Build an audio workstation

John Knight jumps into the 2019 music making scene, looking at the best apps for writing tunes from scratch to full mixing production.

John Knight jumps into 2019’s music making scene, looking at the best apps for writing from scratch all the way up to full mixing production.

Linux sound editing has grown from a quirky alternative to a genuinely viable platform with respect and commercial support. Each year, more commercial audio products are released on Linux, as more companies start taking it seriously.

But fear not. There is no need to buy – or even pirate – expensive commercial editing suites when all you need to create music is just waiting to be downloaded. As the proprietary commercial scene grows, the free software audio scene is growing even faster. With each year that passes, Linux musicmaking is becoming stronger and richer, with more quality applications than we can possibly cover.

Entire distributions and variants such as Ubuntu Studio, KX Studio and AV Linux exist to create dedicated music-making machines, with low latency kernels to optimise recording performance, and software bundles preconfigured to make recording as easy as possible. You can choose to run one of these specialised bundles or stick with any good mainstream distro.

Regardless of the quality on offer, the hardest thing about changing between any production suite is establishing a new workflow, so we’ll show you how to hit the ground running and get past any initial barriers that trap new users.

Obviously we have a limited amount of space, and though we would love to include everything, we have decided to go with the most universal and well-supported software packages that are available with the most distributions. Along the way we will explore how to get your audio system up and running, the best tools for musical composition, a lazy way to record demos, and examine two of the best digital audio workstations for creating full productions.

Whether you’re a hardened studio veteran with roomfuls of equipment, or just an angry teenager with a cheap laptop, there should be something for everyone – even those without any musical instruments! There’s everything you could need to build your songs from the first few test drum raps on your desk to a finish production, and finally break away from those pesky proprietary workstations.