Any Ubuntu Studio/Ardour Users here?

Tried eons ago on an old slow-assed PC, but it was more of a hassle to get everything to agree w/ each other and work versus just reinstalling Window$ and rolling with Reaper. Buddy of mine collaborated on the code for Ardour IIRC. I'm sure it's come a long way since then, so whenever I hit the wall with my current hardware I might give it another go, but at this point Reaper runs on anything semi-current hardware wise.

For breathing life into really old IBM Thinkpads for basic tasks, Linux/Ubuntu/etc. is the only way to go.

 

You can try KXStudio which uses Carla and Catia which use Jack but their development make's it easier to use. Plus the distro has been created for audio production.
I'm pretty sure you can get around things easier with KXstudio or even AVLinux.
Check this out for some good intro:
Ardour Basics - YouTube

 

You can always use Tracktion which works very well in Linux and Reaper, there's a great community in the Reaper Forums which can even help you setup some of your Windows plugins for use in Reaper and Tracktion.

I have both and use them very often.

Send me a private msg and I can help you in what I can.

BTW by using a distro exclusively setup for audio helps a lot, hence recommending KXStudio or AVLinux, they have taken the time to do the heavy lifting configuring the system so you don't have to.

 

Ubuntu studio 18 + Ardour 5 works fine, even on an older AMD A8 machine without a lot of horsepower. I originally had Ustudio 16 and mixbus 4 on it, but the upgrade to U18 KILLED Mixbus4, and a new install of mixbus 5 would subsequently crash on startup. None of the 'known fixes' would fix it, so the machine got Ardour 5 instead, and its been running fine for a couple years now. ( It's the resident pre-production DAW at my drummer/songwriter friend's place a couple of hours down the highway...)

 

I found it was simplest just to use ALSA, and didn't do jack with JACK. My drummer friend has caught on just fine with Ardour, the main issue we are having is his crappy crappy internet provider giving him massive grief uploading his stem exports to my FTP server in Kansas City. I'm heading down the highway in an hour to go and beat his garbage wifi router into submission with some CAT6 cables...

 

In all honesty the best way is for only one person to keep the main project and just receive a bounced stem with all the other instrument for you to record to and then send him/her your raw track or your processed track. Then the project holder can add that bounced track to the project. That way you can use any DAW you feel comfortable with.

No biggie.

 

Yeah that's the way to go, remember the best DAW is the one you know. No good wasting your time fiddling with knobs, menus and options when you should be making music.

 

That is what I found out is the best as well. Working on a shared project would be nice, but merging changes from different participants is not what (most) DAWs are designed to do. Plain wav files is the way to go!

This also allows me to stay in Tracktion (which I happen to prefer), even though most friends run Logic and the studios I work with use PT.