Hi everyone,

I’m getting fed up windows and want to switch my laptop to linux. My laptop also doesn’t meet windows 11 standards so I figured nows a good time to switch. I don’t do a whole lot on my laptop, but there are some programs that I do need to use. I have an E drum kit and right now I use reaper and Steven slate audio center to play and record my drums through my laptop. I looked at reaper, and I see linux options for download. But for Steven slate , I only see windows and Mac. This is pretty disappointing and so I figured I ask to see what would work for me.

I was going to go with Ubuntu, because it seems to be the most user friendly and has good support. I also use mullvad VPN on my laptop very frequently, which was another reason I chose Ubuntu.

Any help is appreciated. I’m willing to look at other distros too if there is one that better fits my needs.

EDIT: I have successfully migrated to linux mint and have reaper working with yabridge. Thanks, everyone, for your help and suggestions!

  • Noo
    11•1 month ago

    You should use Ardour, it’s a DAW with native linux version. It’s free for Linux users and it’s a free software.

    LMMS isn’t really a DAW, as it can’t really manipulate audio easily, only midi. Reaper and Bitweeg have native Linux version but aren’t free softwares.

    Windows Vst are running fine on linux these days, but on Linux there are a lot of audio plugins on Lv2 format you should try as well… Lastly, native vst for Linux do exist and work flawlessly.

    Edit: as a general rule, audio in Linux is fairly different than on windows/macos, because it allows more flexible workflows, with the use of multiple softwares in sync to get the best of their abilities. For instance I make professional audio mainly with Ardour but I also use rosegarden, guitarix, luppp, non-daw, open stage control or pure data for some specific functions.

    • @WeebLife@lemmy.worldOP
      3•1 month ago

      Thanks for the info. I checked out ardour and it seems like a good product. Looks like I’ll have to branch out more and see what my options for vsts are.

    • MinekPo1 [She/Her]
      1•1 month ago

      LMMS isn’t really a DAW, as it can’t really manipulate audio easily, only midi.

      IIRC it can use audio files as instruments though I never used that feature so idk how limited it is , I believe other DAWs can import audio more directly

      • Noo
        2•1 month ago

        It can but looping the audio file will make a ‘click’ noise. And there is no audio region handling so it’s hard to know where the audio file ends visually on the main timeline.