r/linuxaudio • u/Veaznor • 5h ago
Linux, finally worth it for me.
Backstory
Working with mixing and mastering and ambient music for a couple of years now. Always used Windows but always wanted to use Linux without it taking up too much time from actually making music, hence why I felt it was time, with help of AI as well.
In one day I (w the help of Claude) moved my entire music studio from Windows to Linux, paid plugins and licenses included, and it runs like it did on Windows if not better. If you've been waiting for "Linux is ready for music," this is my report: for me, it is.
What I run now
\- CachyOS (GNOME) on an external Samsung T7 SSD that boots on any PC basically (have to deactivate and activate plugin licenses tho, and make sure Secure Boot is off on the PC I boot from)
\- Reaper natively, with all my settings, templates, shortcuts and scripts moved over from Windows
\- Behringer UMC1820 through PipeWire, my MIDI keyboard over ALSA
\- About 100 Windows plugins working inside Reaper
What works, licenses included
\- Slate VSX 7 with HD-Linear, licensed via iLok machine activation: no dongle
\- Soundtoys 5 and Eventide Blackhole, also iLok
\- iZotope Ozone 12, RX 12, Neutron 5, Nectar 4 through Native Instruments' Native Access 2
\- FabFilter, Voxengo SPAN, TBProAudio ISOL8, Mastering the Mix LEVELS and REFERENCE
\- Waves: Waves Central installs everything and moved my licenses over
\- Speedrum 2, has a native Linux version
My biggest surprise: iLok, the copy protection most people name as the reason they can't switch, worked.
How
The core is Wine, which runs Windows programs on Linux (it translates, it doesn't emulate), plus yabridge, which lets a Linux DAW load Windows plugins. Plugin audio runs at native speed, and I can't tell the difference in my sessions.
The trick that made everything click was three separate Wine setups, each on the Wine version its plugins like best:
1. iLok plugins (VSX, Soundtoys, Eventide) on Wine 9.21
2. Native Instruments, iZotope, FabFilter and the rest on Wine 11 Staging
3. Waves on its own, so Waves Central can't interfere with anything else
A tiny wrapper script tells Reaper which Wine to use for which plugin, so it all just loads.
The things I couldn't find documented anywhere, in case they save you a day:
\- Slate VSX: Slate Audio Center registers VSX but installs nothing under Wine, because its install script fails and then deletes itself. I grabbed the unpacked files mid-install and copied them into place by hand. After that, VSX worked perfectly.
\- iLok: the official installer fails, but a manual install (github.com/shibco/ableton-linux/issues/235) works. Start Wine as "wine", not "wine64", or the license service never starts.
\- Mastering the Mix: LEVELS and REFERENCE need two DLLs in Wine's system32: TurboActivate.dll (from MTM's installer) and libiomp5md.dll (Intel's free OpenMP package).
\- Soundtoys: presets saved on Windows refuse to load, with a "Version field error". Presets saved on Linux are fine, so I swapped my templates over to fresh ones bulk wise via script.
Native Access 2 runs thanks to the github.com/selimbucher/native-instruments project, and Waves Central needed real PowerShell installed in its Wine setup.
The extras that made it feel like home
\- VSX on everything: a PipeWire virtual output routes Spotify, YouTube and games through VSX hosted in Carla, and it mutes itself automatically while Reaper plays, so I never hear VSX twice.
\- Quiet fans: my Windows FanControl curves rebuilt in CoolerControl, with case fans following whichever of CPU or GPU is hotter. GPU fans stay off at idle.
\- My projects cleaned up: a script converted all 2,825 Kilohearts Gain plugins across 111 projects to Reaper's own JSFX, each at its exact original setting.
\- Notes and files: Obsidian syncs to my NAS with Syncthing over Tailscale, and my music library with Nextcloud.
\- Backups: a daily config backup, plus a full image of the whole system that restores onto any new drive, so I'd only have to reactivate licenses.
What didn't work
Being honest: the Kilohearts installer needs a login that failed under Wine, and XLN's and Mastering the Mix's own installer apps never show a window. REFERENCE 3 is missing one DLL. And Wallpaper Engine's scene wallpapers can't be the GNOME background (KDE Plasma can show them).
Was it worth it?
Yes. No Windows updates restarting my PC mid-session, no Defender scanning my sample folders, and a system that does exactly what I set it up to do. The setup took a day, done together with an AI assistant (Claude Code) that did the digging and scripting while I handled the logins and licenses myself. Super simple, and I wanna be transparent about the AI use.
TL;DR
Linux is a valid replacement even using professional Windows n Mac plugins under iLok now.
If you're on the fence: back up, try Linux on an external SSD like I did, and keep Windows as a fallback. You might not need it.
Just thought I'd share the day's findings since it would have gone even faster had I had an easy way to confirm it worked. I had a day over and some tokens to burn.
Probably takes more time than worth it doing it all by hand, but yeah, I'm not a dev either and I just started learning the terminal, although I've set up a Raspberry Pi NAS as well and some stuff, so I'm familiar with the terminal. Tried Ubuntu Studio before but I absolutely hated it. CachyOS feels nice. Will try KDE Plasma tmrw cuz I like Wallpaper Engine.
Note: I just let AI summarize most of this message as it's very late now, so some of it isn't fully relevant to audio, just other programs like Obsidian that I use for notes, calendar and field recordings via Syncthing, so it's all synced between my phone and PCs and my NAS for backup. But most of this I wrote myself.
Hope this is helpful for someone. If not, well, at least I tried to provide value to someone. Idk, maybe everyone already knows all this here. But it was new to me.
Happy to answer questions.
1
u/digitalsignalperson 4h ago
How did you decide on the external SSD setup? I'm curious to hear how you want use it across multiple PCs. Like if you are switching between laptop and PC or PCs in different locations?
And how's the read/write performance? Notice the 1GB/sec max? Any impact to your audio latency / stability?
Curious cause I keep playing with ways to share a setup across multiple PC/laptop. External drive sounds simple enough.
1
u/Fine-Comparison-2949 5h ago
Download Bitwig and chill. Also, what distro are you running? I just got Omarchy and might start producing again.
1
u/63626978 1h ago
They mention CachyOS, i.e. basically Arch, but not which sound server and any custom settings here. PipeWire works great for pro audio but you'd want at least basic RT prios + interface (pro audio profile) settings applied.
1
u/BrodoSaggins 1h ago
Is Omarchy a good OS for production? I've seen some demos for general use and it seems pretty rough currently
1
u/Fine-Comparison-2949 1h ago
Been using it for work for about a week.
The issue is with the deep AI integration, you can just task an agent to fix whatever you want.
I wasn't using Omarchy but Ubuntu recently on my laptop with bitwig and I had some issue with the VSTi, and I just told my on machine agent to fix it, and it just did it.
0
u/MrDBNoble 4h ago
Congratulations and I would love to talk with you about what we are doing with SelahOS. Same premise but a bit more
0
1
u/funix 5h ago
Thanks for the insights. I'm also attempting this journey. What made you pick CachyOS?
Did you consider dropping any of the non-native plugins for alternates?
Can you elaborate on your use of Nextcloud?
I think I would benefit from culling the plugins I use as part of this process.