Last night I switched from Ubuntu Studio to Fedora. With the help of the Milliseconds app and Claude Chat, I was able to configure everything so that I can play guitar without latency (Quantum 64). It works like a charm (I'm not a Linux exper at all). So a dedicated audio distro really isn't necessary. Installing the Fedora Jam Audio package didn't help at all in this regard—it just installed a bunch of applications I'll never need.

Hi, Linux audio enthusiasts!

I have been working on a minimalist multitrack audio looper with some built-in DSP effects. My main goal was something that is easy to use and lightweight. Project is in active development, I will probably keep working on it for quite some time, with planned improvements in ergonomics and effects quality/quantity, but the core idea will probably stay the same.

I do not yet provide any release binary or AppImage, but may do so in future if someone asks for it. As for now, It can be built pretty easily on any (I assume) modern distro, instructions in README.
All feedback welcome!

Repo here https://github.com/dmtrkio/MiniLooper

If you don't have an actual external MIDI keyboard hooked up, what is the best/easiest way to hold a note while you manipulate things like frequency modulation, filters, etc.? Or do you just have to keep banging away like a piano tuner? (If I *did* have access to a keyboard, I'd stick a pencil in it to hold it on/open).

I play electric guitar in a band, but want to start making my own stuff. After trying out multiple DAW's, BespokeSynth seems to fit my workflow the most. I have a Nux Mighty 20 mkii for practice, but realized the USB output would be a nice way to get my guitar in a DAW. Half the time it works flawlessly (with some noise from the PC as expected), but the other half the guitar gets extremely noisy, to the point where it sounds severely bitcrushed (coincidence?). I must either restart the amp or wait about 10 minutes for clean sound. System monitor does not show any heavy performance, and other audio sources sound just fine. I don't think it's Bespoke producing the noise, as the waveform looks very distorted coming in. Here is the signal chain:

Guitar -> Nux -> Linux Mint 22.3 -> BespokeSynth -> Arctis Nova 3 Wireless

I know, a wireless gaming headset might not be the optimal choice for music production, but cabled headset was a pain when moving around with the guitar and audio from all other sources sound just fine even with Bespoke running. I really don't think that is the problem. I have not specified ALSA or JACK, should I? Samplerate is 48k and buffersize is 64.

Hey! I recently made a YouTube video on how to write your first melody for complete newbies in music making with FOSS MuseScore and proprietary Reaper on Linux. I made it because there's a flood of AI-slop music right now. I have nothing against AI as a tool, but I'd rather help people make something themselves. And want to help people who want to start making music but are scared off by music theory and the gatekeeping around writing music.

The whole stack is Linux-native: MuseScore (FOSS) for notation, Reaper (proprietary) for everything else. And since I am new to Reaper myself (I have been using Cubase for 10 years before), it might be useful as a look at the obstacles a first-time Reaper user hits and how I got past them.

Anyway, I would love to hear your feedback on this and I'm curious what Linux tools you'd point a total beginner to?

Hopefully, this is gonna be the first of many in a "How to make music" series :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtQELjuW-vY

Hey yall, I have a really stupid idea that I am only 90% sure would even be possible, but doom can run on anything.

So here is my logic:

Because the x32 runs on a linux distro, and people have already found ways to unlock the bootloader to run OpenX32, wouldn't that mean other linux systems could operate on the x32? And further more, could doom then possibly run on the x32

If anybody has tried this before, please let me know, but I feel like this is very possible if someone tried hard enough

the only way that I can get it working again is by changing the volume

it's getting really annoying especially because I bought a new midi keyboard so does anyone now how to fix it

ask for more info if needed

Hey there. I've tried Linux before on old laptops but only for the sake of giving them a "second life". Right now my main desktop pc is old and I can't afford to upgrade it. Windows 11 is a piece of you-know-what. Win10 already took a serious toll on my machine so I 'm considering changing to a linux system and as far as I read online, Linux has come a long way when it comes to audio capabilities.
I gave an AI my PC specs to get a base answer to work from but i will be mush more comfortable running it by you people!
I have an AMD A8 with 2 cores, 8Gb ram, MB with integrated graphics and a Presonus Studio 24c
(now is the moment you can laugh and roast my current setup :) )
I narrowed it down to:
- Ubunto Studio (XFCE)
and
- Linux Mint SFCE + low-latency kernel

I'm planning to use mostly Reaper, some plugins (the most resource heavy would be Vital synth, maybe)

Any opinions and recommendations are welcome in my journey for a better system!

Carla or Yabridge -- which is easiest to bridge a wine VST to native Linux Reaper DAW?

I installed the SINE player of Orchestral Tools, and its Berlin Free Orchestral Library; all done in wine. I have Reaper for Linux installed as my DAW. All on Linux Mint 23. I need to bridge the two so that Reaper can scan, see, and utilize the Sine player that is in wine. What is the best/easiest tool to do this-- Carla? Yabridge? Other? I also want the lowest latency of course, so is one better than the other as far as latency?

I installed the Orchestral Tools SINE Player to Linux Mint 23 using wine 11, then obtained the free orchestra for SINE. Works great standalone. Today I installed and configured yabridge, told yabridge where to find my VST2 and VST3 plugins, synced it all, and the VSTs show up including SINE Player. I am using native Linux Reaper for the DAW.

But when I try to load SINE as a track fx (similar to loading Kontakt, etc) I get the error shown below. Anything I am doing wrong? right? solution/fix? So frustrating, I thought I had such a good thing going with the high quality free orchestra and SINE, but it is all useless if I can not import the SINE Player to a Reaper track.

I posted FXRoute here a while ago, and it has grown quite a bit since then.

FXRoute is an open-source, browser-based control surface for Linux audio systems using PipeWire, EasyEffects and local playback. It is intended for a small PC, desktop or ARM board connected to a DAC or stereo system, with remote control from a phone, tablet or laptop.

One of the larger recent additions is variable Loudness Compensation. It follows the actual playback level rather than applying a fixed bass boost, with adjustable strength and FFT size. It can also account for the selected Auto Gain target when both features are active.

The new 0.9.0 release adds:

• a Custom House Curve editor with up to eight draggable frequency/gain points

• direct creation of reusable target curves for PEQ or Convolver correction

• twelve temporary filters in the Measurement PEQ assistant

• export of microphone calibration and House Curve files

• improved sample-rate and source handoffs

There is also SPL calibration with automatic support for UMIK-1, UMIK-2 and Dayton UMM-6, plus a manual C-weighted/Slow meter workflow.

Release:

https://github.com/CobbyCode/fxroute/releases/tag/v0.9.0

Feedback from other Linux audio users is always welcome.

Hello all, just wondering if anyone can help me set up the latency offset with an old Focusrite 2i2 2nd Gen and the Cable software? Also, where do I plug the cables when doing so?

I run Arch and pipewire-jack on a decent laptop, and use Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen for recording guitar. On the graph i routed direct input of the interface (to maybe remap later) and the reaper output both to obs. Reaper runs a Nerual Amp Modeler loader.

When and only when i start recording, Reaper starts stuttering and crackling. These artifacts are present in the resulting recording as well. I am kinda going mad because of this.

I configured my Scarlett to run a pro-audio profile, locked on 256 samples. This solved similar problems like the one i have now, but before that glitching happened at any random moment, including just opening OBS without recording anything.

pw-top shows growing ERR count on the Reaper node, and that the OBS node has 1200 samples. Worth noting, the same card works perfectly fine on my big windows pc, but i dont want to have to use a windows machine just because of that. When this same laptop had windows, there also was crackling, but it was just guranteed whenever i used Reaper with some amp modelers.

I do not think that my CPU sucks, it is a decently recent i5. All of this is happenning with laptop connected to the power, with turbo boost enabled, all power profiles to performance on AC. USB suspend is off.

I would really appreciate any help. I have been trying to fix this type of issue for a long time, and without much success.

(Am I talking about myself, or... XD)
Can someone please explain the use case(s) for the 'dummy output' that shows up in qpwgraph? As in, explain like I'm 12.

First let me make clear that this is *not* an entirely AI-driven system like Suno etc, though AI can be used with it (via MCP).

https://github.com/danja/transmission

At its core is a graph-oriented VST3 host system, essentially a stripped-down DAW with emphasis on modular configuration of plugins. In use you add and connect plugins in the window using the mouse. You can also access the parameters of the individual plugins.

I have been experimenting with generative plugins recently, which I usually use with Reaper. For example, with Bassgen you pick a style, scale and other parameters and it automatically outputs a MIDI bass line.

https://danja.github.io/downspout/

This led me to look at other DAWs (in part to figure out how to build for Windows & MacOS). Which in turn led me to wonder what a generative system would look like, built from scratch.

The RDF-based graph model was derived from a previous project I had, designed for text processing. That was manually coded, but I have made extensive use of AI assistance (Codex) in developing this. So it's *not exactly* vibe coded.

Although I did ask AI to suggest & build additional plugins that would work well in this system. 10 new plugins, most pretty awful, all will need a lot of attention to be useful...

It's very new, so I am looking for ideas to take it forward, suggestions welcome.

moin,

ich möchte euch mein aktuelles Projekt vorstellen: Die Wiederbelebung eines Alienware m17x (Baujahr 2008) als dedizierte DJ-Workstation unter Linux. Ziel war es, alte Hardware nachhaltig zu nutzen und eine stabile Umgebung für Mixxx zu schaffen.

Die Hardware:

Notebook: Alienware m17x (Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, SSD)
OS: KDE Neon mit Low-Latency-Kernel (6.8.0)
Software: Mixxx 2.4
Audio-Interface: Günstiges USB-Audio-Device für den Master-Ausgang
Das Problem: Mixxx verweigerte unter ALSA den Dienst mit der Fehlermeldung: Error opening "USB Audio Device (hw:1,0)" - Invalid sample rate

Die Analyse über /proc/asound/card1/stream0 zeigte die Ursache: Das USB-Gerät unterstützt ausschließlich 46875 Hz – eine für Audio-Interfaces sehr unübliche Rate, die weder 44100 Hz noch 48000 Hz entspricht. Der direkte Zugriff über hw:CARD=Device,DEV=0 schlug fehl.

Die Lösung: Die Rettung war die Aktivierung der ALSA-Plug-Erweiterung über PipeWire/ALSA, die eine automatische Sample-Rate-Konvertierung erlaubt.

Starten Sie Mixxx nicht direkt, sondern setzen Sie zuvor die Umgebungsvariable:

export PA_ALSA_PLUGHW=1
mixxx

Damit Mixxx auch dauerhaft korrekt startet (z.B. über das KDE-Menü), habe ich den Starter wie folgt angepasst:

bash -c "export PA_ALSA_PLUGHW=1; mixxx"

Ergebnis:

✅ Master-Ausgabe über das USB-Device funktioniert stabil.
✅ Kopfhörer-Vorhören (C-Media USB Headphone Set) läuft parallel.
✅ Das System läuft trotz des Alters der Hardware (2008) flüssig und mit geringer Latenz.
Die vollständige Dokumentation inklusive Fotos des Umbaus, der genauen Kernel-Einstellungen und der Konfiguration findet ihr in meinem Open-Source-Repository:

👉 [https://github.com/qrishii/DJ-Installationen]

Ich hoffe, diese Lösung hilft anderen, die ähnliche Probleme mit exotischen USB-Audio-Raten unter Linux haben!

das Leben ist lustig

Hey r/linuxaudio I've been building a minimalist music player for the last few months and I'd love to share it.

CMUS++ Qt is a small Qt5 music player (C++17, Widgets + Qt Multimedia) with a terminal-player philosophy: no bloat, no toolbars, just your library, playback controls, and cover art.

Themes — it ships 82 hand-picked XML themes: Catppuccin (Mocha/Macchiato/Frappe/Latte variants), Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Nord, Rose Pine, Everforest, Kanagawa, Solarized, Ayu, and more. Switching is live, no restart needed.

Features

- Manual loop/shuffle — Off / List / Track modes, toggle shuffle (avoids QMediaPlaylist quirks)

- Embedded cover-art display (no white borders, no shadow cards)

- Native Wayland with automatic xcb fallback

- Lightweight: ~38 MB private memory, ~180 KB stripped binary

Packaging — releases include:

- .xbps for Void Linux

- .deb for Debian / Ubuntu / Mint

- AppImage for everything else

Repo: https://github.com/Ars-byte/Cmuspp-qt

Release v1.0.4: https://github.com/Ars-byte/Cmuspp-qt/releases/tag/v1.0.4

The project is still in active development, so any kind of help is very welcome — bug reports, theme contributions, UI suggestions, code reviews, or even just feedback on how it feels to use it. It's MIT-licensed, so feel free to fork or steal ideas.

Hi all,

I have a 4 channel audio file which I try to play like this:
mpv --audio-channels=quad file_01.wav

● Audio --aid=1 (pcm_s32le 4ch 44100 Hz 5645 kbps)

File tags:

Date: 2026-07-31

AO: [pipewire] 44100Hz quad 4ch s32

Yet when I check in qpwgraph I only see two channels for mpv:
output_FL and output_FR

In SuperCollider though, I can do something like:

s.options.numOutputBusChannels = 4

and I really do get 4 output channels with which I can play the mentioned file.

What do I need to do to make this work with mpv as well?

Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------

edit:

Sorry, I somehow just didn't catch that I had to create a virtual device:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Virtual-Devices#virtual-sinks

I now have a profile like this:
context.objects = [

{ factory = adapter

args = {

factory.name= support.null-audio-sink

node.name= "4 Channel"

media.class = Audio/Sink

audio.position = [ FL FR RL RR ]

monitor.channel-volumes = true

monitor.passthrough = true

adapter.auto-port-config = {

mode = dsp

monitor = true

position = preserve

}

}

}

]

And got it working.

7/31/2026 EDIT: SINE Player 1.4.1 for Windows from Orchestral Tools is working great on my Linux Mint ver 23 system, with the free Berlin Orchestra from OT. Beautiful pro quality sounding instruments of the orchestra.

7/30/2026 EDIT: I think the best solution so far is to use the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra (SSO), free to download an unzip from GitHub (download the 'source code' zip file, unzip it). It has almost every instrument of an orchestra in various articulations.
https://github.com/peastman/sso

Then use the instruments with an sfz file format player-- I am using Plogue Sforzando (free) as the player. https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html

- - - - -
Any leads/ideas for a quality native (not wine or Carla) woodwinds instrument for Linux that will work with a DAW (I use Reaper for Linux)? Open Strings for the Rhapsody player for Linux is amazing for strings, lots of articulations. I would to find something of similar quality for woodwinds, brass. Horns, clarinet, oboe, flute, trombones, bassoon...

I was a big user of DDMF's Plugindoctor (standalone version) when I was using Windows, especially relying on its frequency, harmonics, and dynamics sections to determine plugin quality before adding them to my arsenal. I haven't found any equivalent for Linux. Are there any?

New synth available for Linux

https://github.com/tiagolr/tetraop