cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/34255100
Thought I’d create a distinct thread from the previous one asking about daily use, because I really do want to hear more on people’s pain points. Great to know people are generally sounding pretty positive in those posts who recently switched, but want to know your difficulties as well! This way old and new users can share their thoughts, hopefully to inspire a respectful discussion.
Linux is better for audio production than it’s ever been. That said, the plug-in support is still severely lacking. Even the VST bridges are hit or miss because a lot of plugins install via .exe installers which may or may not run well via wine. Getting a raw .vst file is actually pretty rare. And that’s for free plugins that don’t require DRM. Most professional quality plugins are more complex.
Have you tried LSP? I’m super impressed by it and it can be a drop in replacement for many pro-grade technical plugins. That and reapak have pretty much replaced everything for me.
LSP seems neat from what I’ve used. I think Reaper’s stock plugins are higher quality compared to the stock plugins in most other daws as well. I’m specifically in the market for modern metal drum sampler and amp sim plugins. The open source stuff is great compared to what it used to be. Just nowhere near what I can get pretty easily on Mac or Windows. It’s the finally itch I need scratched to really whole heartedly use Linux full time
Just last night I was playing around with the Tukan plugin collection and they are mental. Lots of very good sounding clones and models. I haven’t checked the drum stuff, but I did play around with the bass and guitar stations and managed to dial in some serious high-gain wall of sound type tones very easily.
Another way of getting good tones is simply obtaining high quality IR-s and just loading them in a suitable plugin. If you have a reamp box and access to some nice amps you can even create your own.
You could also do something similar for the drums. Just get some nice samples, load them into any old sequencer and you got yourself a drummer who’s never late or drunk. Then again, you lose the out of the box experience, but you only have to do it once.
I regret not switching my audio workflow to linux much earlier. A few years ago I got rid of everything Microsoft and started working with Reaper stock plugins exclusively. Not as pretty, but basically anything can be done with some fiddling. Only now I’m exploring the JSFX and LSP options and I’m hard pressed to find anything that I miss from the days of expensive plugins. Made me a better engineer as well. Less distractions, more listening and measuring.
I have been using pirated versions of plugins I own (iLok is a blight), but I understand how that wouldn’t be feasible in a lot of cases.