I am just getting into making music on my Fedora Mate machine, and was looking around the internet when I found this Reddit discussion. I took this as a starting point and decided to run with it a bit. So here is some music stuff. I will be refining this post from time to time as I go, as it is not even close to definitive. Also, I am using Fedora 35 at the time of compiling this so references to the Fedora Repositories are for that version of Fedora.
Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs)
LMMS – Produce music with your computer: by creating melodies and beats, synthesizing and mixing sounds, arranging samples and much more. Playback instruments, samples and plugins: with a typing or MIDI keyboard in a user-friendly and modern interface. Bundled with ready-to-use content: from an assortment of instrument and effect plugins, presets and samples to VST and SoundFont support. And it’s in the Fedora repos ( sudo dnf install lmms )
Ardour – Record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects. AudioUnit, LV2, LinuxVST and LADSPA formats. FX plugins. Software instruments. MIDI processors.
Bitwig Studio 4(paid) – DAW Software with 90+ Instruments and Effects, VST2, VST3. US$400. A version limited to 16 tracks is cheaper (US$100).
Renoise (paid) – Lets you record, compose, edit, process and render production-quality audio using a tracker-based approach. US$75
Reaper (paid) – complete digital audio production application for computers, offering a full multi-track audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering toolset. REAPER supports a vast range of hardware, digital formats and plugins, and can be comprehensively extended, scripted and modified. Personal license US$60. This is the one I purchased and am learning. Note: The trial version is completely unlimited forever – no crippleware, but it seems well worth the small asking price.
Qtractor – An Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer. LADSPA, DSSI, native VST(2), VST3 and LV2 plug-in support. It’s in the Fedora Repos ( sudo dnf install qtractor )
Waveform-Free – Fully featured, completely unlimited free DAW for all music creators
Waveform-Pro – More features than the free version. Comparison is here. Pricing starts at US$120
Radium (paid) – A music editor with a new type of interface. Compared to the normal sequencer interface editing is quicker and more musical data fits on the screen. Compared to trackers, note positions and effects are edited graphically. Price from 5 euros monthly or 50 euros per year
Rosegarden – a music composition and editing environment based around a MIDI sequencer that features a rich understanding of music notation and includes basic support for digital audio.
MusE – Full featured MIDI and audio sequencer with recording and editing functionality. Complete with plugin support and automation. It’s in the Fedora Repos ( sudo dnf install muse )
Zrythm – Designed to be featureful and easy to use. Automation events using straight lines, ramps and curves, or with LFOs and envelopes. Complete support for LV2 and VST2, with experimental support for VST3, AU, SFZ and SF2. Fully JACK aware, including support for PipeWire, JACK transport, ALSA, PulseAudio, WASAPI, Windows MME, CoreMidi and CoreAudio. Featuring a chord pad for quickly trying out chords in a scale and a chord track to assist with chord progressions.
Other Software
KXStudio : Repositories : Applications – list of application in .deb format
yabridge – Use Windows VST plugins on Linux. Supports 32-bit/64-bit Windows VST2/VST3 plugins in a 64-bit Linux VST host as if they were native.
Hydrogen – Full featured drum machine that’s already in the Fedora repos ( sudo dnf install hydrogen )
guitarix – Virtual guitar amplifier for Linux. The signal from your guitar is processed by a main amp and a rack-section. You may fill the rack with effects from more than 25 built-in modules from a simple noise gate to modulation f/x like flanger, phaser or auto-wah. It’s in the Fedora repos ( sudo dnf install guitarix )
VCV Rack – Open-source Eurorack modular synthesizer simulator.
Lingot – A great tuner (not JUST for guitar) that’s already in the Fedora repos ( sudo dnf install lingot )
Compatible Hardware
Steinberg UR12 – Microphone/Guitar to USB2 Interface (24-bit/192 kHz) – I have this and it works great plug-and-play under Fedora – no messing around with drivers required.
Samples
FreePats – Collection of samples many in SFZ format, but usually at least WAV/FLAC.
Virtual Playing Orchestra – Massive pack of orchestral samples
PianoBook – Pianobook is a global community of samplists who hear music in everything.
Muted.Io – Free Synth Preset Pack for “Vital” (see VST plugins below)
Piano in 162 – A sample library of a Steinway Model B grand piano, available in SFZ format.
SoundFonts 4 U – Free Quality SoundFonts (sf2 format)
Hydrogen Drumkits – A collection of drumkits in Hydrogen drum machine format
Polyphone – Collection of sf2 SoundFonts
VST Plugins
Sfizz – A sample-based musical synthesizer utilising the SFZ instrument format. Ready-to-use as an instrument plugin. See “Fedora Specific Stuff” for info on getting it from a repo.
Decent Sampler – A FREE sampling plugin that allows you to play samples in the Decent Sampler format.
Odin 2 – A Synth to Please the Gods. 24-voice polyphonic.
Vital – a spectral warping wavetable synthesizer. You need an account at vital.audio if you don’t want to build from source.
KXStudio : Repositories : Plugins – A list of plugins packaged in .deb format
Surge – Free Open Source Hybrid Synth. Featuring many synthesis techniques, filters, effects, a flexible modulation engine, and modern features like MPE and microtuning. Source is available here.
u-he – An assortment of synthesizers & effects (some free)
hypercyclic – LFO-driven, midi-mangling arpeggiator
TAL-Vocoder – A vintage vocoder emulation with 11 bands that emulates the sound of vocoders from the early 80’s. Tal also make a number of other free and paid products
Carla – Fully-featured modular audio plugin host, with support for many audio drivers and plugin formats. Includes SF2 and SFZ file support
Airwindows plugins – Free modular, graphic-less, stripped-down, VST plugins (250 of them at the time of writing this)
Geraint’s JSFX repository – A collection of audio effects written in REAPER’s JSFX language.
Best Free Plugind of 2022 – an article describing 70+ free VST plugins
Fedora Specific Stuff
Audinux Repo – The repository for nearly 500 pre-compiled music-based RPM packages (a.k.a ycollet/audinux)
OLD Audinux Repo – For Fedora 34 or earlier. The repository for 570+ pre-compiled music-based RPM packages (a.k.a ycollet/linuxmao)
WirePlumber – the default PipeWire session manager in Fedora 35+
SFizz Fedora Repos – list of the SFizz Repos to find the latest Fedora one. Use dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:sfztools:sfizz/Fedora_XX/home:sfztools:sfizz.repo where XX is the fedora version number. After that, you can just “dnf install sfizz”
Online Resources
KVR Audio – a global online community focused entirely on music and audio software technologies.
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