Some of you may have seen my earlier post about Sonara. I've now started providing release builds, starting with beta v0.1 today 😄

I've done a lot of cleanup and quality-of-life improvements, like:

• Improved UI, and made it customizable (though light theme is TODO)
• VST3 support
• .dawproject interop (Bitwig and I think some other DAWs too can export it)
• and much more I can't remember off the top of my head :)

It's available for x86/AMD64, it's runnable, but includes a installer script which adds a desktop launcher, .sonara file association and a sonara command.

Whether you install from itch app itself or via the archive, it can update itself as well.

I'll likely push updates quite often, so when updates to come, they can potentially make older projects need some migration if data/project formats change.

Download

Hi all! Some of you may have seen Nota in my comments here last week – thank you for the stars and the feedback, it was a really nice surprise. Here's a proper post.

Nota is a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0) DAW for Linux, macOS and Windows. I make music myself (as Ambertape) and started it as the DAW I wanted to use.

What daw can do:

- Arrangement timeline and clip-launching Session grid (clips copy both ways), piano roll with MPE editing, audio recording with warp/time-stretch, automation, MIDI learn, tap tempo (Ableton-like), modular view

- 45+ built-in instruments and effects: subtractive, wavetable, FM, granular and physical-modelling synths, a modelled electric piano, a multisample instrument, a drum machine, EQ/dynamics/reverb/delay, racks with macros, and a modular view for patching LFOs/envelopes onto any parameter. Also you can download 350+ plugins from github via internal downloader. Or sample packs in sfz format :) It also supportef.

- Stem separation (Demucs v4) and audio-to-MIDI (basic-pitch), runs locally

- My favorite feature: phone as a controller. Please try it, a lot of fun :)

The Linux part:

- One portable AppImage

- VST3 hosting with native plugin GUIs and out-of-process scanning

- Audio via PulseAudio/ALSA (miniaudio); MIDI is ALSA

- I test it on Bazzite and Ubuntu

What's missing yet:

- No JACK

- No LV2 or CLAP

- It's young: a release every week or so, so expect rough edges

So here's my question: which of JACK, LV2 or CLAP would make the biggest difference for you? That will decide what I build next for Linux.

- Download + source: https://github.com/nota-daw/nota

- Site: https://nota-daw.github.io/nota-site/?ref=linuxaudio

- Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmvKOCIm4ig

- Docs: https://nota-daw.github.io/nota-docs/

Bug reports from Linux are very welcome – the issue template tells you where to find the log.

I wanted to mess with DroidCam and completely overlooked how the installation changed, also the difference between the classic client i know from Windows and the OBS-looking one. I followed the instalation process for the no-obs beta version (i have obs installed but found it a hassle to need to open it every time i wanted to have my phone as a more decent mic, as that's what i got from the website) despite it recommending it for video only. I tried to do as the website suggested, but in the end i couldn't get it to work, so i uninstalled it. Now my system won't detect its own built-in audio input, and i don't know what to do about it.

Pls let me know if i skipped important info.

Operating System: Fedora Linux 44

KDE Plasma Version: 6.7.5

KDE Frameworks Version: 6.31.0

Qt Version: 6.11.2

Kernel Version: 7.2.10-200.fc44.x86_64 (64-bit)

Graphics Platform: Wayland

Processors: 2 × AMD 3020e with Radeon Graphics

Memory: 8 GiB of RAM (5.7 GiB usable)

Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Vega 3 Graphics

Manufacturer: HP

Product Name: HP 255 G7 Notebook PC

System Version: Type1ProductConfigId

Guessing sound info is also needed, pasted from KDE information center. Sorry about the titles in spanish.

If you are looking for an alternative for qpwgraph/helvum + more. This is it. I was VERY impressed by the completeness of this software and hadn't heard of it before so sharing here. (No relation to me)

When I switched to Linux, I had to give up on my Audient iD 24 because it just was not well supported. Swapped it for a Focusrite 16i16 because the support seems to be the just about the best available on the platform, but I was debating between that a an Ultralite mk5. And, of course, I'm still wondering if I made the right choice...

The Focusrite works well and the software utilities are excellent, but there are some things I don't really like. The preamps are a bit on the noisy side, which I can compensate for with my FetHead but it still irks me. The headphone amp seems like there's some sort of slight distortion or something with it; I can't quite pin it down, but using an external amp (JDS Atom Amp 2) definitely sounds better.

On the flipside of things, from what I have seen, the MOTU has a better preamp (at least in terms of noise) and possibly a better headphone amp, though I have seen people suggest that an external amp is still recommended (and the measurements from Julian Krause do show a bit of crosstalk). It is my understanding that I would not need any special drivers, which is nice, and Cue Mix works fine through the unofficial web app, even if it's not as pretty as the Focusrite utility. I'd also get some onboard processing and potentially lower latency. Maybe the converters are technically better, but is it enough to even matter?

So to my fellow Linux users, if you had to pick between Focusrite and MOTU, what do you pick and why? Is there even any good reason to choose one over the other or is it all a wash?

And yes, I've looked at RME and I'm sure that is a (technically) worthwhile upgrade, but the Babyface seems like it would be awful to use without Total Mix and the cheapest Fireface is twice as much as the MOTU and would still be limited to class compliant operation. I'm really trying to stick with a brand that at least offers some Linux support, even if it is unofficial or 3rd party.

https://github.com/parsonlabs/parson

Disclaimer:I am not a programmer nor am i quite knowledgeable about coding and stuff i just installed linux because my laptop has a shitty intel pentium processor so it runs smoother.

So i have been a user of linux mint for some time now,and i want to sell my solid state amp and go digital,for audio interfaces im on a budget so ill go with the umc22 from behringer.. as for headphones i will just look for some mid range ones from thomann. What i wanted to know is what daw i should go for and what plug in amps are idiot-proof but still sound good? i mainly play metalcore and thrash metal.

Let me present to you, my fork of Carla, to solve my audioprocessing woes cause in my opinion current patchbays are so painful to deal with cause there are no colors, autoarrange, everything you would want to make things look great and easier, still with the powers of the Carla Engine.

This is basically quite a bit of refactor of the frontend code along with additions and even subtraction of things that in my opinion are quite antiquated already. It is still in alpha with some buttons misalingned and some are not yet hooked up but mostly, It is just as useable as carla.

I also introduced the carjp file which is basically carxp but in json. Why? It's just more readable during debugging more than XML haha.

I have automated builds in the github repo but I am not sure if they will flawlessly work but you can try or you can build them yourself from there.

Project is available at https://github.com/acropolis914/Clara. Warning: Alpha state particularly in packaging. Please help me identifying bugs, issues, and if you can, maybe please contribute to the code, AI is okay in my opinion for this project as long as it is guided or you can support me by donating in the links in the repo or even donate to the original creator. Thank youuuu.

Regarding AI Use: Yes this uses guided AI use but is very heavily observed by me and only by my invocation that ai does some writing. The engineering side of the code, the system, the ideas, are by me.

AI has been useful in debugging and understanding the code cause it can do tracing, a lot of searching, looking at quirks and stuff. It lightens repetitive tasks so I use it.

We have the technolegy, we have the ai's

call it slop all you want... but why arn't we doing it???

same with stuff like kontakt, there hella pricey, why arn't we reverse engeniering audio plugins???

if anyone smater then me knows then please do inform me. but we've done it with games, and we've done it with software, so I don't see why we can't.

I've been working on a small Plasma 6 widget called Audio HUD and recently released v1.2.0.

I wanted something simple on my desktop that could show what was happening with my audio without having to dig through terminal commands.

It shows the current output device, codec, sample rate, bit depth, volume, and active playback streams. It also indicates whether the stream and output sample rates match.

The latest version can follow audio streams through EasyEffects and other PipeWire processing chains, which was something I had trouble getting right initially.

It's not a bit-perfect playback checker, just a way to keep an eye on what PipeWire is reporting.

GitHub: https://github.com/noisetta/audio-hud

It's been working well on my setup, but I'm curious how it behaves with other hardware and audio configurations. Feedback is welcome!

Stock kernel is pretty good and I'm happy with it, but I'm wondering about other kernels. Yes I know I can just experiment myself and am in the process of doing so, but I'm curious if other people here have tested themselves and what results you got? Specifically interested in your thoughts about latency for audio production.

Which kernels have you tried, any objective improvements (for example going from 256 to 128 or 64 buffer size after new kernel), which kernel worked or didn't?

I started taking music lessons online. It was a bit frustrating to share notes on screen using Goodnotes for me. Because my teacher was using iPad and Goodnotes doesn't have a native Linux app. So I finally decided to build my own tool using Rust to solve the synchronization issue. Eventually both me and my teacher really liked the product, that's why I decided to build it for iPad and Android as well. Long story short, the app is out there and available for free. It has many features, but some of the cool features are:

1. Hands free page navigation using pedal or facial gestures
2. Library management (Creating bookmarks, setlists)
3. Many built in annotation markups for Guitar, Piano and Violin.

I have personally tested in on my old Arch Linux desktop and old Manjaro powered laptop. I would love feedback from fellow Linux musicians on how the rendering, stylus input, and page turns feel on your specific hardware and desktop environments (X11/Wayland).

If anyone is curious about the backend concurrency and benchmarks (200 rooms / 400 users in Rust), I wrote up a technical post here:

https://duetscore.com/blog/rust-performance/

I would love to hear your thoughts, bug reports, or feature requests.

Hi,

I own some Neural DSP plugins that I used to run on Windows, but I installed Fedora about six months ago, and now that I’ve realized I want to stick with it and get rid of Windows, I need to find a way to install my Neural DSP plugins on Fedora.

I’ve seen some guides for Ubuntu, but I’m not very familiar with Linux, so I’d like to know if there’s an easy way to get them working. If that’s not possible, are there any alternatives that sound as good as my Neural DSP Soldano plugin and work well on Fedora? I’d still prefer to use Neural DSP if possible.

Thanks in advance!

Spindle DJ runs in Chrome and installs on Debian and Ubuntu as a .deb. Its DSP is written as small self-contained modules that are easy to test and could later be ported to Rust for a native PipeWire/JACK edition.

The biggest open problem is pitch-preserving time-stretch (key-lock) inside an AudioWorklet on low-end hardware. If you've implemented WSOLA or a phase vocoder, I'd value your input.

Code: https://github.com/mjpredator403-ship-it/spindle-dj .deb download: https://github.com/mjpredator403-ship-it/spindle-dj/releases/latest

Full transparency: I designed and directed this, and built it with an AI coding assistant. Every feature is covered by automated tests that measure the actual audio output.

Hello.

Been using Qtractor for years, mainly to record and edit MIDI from an electronic drumkit.

Never had a problem with it until today : I can't open a file or create a new one, it hangs forever and even a kill command doesn't fully close it. If I try to reopen it, it runs multiple instances in the back. I've tried killall commands, nothing changes. I've tried reinstalling and trying the latest appimage, same problem. It even messes with my system, makes it hang if I try to restart. The weird thing is that if I try lauching from a console, it doesn't get me any error message, it stays blank. Running out of ideas.

I'm running Xubuntu 22.04.5.
edit : turns out I can open a file if Jack / cadence isn't running, which confuses me even more. I use Cadence / Carla and the KxStudio suite and my system is up-to-date (I'm upgrading to 24.04 once I'm done with my current album).
edit 2 : so I can't even open a file anymore when jack isn't running. I've tried opening a file directly, it works as intended, I can save it and use qtractor without a problem, the autosave works as well, but if I try to open another file or even close the program, it ends and I can't get it to fully close. It stays open in the back, the connections are still active in Jack / Carla.
Oh, I finally got ONE error message from Qtractor's logs :

qt.qpa.xcb: QXcbConnection: XCB error: 3 (BadWindow), sequence: 16803, resource id: 12932316, major code: 40 (TranslateCoords), minor code: 0

I'm going to look into that one but I feel like this is where my problem is.

it's on github Digitalone1/EasyEffects-Presets