Well, not really. I do have news that may raise the brow of a passing stranger or two, though!
After the blunder of Windows updates this past year requiring fresh installs and loosing work (donāt worry, I got wise after the 2nd time and just started saving all my work to an external hard drive, just in caseā
), I decided to make the switch to Linux Mint. Being a user of both the Play+ and Tracker Mini, I did worry a bit about the lack of documented compatibility but, with my sanity dwindling faster than Microsoft could vibe code another patch, I took the plunge anyway and was left pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to set up USB audio and multi-track both devices at the same time using Pipewire and qpwgraph (which functions very similar to Appleās Audio-Midi Setup). Within an hour, I had 28 stereo tracks running smoothly in Bitwig.
Now, Iām hardly what you would call ātech savvyā, but if youāre like me and think the great minds behind Windows 11 are living up to the āMicrosoftā namesake a little too literally, Linux Mint is solid and has given me ZERO issues in the last 6 months, even after basic maintenance updatesā
it kinda reminds me of working with a computer from the 90s/00s, but with a modern sheen and horsepower. Itās different but it works perfectly, without potentially bricking my computer like MS or having to pay-to-play like Mac. Absolutely worth the change in workflow, imo.
TLDR; USB audio works on Linux, too.
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Microslop, the grift that keeps on grifting..
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Haha! Now thereās a fitting nameā
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Interesting post. I poked around with Fedora Linux and Reaper but did not get to a track by track interface. This is encouraging though!
Thanks @milesbrentpatterson ! I havenāt used Fedora yet, but I did get a solid chunk of my info off of Linux forums from folks using Reaper so hopefully thereās some luck yet to be had!
Welcome to Linux! I just made the switch around a month ago for the same reason and havenāt looked back (running CachyOS). Iām also a Bitwig user, took a bit of learning before I could get it up and running (which was more down to my choice of Linux flavour than anything) but after that it works like a dream. PipeWire (One of Linuxās answers to ASIO) is fantastic and just works, have not tried with audio interfaces though.
The only downside is getting Windows VSTs to work, takes a bit of hoop jumping but look into yabridge and possibly rolling back and locking Wine to version 9.21
I havenāt tested the Play+ with it yet but good to know that the USB audio works great.
For others that are curious but donāt know which distro to choose - Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Pop!OS are all fine choices, or if youāre tech savvy and donāt mind shell commands or Googling then CachyOS or Arch will give you bleeding edge updates for everything.
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Iāve switched to CachyOS as my daily driver about half a year ago now and would never go back to anything else. Running it with KDE Plasma Desktop and my DAW of choice always was Bitwig. So it all works very well.
For me personally, i still run a windows partition on the side though, specifically for audio work. There are two reasons for this:
- yabridge is overall great.. but it is still flawed and some of my favorite VST are currently not supported / donāt work.
- i have a ADAT audio interface from RME, which only recently started to be supported on Linux and is still a bit wonky under pipewire.
Mainly for the second reason i still switch to windows for heavy audio work.
Once that gets resolved eventually and there is more stability for RME interfaces? Then iām gone 100% from windows (even if yabridge does not support all the VST i like).
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Thanks! That CachyOS looks great, too! I might have to try a new flavor sometime and see how it goes.
I felt that from my unused NI kontact playerā I have only just started looking into .sfz instruments and havenāt had a chance to test them out, but nothing comparable to the amount of VSTs and plugins really seemed to come about in my search. Iām currently learning Puredata/Plugdata, which can be ran as a plug-in inside Bitwig. Itās a bit of a rabbit hole, but opens up quite a few options if you like building things from the ground-up.
Oh damn! Kde plasma desktop be lookin real goodā
I see thereās a version for mint, too, so i might have to jump on that as well!
Iāve thought about running a partition just to have access to the soft synths Iāve gathered over the years. Luckily, though, I have an M4 Mac mini in my studio that still covers my bases. I run Linux on my laptop as a mobile studio and way to work on my artwork when I donāt want to be stuck in the basement/at home. Since all of my compositional work is done on my Play+ and Tracker Mini, I exclusively use my DAW for recording and sound design. So Iāve kinda rolled with the energy of trying new things and am seeing what all I can do with Linux before I have to work with partitioning things. I read that discord and audio interfaces with Mac has issues and I may need to switch out for streaming, but Iām hoping thereās some resolve before I have to climb that proverbial hill. Someday we may just have our perfectly-running machinesā
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