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@amadeus It's great to see more and more professional audio software on Linux. Now if only I could get the latency down enough to make recording feasible.

@shanesemler There are a lot of positive developments in #linuxaudio.
What setup do you use, if I might ask?
I use a desktop PC with a Ryzen 9 3900X and 64GB of memory, Manjaro Linux with the standard 6.13 kernel, PipeWire, an RME Fireface in CC mode and Bitwig Studio.
With 256 samples at 96000 Hz my #latency is currently 3.6 ms. With 128 samples it is 2.1 ms. And 64 samples is good for 1.1 ms latency.
Now, I don't know if these are amazing values, but it works very well for me.

@amadeus Manjaro with a Stienberg UR12 and Reaper. I can't get it down enough to play guitar along with a beat, the latency makes it impossible. I don't remember the latency, but it was bad. I've tried all kinds of stuff, and I'm just tired of screwing around with it. I'm not reinstalling my entire system for this, which seems the standard answer. I've never had this much trouble with audio, even on Windows 95. Yes, multitrack audio recording was easier on Windows 95!

@shanesemler Hmm, too bad. I am sorry that you had such a bad experience. Maybe you can try again in a few months.
I haven't had to adjust or tinker with anything audio related at all. I use PipeWire exclusively and can say without having to think about it that everything works just perfectly fine.
I hope that you will have more success with #linuxaudio in the future.

@amadeus I'm currently using Pipwire.

@shanesemler @amadeus if you’re up for trying another Distro, I went for the free Zorin OS (which is pretty light weight), and it worked with Pipewire out of the box. I just downloaded Bitwig (which I use) from their website and got rolling. The samplers and synths of Bitwig are great!

You can install Bitwig through Flatpak, but then Windows-plugins won’t work. I got Arturia and Plugin Alliance plugins running though Bottles/Wine and Yabridge. Nice to use things I own already.

@shanesemler @amadeus by the way, I tried Manjaro as you suggested Amadeus, and it looks so nice - but it was too demanding for the 12 year old laptop I borrowed to test Linux musicproduction.

If I move to a faster computer at one point, I wouldn’t hesitate to try again. It’s really nice using distrioes with a great documentation, so you don’t end up in al the various chat forums.

@mosgaard @shanesemler Glad to hear you enjoyed it. For me personally, Manjaro was a great way to get ready for Arch. But these days there are so many great options in terms of Linux distributions that it is almost impossible to go wrong.

@shanesemler @amadeus totally makes sense! I understand.

@graves501 @amadeus Yes, I'm using Pipewire.

@shanesemler @graves501 I do record and overdub audio a lot.

@shanesemler Interesting. My experience was completely the opposite. I chose Manjaro back then mainly because I liked the Arch Wiki so much as a really good resource for information. And in fact, I still look there most of the time when I want to know something. But at the end of the day, it has to be fun. I love my Linux journey and have had a great time with it so far.

@amadeus Arch wiki doesn't solve latency issues. And some "solutions" are so complicated, my brain just shuts off and says, "no, fuck that". It shouldn't be this difficult.

@shanesemler @amadeus

I don't know what you're doing in general, but from my experience Pipewire made everything so much easier.

Make sure you have pipewire and pipewire-jack installed and then start REAPER like this:

$ PIPEWIRE_LATENCY=128/48000 reaper

Here's my latency:

@graves501 @amadeus I hate jack so much. But I'll install Reaper (I was using the portable version) and give it another try.

@shanesemler @amadeus

Pipewire acts as a replacement of jack, so don't worry about it. That's what the pipewire-jack package is for

@amadeus @graves501 Now I look like a liar, or an idiot. The latency is now workable. Anyway, I remember another problem I had, getting a VST drum machine working. It wouldn't give me the setup I needed. I'm not going to use Hydrogen, it has serious limitations and I don't like it. This is such a hassle.

@shanesemler @amadeus

That's great!

Regarding drum VSTs: Again, I got drum VSTs working e.g. drumgizmo, MT Powerdrums, heck even Windows only VSTs!

It was some hassle for sure, but it was worth it for me and also embraced the challenge.

So my suggestion is: if you have a working setup on Windows, just keep on using it. Whatever works.

I was willing to put in the work, so I don't have to deal with Windows anymore.

@graves501 @amadeus Yeah, that's not a realistic option. Support for Windows 10 is ending, and I'm not going to use 11. And I don't want a challenge, I want a functional audio setup.