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Building a Linux DAW


techristian

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I was poking around looking for a way to get my Helix FireWire mixer interfaced with Linux and I ran into a series of interesting articles, so I thought that I would share them. Windows 10 will NOT properly Activate on one of my FireWire laptops and I wanted to see what Linux might have to offer. I have also found that Windows 10 runs slowly on my 2 gig of ram dual core Lenovo.

 

ARTICLE HERE > http://lwn.net/Articles/509958/

 

PART 2 http://lwn.net/Articles/510046/

 

dan

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The biggest obstacle you're going to encounter (I sense that you feel pretty confident with Linux) is getting Firewire in and out. Those articles didn't address that. Nothing "comes with" a Linux driver, some kind soul has to develop it. The FFADO project is the storehouse for those, (ffado.org), and it looks like you might be in luck as a couple of models of the Phonix Helix (I'm guessing that's the Helix you have) are listed as "reported to work."

 

Get the ffado support package, get a copy of Ardour, and see how much of a pain it is to get working. If it looks like it'll work for you, spend the $40 on the Harrison Mixbus software. They recently introduced Version 3 (I have Version 2) and it keeps looking more and more like a mixer that you record with, which I like a whole lot. Harrison was a long time supporter of Ardour (they use it in some of their large format digital consoles and it's the base for Mixbus), and, unlike a lot of software designers, they know how a console is supposed to work. The track/editing view is just a mildly tweaked Ardour user interface, but the mixer is more like the real thing than most.

 

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