Linux content: rebuilt my machine...

digitalscream

My machine's been gradually getting more and more clogged with hacks upon hacks for experiments and to get various things working for my day job, and since I'm stuck with suspected Covid (again) and I've got a week off as soon as I'm better, I thought I'd strip it down to sort out some cooling issues, replace the SSDs and start from scratch.

One thing that's been bugging me is that Helix Native was really not performing well, and in trying to fix it a few weeks back I basically completely broke it.

Turns out that the brokenness was nothing to do with my machine, and everything to do with me running out of authorisations for the licence. That's annoying as hell.

However, I sorted that out and installed a different VST bridge - for anyone who doesn't know, if you want to use a Linux-native DAW (Reaper, in my case) with Windows-native VSTs, you have to run a bridge program to act as a go-between. I'd been using linvst, but it's very resource-heavy and only supports VST2. I found yabridge, which supports VST3, and...it's much better. Lower resource usage, and better performance.

So...I thought I'd chance it, and try something that's never worked in the whole time I've been using Linux for recording: EZDrummer 2.

Well, shiver m'timbers - it worked right out of the box, no tweakery required.

In case anybody fancies trying it, I'm running Ubuntu 21.10, wine-staging 7.4, Helix Native 3.15 and Reaper 6.52.

Bloody marvellous.

hollywoodrox

Well done it sounds like quite a task 

digitalscream

hollywoodrox said:

Well done it sounds like quite a task 

Well, turns out it was entirely unnecessary, given that the problem wasn't actually on my machine in the first place

That said, at least I know now. And I'm in a better position than before - I've just bought and installed the full version of EZDrummer 2, so I can actually get down to writing stuff...because, of course, not having a decent drum VST is the only reason I haven't been productive....

andy_k

Mind if I ask a few Qs??
Wondering if you are using a 64bit OS?
Have you come across the Airwindows set of plugins?
I am having a few issues getting them to work, basically, Raspberry Pi is now available with 64bit, and Reaper 6.52 is also available as 64bit, but only in the aarch64 bit version, which seems to work fine on the ARM Raspberry pi.
I have been using Tukan plugins, which seem great for a lot of stuff on native RPi OS, and I am trying to avoid having to use any form of bridging as it is such a basic system.
I have managed to get all the Airwindows (nearly 300 ) plugins scanned in, they are .so format, however, if I try to use one, it simply mutes the audio and does not display any labels on the sliders.
If I remove the plugin, audio comes back, so I am thinking that the issue is he has compiled the plugins for 32bit only.
I am trying to make contact, to see if this could be the issue, and if it gets corrected, this is a great set of basic, low footprint VST plugins that will work great on low end systems.
I am still mainly doing mixing with my RPi, but want to stay native as much as possible to keep latency down to a minimum when I want to track stuff in the future.
My latest project is a fairly large 23 track project, with each track using around 10-15 stems, I have these stems running through busses with reEQ on them, ( another good plugin, FFproQ3 clone ), and it is running fine on my RPi with 4g ram.
Just wondered if you have any tips.
cheers
andy k

digitalscream

@andy_k - sure I'm using Ubuntu, 64-bit, on a Ryzen 3600 machine with 32GB RAM and a couple of TB or so of SSDs. It's my main work machine, y'see, so there's a fair bit of poke in there.

I haven't come across those plugins, but I'll certainly check them out. Unfortunately, I can't help much with the plugins themselves...I'll have a look later and see if they do the same thing on my machine.

Linux VSTs are all .so format; that's what yabridge does - it generates a separate .so file for each Windows VST .dll, and acts as a WINE wrapper for it.

andy_k

Thanks, you'll have to use Reapack to get the Tukan and reEQ plugins, and I have just tried to install Airwindows on a second Pi, same results, but both are running RPi 64 bit OS, so to be expected I suppose.
I am still getting used to the cryptic way files are stored in this OS, for example, the VST folder for Reaper is hidden by default with a dot prefix, ( .VST ) and I suppose that is just done to save us from ourselves.
I put the Airwindows in a folder I can see, and set Reaper to scan it, they all scan in.
The developer has done a few livestreams lately, one where he has a first attempt at setting up a RPi400, and another where he says they are all working on his Pi, but I have a feeling he did this on a 32bit OS, which is why I think I am having problems.
The plugin loads, but there are no labels for the sliders, which is a problem, as it only has sliders, they are very un pretty, but designed to be very resource friendly, seem to sound good on his system and there's a few interesting things there.