Propellerheads Reason and Linux

Audio Hardware & Software
1

Hello everyone! I am new here and I am new to linux as well. I have been playing with linux since recent times, but just made the switch to delete my windows partitions.

My question here is, does linux have issues with running Reason, a digital audio workstation meant for mac and windows?

I am running Reason 9.5 on a windows machine and is the only reason outside gaming, that I have kept windows for so long. I mean, I refuse to update to win ten… and win 7 is great for gaming and music, but i am moving on, i feel very insecure about the ignorance i posses around computers and with what all is happening these days, learning linux just makes sense.

so i had decided to remove windows and deal with the absence of my other hobbies, to take on full time, learning linux and all the other facets that interest me, and my goals or intentions.

I read on google, people have had wine installed and was able to get Reason to work, but i guess im asking if people have any experience with DAWS or Reason specifically and linux. thanks!

2

By the looks of it it has poor support in wine https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=811

You could try but might be out of luck. In general i tend to suggest looking for nativly supported alternative workflows. This does sometimes mean compromising on some things relearning a new workflow, and sometimes having a more complex workflow. Its very dependant on what you want to do.

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yea, thats the general consensus i received as well from my research. i admit i never delved deep into the research, thus my questioning.

its okay i will install a win partition on a new drive and keep it for my gaming and music… and linux will still be my new thing. I will dual boot or use separate drives (likely) to isolate any problems. ie no sharing one drive two partitions.

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You may be able to do a vm. You don’t need to worry about dual booting then.

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Not sure… I have quite a complex setup with controllers and other instruments, not to mention 3 mixers. I love how well win 7 works for my music stuff, but i hate how insure it is now. win ten upgrade made my system completely wonky… the performance dropped significantly. Im okay with keeping a windows machine for that purpose. once updated for the use, ie win update, drivers update, application update, it will be forever disconnected from the web and retired. Ive moved on to a new machine for the future. Was just curious if linux worked well with audio music production software or not. Im sure it can, if it is not configured to do so.

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You could take a look at Ardour or LMMS, I don’t know if either would suit your needs, but those are the two DAWs that I know of on Linux.

https://lmms.io/
https://ardour.org/

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with pretty much any low latency windows audio app you’re gonna want wineasio installed as the default audio driver in its wineprefix

my experience is that reaper works great with this, but ymmv on other DAWs

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8

Linux isn’t great for complex audio routing or multiple DAW software suites.
Honestly, compared to core audio or asio, you’ll waste time just making JACK work the way you want it to.
You’re better off keeping win or a hackintosh drive around. Ardour doesn’t hold a candle to PT or Reaper, and it’s no Reason.
Admittedly, I have not tried running Reason in any Linux distro, but for sure it’ll be in WINE; might as well run win. Maybe a VM.

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reaper has a native linux version and wineasio works fine for non native if you don’t use pulse

but go off

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Linux works great for lowlatency audio, with native software. I don’t see how it could run non-native packages inside wine with same latency

But keep using whatever you are happy with. The time and effort setting up and working on a DAW is much larger than base OS. I had a good XP DAW running whilst checking out Linux. win7 was not possible with hardware and software I was using

Windows can run JACK audio system from Linux and can connect over LAN with netjack to Linux, so can have both options of Reason and Linux tools

Harrison Mixbus is available on Linux, doesn’t get much mention as not free
But Ardour has same functionality, with less polish for free

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wineasio

in fact you have to rely on wineasio and carla as your only vst host if you want to use any commercial plugins.

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Only effects I spent money on in last decade are analogue and rack-mounted

I Don’t use Carla. Calf plugins if i want pretty shiny
but usually just host in couple of DAW Mixers
10ms latency in Qjackctl = 5ms in Cadence
Pulseaudio tuned to realtime plays nice with JACK these days
this old desktop pc loves it

Linux learning curve can be really difficult when can’t see beyond windows logic
and workflow (I been there so often)

Debian AVLinux been really good on this year’s update
Ubuntu Studio is good and solid, but no looker!
KxStudio 18.04 is close to release soon?

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man, that’s the worst thing about any pro workflow on linux – the distro fragmentation

3d, editing and VFX are all on RHEL/centos

all the audio stuff is upstreamed on weird community debian and ubuntu spins, and the commercial audio stuff doesn’t know where it wants to be.

there’s no way to have a cohesive multimedia workstation experience without heavily modifying your base system

right now I just use a windows VM for audio, hadn’t considered that netjack might work over NAT though. May look into that.

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This is all interesting but I cannot use a different DAW. I have invested a lot of time and money to Reason and it unfortunately works well on only macs and windows. I have a homemade studio that I take pretty seriously, as Im an artist, creative type myself. Music has always been apart of my life and will never change. I love Reason and the setup/workflow I have. Im good at mixing, sound design, and mastering is something I know I need special gear for but am learning to do on my own anyway in the mixing studio. Ive used Reason for over ten years and have used mostly every single DAW out there except the ones in linux, obviously.

I dont mind it - using windows on a dedicated drive for music. But I would if I could, swap over, if everything could work like it does in win 7.

Maybe I can learn to make that happen and from what I get of linux, its pretty damn capable of anything once programmed. :slight_smile:

IF ANY other daw was a consideration, it would be logic… made by the same guys at Propellerheads. But I dont have a Mac and I think they are just over priced and under performing compared to optimized windows hardware… not to mention flexibility and performance throttling … that shit just pisses me off that they do that and I don’t even own a single apple product. I never will either.

the only mac item id consider is a mac book pro with the aluminum keys… I like that, but its like 2 grand or something, and idk if they even make that anymore. But for my home studio, there is no way Ill get a mac.

I dont like win ten… if I did Id just upgrade and be good with it,… but ill keep my win 7 machine offline likely except for updates or what ever is needed at the time of being on that platform.

Im glad I made the swap to linux, I wonder what took me so long!

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I just use a VM for my more finnicky audio plugins, so if you don’t want to go to the trouble of getting it working in wine, that’s definitely an option.

also, there’s tons of hostfile edits on github that block and remove the win7 upgrade nagging etc.

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yea not sure if my plugins will work that way, they are hardware accelerated…

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hardware acceleration works in kvm

worst you’ll need is an extra usb or firewire pci card to pass through to it for your interface

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Interesting. Will be something to research then, maybe there is a way to get it running better than in windows.

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Don’t forget the weird community Arch spins too!
That is how it works when you get beyond the 3 main demo DAWS and roll-your own desktop & kernel combination.
It’s all Linux underneath

Of course it would never work like win 7. I wouldn’t have used it if it wasn’t better

sure is
and I spent a couple of years learning that

I did have advantage of previous work in live and broadcast audio
but most of the Linux guys I work with don’t always have much experience and they work it out ok too

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i mean arch is just a weird community spin at its core, not sure it’s worth mentioning for production systems