[Jostein]

Here’s more news about vendors that jump on the Linux bandwagon: -Sonarworks has released their Reference Plugin for 64 bit Linux!

Despite massive silence from Toontrack when it comes to Linux, I still wonder if I should upgrade or not. SD2 is still running as a charm on my Linux system, so I’m not in a hurry yet.

[Jostein]

This is a little off topic, but here are a treat for you REAPER/Linux fans: A native Linux version of Reaper will probably come very soon. Personally, I had it for a while now (still using Mixbus32C for Linux as my main DAW) . Cockos do official talk about the Linux version and the pre-releases can be found here:

https://www.landoleet.org

[Jostein]

I notice that it’s no Linux download for SD 3, so I will not upgrade right now. I will wait and see if a Linux package will come or if I hear reports that says it works with Wine, or maybe upgrade my current SD2 with a new extension.

[Jostein]

Status: I bought it and now it’s running as a charm under wine! 🙂

It’s a risky business to do it, but it works without glitches and latency but your mileage might vary. This is my system:

*A self assembled computer with an Intel I7-4790K CPU @ 4 gHz (not overclocked) and 32 GB RAM (using only a small fraction on it. Using the CPU’s GPU.

The OS is Kubuntu 16.04 with the KXStudio repo connected to it. The Toontrack programs runs under the Wine-rt windows compatibility layer, version 1.8.0. under Jack.
I usually use Carla as a a VST host, but the 64 bit version is not discovered (32 bit works), so I use Toontrack Solo a a VST host and everything works as it should. I tried the latency with the buffer size as low as 16 frames in 44.100 (0.726 sec latency) without problems, but will probably use 64 frames (2.9 msec latency) as standard during arranging , playing and tracking with my MIDI keyboard. Thanks to Jack, I can flawlessly connect anything from Superior to anything in the system and it works as it should. My DAW is Harrison Mixbus32C. It does not recognize Windows VST (it recognize Linux native VSTs) due to the previous VST licenses from Steinberg, but will probably change quite soon because Steinberg recently changed the VST license to the GPL V3.

So my conclusion is that everything works very well in a professional manner. I can easily track every ting as ordinary tracks for mixing, which is what I wanted. Anyway, it’s always nice to have the plugin embedded into the DAW in stead of running it in an external host, so I hope that Toontrack follows companies/products such as Pianoteq, DiscoDSP, Loomer, Bitwig, u-he, Reaper, Harrison and others and makes a native Linux version of Superior Drummer.

[Jostein]

I currently run the Ezdrummer demo (8 days left) in Kubuntu 16.04 trough Wine (the compatibility layer for Windows programs) without any problems. The OS is connected to the KXStudio repository and I use the wine-rt package in 64 bit.

According to Harrison Consoles, 15% of the customers are using Linux. That should be a considerable high user base for most mentionable vendors unless they are just bragging about the high sales of their products. A Linux version is probably difficult with the version 2 of the Toontrack product lines, so I guess that we are stuck with OSX and Windows programs for now.

I’m using and have licenses for Mixbus/Mixbus32c from Harrison Consoles, Diva, Repro-1, Presswerk and Uhbik from u-he), DiscoveryPro from DiscoDSP, Loomer synths and also Pianoteq – All running native under Linux. I realize that it’s hard for several programmers and companies to make programs that works in any Linux distribution, but they don’t have to; it should be enough to make sure it runs statically in the 2-3 main stream long term support distros and AV Llinux.

There are also a growing number of music related vendors that are making Linux programs, we can expect a drum modelling software (like Pianoteq does) from u-he within a year or two. DAWs like Bitwig are still going strong and at least 3 DAW’s and programs are using Ardour as the frame work (Mixbus, Waves Tracks Live, iZ Session) and not to mention Linux driving hard ware like mixers, and recorders and so on. Garritan do occasionally mention Linux when speaking about their ARIA Player engine. So with the future in mind, I’m really surprised that some vendors still choose not respond to postings like this or even mention Linux anywhere. The problem for some vendors is also that they have (quite stupidly) locked them self into using third party libraries and technology that only works in OSX or Windows – both because the technology and sometime licenses. But the number of even small companies that can make proprietary cross platform programs for all the three major operating systems are growing.

Since I don’t find a trial version of Superior Drummer but the EzDrummer demo work so well under Wine, I’m going to take the risk and buy a license for it next week and try to run it one under Wine as well. I hope that a native Linux version comes, Toontrack’s products are magnificent and I hope they do it before some of the other ones comes up with realistic alternatives.

[Author]

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