Currently looking for a good DAW to run on Linux. I used Ableton Live 11 Standard back on Windows, got it running decently on Fedora with Wine, but kind of want to explore some other options.

Before I used Live, LMMS was actually what I used first while I was learning. I never did anything too real with it so I’m not honestly too sure what it’s capable of, but it also seems to be abandonware? Hasn’t been updated since 2020, what’s that about?

I’m not 100% dead set on using FOSS btw, for this anyways. It would definitely be a plus, but i’ll use proprietary if it runs well on Linux and is good at what it does. Are there any other options I should check out or look into? I’ve heard pretty good things about ardour and bitwig but don’t know too much about them.

  • Cricket [he/him]@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    23 hours ago

    I third bitwig, especially for an Ableton user. It was developed by former Ableton developers and is supposed to be similar to it. It’s available as an official flatpak, and it has a 30 day(?) free trial. Some people seem to even like Bitwig better than Ableton. I’ve been seeing a bunch of videos on YouTube about people moving from Ableton to Bitwig after trying it out.

    From what I understand, aside from whether the DAW you like will work you also need to check whether the VST plugins you like will work.

    Much later edit: I forgot to mention https://www.zrythm.org/, which is an open source DAW which is supposed to be fairly similar to Bitwig.

    • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      13 hours ago

      Ooo thanks for the zrhythm reco. They might be suitable for me because i liked my time with the bitwig trial, but I’m below even a hobby music maker and only like to mess around every now and then so paying the price they ask for is probably not financially responsible for me at the moment.

      • Cricket [he/him]@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        You’re welcome. I hope it works well for your purposes!

        One other thing to consider is that Bitwig has 3 tiers, you can upgrade between them, and they have significant sales occasionally, like in the Summer. I think the 3 tiers were going for $79 ($20 off), $149 ($50 off), and $299 ($100 off) in the sale, from what I recall, and also significant education discounts if you’re a student. Finally, there are legitimate places online to buy used licenses of DAWs.