidated/

https://youtu.be/8_mO9r_xEuw

Airwindows Consolidated is a game changer and quantum leap forward for usability of Airwindows plugins. No more searching the website for explanations of what each one does, it's all there in the GUI. And having them indexed by type is brilliant.

[Largos]

I agree that there are a lot of synths out there that are overblown in terms of feature richness. But that's not just FOSS projects that have that problem sometimes. Look for example at NI Absynth. Most people use it as a preset bitch with integrated random knob. Everything else with it is to complicated. I even think u-he diva is too feature rich. If i want a modular system, i use one.

The design idea of a Synthesizer comes down to feature reduction. I've been in that pit as a developer for a bit myself a decade ago, developing reaktor 5 synths. It really sounds weird saying it like this, but i do it anyways, in gaming terms: feature reduction is like removing the fog of war to an area, you can see your sound target clearer and if the human brain gets bored by the available targets, then it will abuse the device and do really unintended stuff with it and that is where the real creativity lies. Just bombarding a user with options thickens the fog to a state of total blindness. Users don't want to be blinded.

The interface of a Synthesizer needs to guide the user into fast and enjoyable discovery of sweet spots. As inventor of the device you have to define what those sweet spots sound like. Simple as that.

Some FOSS projects definitely give you a full blown Synthesizer Engine with all the soldering spots accessible, instead of a condensed down sweet spotty device. This forces the end user into the role of a developer, lots of end users don't want to be in that role, so the adoption rate for the project is low. But it also doesn't need to be high, this then is a project for people that want to be in the developer role and can use it to develop their own condensed down sweet spots configurations for their end users without getting down too deep into a low level programming pit, it is FOSS code after all and can be used by others. All a matter of perspective and time. A good example with zyn fusion you already gave, but even that one is "too foggy" for my taste. Condense it down to the accessibility level of a nord lead but with your own vision of sound.

Using vague buzz phrases like "sweet spots" doesn't really help. If people want to do sound synthesis then they have to learn it. Synths may have different layouts of controls subject to people's personal taste but the principles are similar between them. If you're not interested in sound creation and just want ready to go sounds, then I think sample based stuff is the better way to go rather than complain that a synth is too complicated.

[Psychotronic]

Using vague buzz phrases like "sweet spots" doesn't really help. If people want to do sound synthesis then they have to learn it. Synths may have different layouts of controls subject to people's personal taste but the principles are similar between them. If you're not interested in sound creation and just want ready to go sounds, then I think sample based stuff is the better way to go rather than complain that a synth is too complicated.

Then let me give you some examples. During my reactor phase i developed multiple Synthesizers that were build deliberately to create weird sounds and noises, specifically lovely to my ears, which means there was bit of chaos and instability in those sounds. That was the targeted sweet spot, the way i set up the UI, was in each case targeted on fast creation of this type of sound. I tested that in the end by creating a preset bank. If i couldn't do a preset bank with interesting sounds in an afternoon, the design was shit and i did another iteration to reach that goal.

Another example: It's totally possible to design a synth that can create interesting and rich pads in under 2min, per preset. That would the sweet spot for that device.

So you sit on that UI, optimize and streamline it, like you would optimize and streamline a UI for let say consignment data in a logistics company, where the guy that enters the data is not payed by the hour but paid by entered record, if the UI is shit you can't do it fast enough, you will complain to your boss that the UI is shit.

Get it?

I know these examples are a bit extreme. But even in Hardware Synths i choose the ones that can do that type of thing. A soma Lyra-8 is super good in doing weird clicky sound sequences, i can dial in something like that, in under 20 seconds. Trying to build a tuned drone with it is shit as you need an extra tuning device and hope you don't touch those tuning dials and you don't wait too long as the sound will magically detune itself anyways. A lot of people wanted tuned drones out of that synth and gave up on it after a while.

Another device like that is the hikari monos. It can do a blending between all sorts of weird bleep and click sounds and harsh noise. You cannot do anything else with it, but you can do specifically that basically instantly.

We don't live in the 70s anymore where you would have to buy one large mothership synth, that has to do all of the things you need, because specialized device weren't available yet. I am totally happy with a lot of specialized helpers that feed my needs.

[tavasti]

If people want to do sound synthesis then they have to learn it. Synths may have different layouts of controls subject to people's personal taste but the principles are similar between them. If you're not interested in sound creation and just want ready to go sounds, then I think sample based stuff is the better way to go rather than complain that a synth is too complicated.

I don't agree that samples are way to go, presets are, because presets give possibility to make adjustments to sound, and also possibility to learn.

Then let me give you some examples. During my reactor phase i developed multiple Synthesizers that were build deliberately to create weird sounds and noises, specifically lovely to my ears, which means there was bit of chaos and instability in those sounds.
...
Another example: It's totally possible to design a synth that can create interesting and rich pads in under 2min, per preset. That would the sweet spot for that device.
...
A soma Lyra-8 is super good in doing weird clicky sound sequences, i can dial in something like that, in under 20 seconds.
...
Another device like that is the hikari monos. It can do a blending between all sorts of weird bleep and click sounds and harsh noise. You cannot do anything else with it, but you can do specifically that basically instantly.

We don't live in the 70s anymore where you would have to buy one large mothership synth, that has to do all of the things you need, because specialized device weren't available yet. I am totally happy with a lot of specialized helpers that feed my needs.

Yes, it is possible to make synths that are great for one use, and that would definitely help making such sound, and some people like it that way. But there is people like me who want the thing that can do everything. Matter of taste, simple as that.

[glowrak guy]

One of my favorite synths is U-he Hive 2. I love it's large and varied collection of sounds. I only do some light preset editing, and add various 3rd-party effects. The gui holds 5 or more portions of the synth, that could be explored and studied in depth, but in my case, that's better left to younger, brighter, and more motivated souls. And some commercial sound designers have been hard at it, with prices around $30, for excellent collections.

I like that Yoshimi synth keeps the 'old' gui, where most of the editors have to called up, and don't get in the way when I just want to layer some cool sounds. Guitarix is another good example, where you only see what you add to the intro gui, and aren't diverted visually from the start, but can display the many options as desired. I also like intermediate gui's that provide the meet and potato capabilities to create substantial pieces.
ZebraCM, and Zebralette have important parts od Zebra 2, without need of the somewhat vast capabilities of the full version.

I'm happy being able to choose among simple and complex tools. Not bored with the simple, and not distracted by the complex. When the Muse whispers, there is no preference in her voice. The inspiration and outcome will have to wrestle or dance their way into exiistance. Tuesday and Saturday may result in wildly different outcomes, even with the same personal skill, knowledge, and motivation.

[glowrak guy]

I don't agree that samples are way to go, presets are, because presets give possibility to make adjustments to sound, and also possibility to learn.

Waveforms. samples, and presets exist in many shapes and sizes. Controls of a synth require a sound to modify, whether coded, or sampled.
To the happy listener, synthesis can even mean a played sound routed to one or more effects. The player may have many categories of sound from which to choose. And coders can choose how to control and modify sounds in a given product. Some people criticise Kontakt and SampleTank, for lacking some wide range of controls, but when they want a piano, and can't make the desired sound in a synth, the sample-based instruments are options, and quite versatile these days. Same for those with sample libraries that may not include a huge range of moogs or oberheims. Finding a group of products that cover a huge range of sounds is pretty easy, and with wise and timely shopping, can be pretty inexpensive. And there are great instruments and effects that are free, that can either fill in gaps, or present a foundation to be built upon.

Is a grand piano a sampler? And does it become a synth when the player adjusts the lid, or presses a pedal? Lots of fun semantics in the world of music.

[Largos]

snip

What you're talking about is modular synths presets essentially. The hardware examples you've given are by firms that do eurorack and have packaged something into a desktop device. This kind of stuff can surely be catered for in cardinal or bespoke synth.