Linux VST Support

Commercial software support for Linux is growing quicker than ever. The game sector is pretty much covered already thanks to Steam. There are also commercial applications for 3D-modeling (e.g. Autodesk products), video editing (e.g. DaVinci Resolve Studio, Lightworks Pro), photo editing (e.g. AfterShot Pro) and even some music production software such as: Renoise, BItwig Studio, Guitar Pro 6, Pianoteq and Tracktion T6. The only big thing missing on Linux is a major sampler with lots of supported sample libraries. Since a VST-library has already been written for Linux (Linux VST), compiling for Linux using it should be easy and most of the existing code should be reusable (if not all). Alternatively I would also welcome LV2 or DSSI support, but adopting Linux VST would probably be way easier. At the moment there are possibilities to use Windows VST plugins with the help of VST wrappers and Wine (Windows emulation), but it would be more convenient if the plugins worked natively on Linux. The only major component that would probably require some rewriting is probably the Service Center for product activation, but I don't think that would take long either. The major reason for me wanting to use Linux for music production is JACK Audio (a really low latency audio driver), which has easily the lowest latency if you use it on a low-latency or real-time kernel. I also prefer using Linux over Windows or Mac and since all the other applications are there, a good sampler is that last thing stopping me from moving over to Linux completely. If Linux VST support came in Kontakt 6, I would most certainly upgrade from Kontakt 5 or Komplete 10 Ultimate to the newest version.

 

+1 fro Kontakt on Linux!

 

Chances are very slim... There are other things with much higher priority for K6 on NI's agenda.

 

Yes I know, just want to keep the thread alive (and secretly hoping many people would join ;-)

PS just a curiosity: is using wine on linux system going to increase the CPU use by a lot? And how about stability?I think in the next future I might be porting my music platform (which uses max + kontakt) to linux, so here's the reason of my +1 ;-)

 

I am not sure, since I don't use Wine, but with any sort of cross-platform bridging you can expect some overhead in CPU and RAM usage, as well as latency.

 

I've been transferring over to Linux myself and managed to put together a setup that's working okay for me. It's been a while since you've posted so it's possible you've already sorted this out.

I read in my setup that you'll likely be limited by RAM, as WINE does not allow you to allocate your full system memory, but I haven't hit a wall yet in my own tinkering. As far as CPU use goes and everything, I have had no issues and have been able to keep latency low for keyboard performance.

Native Linux support for Kontakt would certainly be preferred, but I'm not holding my breath and WINE does seem to work well enough for me. For now, anyway.

 

Now that Steinberg released their VST SDK with Linux support, it would be really interesting to see Native Instruments' products under Linux
Well, Bitwig is already there...

+1 for Native Instruments on Linux

 

Add my voice here, I hope Kontakt for Linux soon
(You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one )

 

Linux support would be awesome. I have money ready to buy any pro audio software that's released on Linux. I use Bitwig studio currently and have bought all of the vst plugins available - it's just not very many right now. Come on NI - catch up with the 21st century!

 

Here's one hoping for that too! I can actually do most of the things I want to inside Bitwig only, and it's getting better all the time. Still, I have some pretty expensive libraries bought I'd like to keep using. If U-he has the resources, surely NI has more at hand?-)

To answer that question about CPU use, at least with Carla (a great plugin rack that runs as a VST and loads Windows VSTs) there is quite a lot of additional CPU load with Windows VSTs. And setting everything up is still not very easy or straightforward. Compare to how easy it would be to just have it all in a native format.

 

Yep. And with flatpak, NI could target all distros at once.

 

There seems to be about zero percent interest for Linux at NI.

 

The next Linux Audio Conference is supposed to be hold this June in Native Instrument office in Berlin.
https://lac.linuxaudio.org/2018/linux-sound-night-at-native-space/
Hopefully, they will attend the conference and make some announcements (I don't hold my breath though).

 

That's because hipsters always dislike nerds.

 

Come ON NI! We need you!!. I want to use my money with you in LINUX!