06-18-2020, 10:20 AM | #1 |
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 35
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Hardware to get started?
Every five years or so I loop around to see if pro audio has any traction on Linux.
As they say, here we are again. :-) I currently use a Presonus Quantum (TBOLT 2) extended with ADAT and a Windows PC. That works quite well until MS breaks it. I then curse, fix it and move on. I also have a i7 Mac that runs Reaper adequately, but I've never felt motivated enough to move to it. I just built a nice (but noisy) i9 9900K that I can use for the latest "Linux experiment", but first I need to ask - is there any hardware in roughly the same class as the Quantum that will work with Linux/Reaper without TOO many compromises? I have a few hours available for geeky tweaking, but I can't make it a lifework. If the hardware question can be answered, I'm thinking a tweaked Arch Linux installation and (of course) Reaper. In previous lives I've been a audio DSP engineer and a EE, but let's assume I'm currently a cranky old guy that is tired of MS polluting his pond water and is too cheap to buy a Mac Pro. Is Linux pro audio with Reaper ready enough to try? Thanks! |
06-18-2020, 10:34 AM | #2 |
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 9,013
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I'm using an 18 input 20 output rackmount interface with 8 Midas mic pres (Behringer UMC1820), and it works great for me at low latency in Xubuntu with a few tweaks.
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06-18-2020, 10:43 AM | #3 |
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 35
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That looks encouraging, thanks! Retail looks like 328 USD for the UMC1820, which is within reason for the experiment.
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06-18-2020, 11:42 AM | #4 |
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2016
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06-18-2020, 11:58 AM | #5 |
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2016
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One of the reasons I jumped on the UMC1820 so quickly was that I saw that all the preamp channels have Inst/Mic switches. Assuming the preamps work well for guitars, that will eliminate a DI box out of my rack, simplifying things considerably.
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06-18-2020, 12:51 PM | #6 |
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 9,013
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I've plugged guitars and basses in direct to play around with amp sims and it worked fine, but in real world practice I use a mic'd guitar amp for my guitars and a hardware bass amp modeling pedal for my basses. I've had mine a year now using it exclusively in Linux, although I do have it setup on a Win7 partition I can boot for my legacy projects.
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