Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for people who want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects. When you need complete control over your tools, when the limitations of other designs get in the way, when you plan to spend hours or days working on a session, Ardour is there to make things work the way you want them to.
So in terms of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), Linux already has Bitwig, Reaper, Arour, LMMS, and possibly others. Personally, I find the bigger issue comes from plugin developers (the DAW is your main program, and you add your sounds/effects through plugins). Most companies are not delivering anything Linux native. Many of these plugins can be bridged with compatibility software, and will work fine that way. However, most of these plugins now are also using their own install/activation software center, and they are often a nightmare in Linux.
Music production is the one thing I currently keep a windows mini PC around for these days. It’s not impossible to make the transition to Linux, but the last thing I want when pursuing a creative endeavor is technical software challenges holding me up.
This seems like a good use for a VM, no?
Is the plugin software VM hostile?
The plugins would almost certainly work in a VM, but I imagine that latency would become a big headache. For my purposes, I picked up a Beelink mini pc and called it a day.
I don’t know much about DAWs beyond messing around in them but I have a w11 VM with a recent nvidia card passed through (VFIO) and latency is not a concern in the slightest.
Was your experience with no graphical acceleration? It makes a world of difference. KVM/QEMU is also a good bit more performant than something like virtualbox if that’s your frame of reference
Ive been wanting a mini PC for a while now, enjoy your beelink!
That’s basically what the dude says in his videos. Such an unfortunate thing to see, honestly. I wish I could make such software.