Professional musician wants to use Ubuntu

[Steven Davies-Morris]

Peter N Spotts wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 01:09:49 -0700 Jacob <jacobchappelle at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> I have a number of softwares here that a professional musician
>> would like to try with Ubuntu. He currently uses these softwares on
>> Windows XP Pro (Acid Pro 6, Cubase LE, Live 6, Kinetic and Music
>> Creator and a large number of VST plugins and instruments, and DXi
>> too. I own Kore of NI.), but would like to know if these have ever
>> been run on Linux or Ubuntu as he has had an ocean of problems with
>> Windows.
>> 
>> Does anyone out there have any experience with these mentioned 
>> softwares?
>> 
>> Also can anyone make any recommendations regarding some
>> professional software under Linux for a musician who does all his
>> own mixing, editing, and recording?
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks in Advance,
>> 
>> Jacob Chappelle
> 
> Jacob,
> 
> Check out this site:
> 
> http://ubuntustudio.org/
> 
> It may give you some ideas. As for running Windows programs on Linux,
> a program call Wine can work. But I've made a quick scan of the 
> music-related programs what work with Wine, and it doesn't look 
> promising. That said, Ubuntu and the software at ubuntustudio.org are
>  free, so there's absolutely no rise in trying them. Undoubtedly,
> your friend will have to invest some time in learning to used the
> programs. But I suspect he'd find much of what he needs there.
> 
> With best regards,
> 
> Pete

I can answer some of these questions being in on that road myself and
having already done a bunch of legwork. Yes he should go get Ubuntu
Studio and check it out. I'm sure he'll be surprised at the fine audio
(and video) tools available, many of which not only compare favourably
with big brand name Windows-based items, but actually go toe-to-toe in
terms of professional level features and functionality. I downloaded the
64bit o/s DVD, put it on a box and was *immediately* doing some
productive editing and mixing work.

However, the issue of portation of the above programs (and the plugins)
to run on Linux under Wine or Crossover is a non-starter...for now. My
music project (Systems Theory, see link below) uses Acid Pro 6 as our
main DAW. We have 10 years worth of work in it going back to version
1.0, and are not going to jump ship. We're also very partial to other
Sony Media apps (i.e. the superb ex-Sonic Foundry line). But Acid Pro is
the only only one that we just can't live without. Sony Media has madmde
a commitment to use the .NET framework for their apps, so we're
currently SOL on that front. Maybe one day Wine will be able to go the
extra mile, but it's a long way from being useful in this context.

The solution for us, that has allowed us to stop using Windows on our
PCs in everyday work, has been to put Virtualbox to the test. I have to
say that is very impressive, providing us with Windows when and where we
need it, while allowing us to do pretty much everything else in Linux
(and there was much rejoicing). I have the data stores for everything we
do on two shared folders (PublicRead, PublicWrite) so that none of our
data resides in the virtual. In fact -- thinking out loud -- I could
move "Program Files" there too and just set a pointer to it. So whatever
we export from Acid can be immediately available in anything else (like
Audacity for example).

After he's tested a combo of his apps in Virtualbox, your friend should
beef his PC up as much as possible. Especially in the memory department
so that he can give the virtual plenty of RAM. My main box for music
production is an AMD64 duel CPU 5200 with 8gb of memory. 3TB of disk in
4*740 SATA drives. I gave 1.5gb of that memory directly to the Virtual,
and it moves like a bat of hell. It's running XP, BTW. I also have a
Win2K virtual which runs the apps just as well, but we opted for WinXP
because the other guys in the project use XP and I wanted tokeep us all
on the same page of the playbook. Which reminds me -- don't let your pal
move that Vista nonsense onto his virtual if he has it. Find him a Win2K
or XP install disk. Since Acid Pro doesn't much like Vista anyway that
probably won't be an issue but I mention it anyway.

I haven't noticed any more issues with latency going through the virtual
(MIDI in/out) than I ever experienced with Windows native, and I have no
problem opening and running ACD files with over 90 tracks of audio and
dozens of MIDI tracks. All my PCI slot soundcards that were in other
boxes have been tested and work great. Ditto the motherboard's onboard
audio. In fact my only current issue is getting USB working which is
more down to my laziness than anything else. If USB is going to come
into play, then your friend will need to get the version of Virtualbox
from the Sun suite, rather than use the OSE version in the Ubuntu
repositories.

HTH in planning how to make the jump. Sorry I can't tell you that it can
be an immediate "great escape", but in terms of stability and decrease
in general Windows headaches it has been a huge success for Systems
Theory. The worst case is that he'll run all those apps in his Windows
virtual while he works out what Linux apps from Ubuntu Studio will
become replacements, gradually phasing out those for which he finds a
suitable Linux-based replacement. Ubuntu tech help is as close as this
list and the Virtualbox list. And I don't mind if you want to email me
off-list to talk about some of the other music app on Linux stuff.
-- 
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
Systems Theory internet music project: <www.systemstheory.net>
on MySpace: <www.myspace.com/systemstheory>
on Last FM: <www.last.fm/music/Systems+Theory>
get "Codetalkers" *free* at <www.mikedickson.org.uk/codetalkers>
NP: Sunday morning silence