I have been using linux for many years for everything but music. I plan to setup an old computer for renoise in the upcoming weeks. I’d like to use it one Linux rather than windows. I tried one year ago to use windows VST on linux. After many many hours of trial, it finally never worked.
So for those who have suceeded : what is the easiest way to use windows VST with the linux version of renoise ? Did you use a particular linux distribution optimized for multimedia ?
I use Renoise in wine with vsts installed in wine also.Roland aira works pretty good also other synths like massive work too.I use Mx linux cause its the most stable distro i have ever used.
I don’t use windows VSTs on Linux, only Linux VSTs and LV2 plugins within Carla. You can take any distribution you like, but there are some preferred options:
AVLinunx which is Debian based and quite complete and audio preconfigured. It also contains the KXStudio repositories already and Wine, which you need in any case when using Windows VSTs.
Any Debian / Ubuntu based distribution (e.g. MX Linux which looks quite good to me). Form there you can do the configuration by hand and add the KX repositories which is a good source for many useful programs.
Thanks a lot for your advices ! I didnt even think about using renoise with wine. It can be a nice fallback solution.
Thanks for pointing me out KXstudio/carla/linvst I will check that.
Concerning the choice of the distribution : I like archlinux very much. But for music, I prefer avoiding a rolling-release distribution. My aim is to use an old laptop only for renoise and a few VST and no internet connection.
I will probably use Lubuntu configured in single-user mode with renoise being launch automaticaly on startup.
Make sure to get the latest wine staging release from the winehq too. It will greatly increase your plugin compaitbility and lower your minimum latency. I was using kxstudios wine for the longest time, but then switched to staging and could notice a visible (and audible) difference.
Also, I find carlas wine bridges to be the best solution to loading windows vsts. Linvst works fine too, but Carla tends to have greater compatibility, with the downside of it having a higher CPU overhead. You can also check out dssi-vst, which can give you some compatibility as well!
Airwave, Carla, linvst, dssi-vst are the tools to use but keep in mind, that Linux ain’t Windows and vice versa. Those plugins are made for a completely different OS and sometimes those plugins are not done well.