Linux DAW: Help Linux musicians to quickly and easily find the tools they need

Are you experienced with DAWs as a composer or producer?

Many if not most professional producers use MIDI controllers with knobs/sliders/buttons MIDI mapped to DAW controls. As such the skeuomorphism actually plays a valuable role in ensuring that the physical instrument experience maps to their workflows. Secondarily, during production/mastering, producers are generally using automation lanes and envelopes to program parameters into the timeline, and the piano roll to polish the actual notes.

When I've historically done working sessions, the composition phase of what I'm doing tends to involve very little interaction with the keyboard, and is almost entirely driven by my interaction with the MIDI controller.

Conversely, when I'm at the production phase, I am generally not futzing with around with either knobs or the controller, and I am entirely interacting with the DAW through automation lanes or drawing in notes through the piano roll. So I don't really ever use the knob through a mouse and I've never really encountered any professional or even hobbyist musicians who do except for throwaway experimentation purposes.

> For example, the EQ on any SSL channel strip is a nightmare because they slavishly stick with a skeumorphic design of the original hardware.

True though I would put this very much in the "feature, not a bug" bucket. These tools are for people who have worked with the original hardware and want a very faithful emulation, including the look and feel. In the digital world with a modern PC there's not much purpose of a channel strip plugin in the first place, so the only people using one are doing so with intention.

It's a bit like saying that manual transmission cars could be controlled more easily if they were automatic transmission; it's completely true, but if you're buying a manual you want that experience.

Pro-Q is a great example of a digital-first tool (the automatic transmission equivalent), with lots of great visual feedback and a lot of thought put into a mouse+kb workflow. All of Fabfilter's stuff is like this actually, though sometimes to its detriment; the Fabfilter automation and LFO system feels very different from basically every other plugin. It's actually a more efficient workflow when you get used to it, but due to how different it is from everything else most people I talk to dislike it unless they've really bought into the Fabfilter suite.

Which kind of goes back to the original point: VSTs use knobs because it's what people are used to, and using something different might be a negative even if it's better!

Surge and vital have great UIs.

They are completely different synths.

Vital is a wave table synth; Helm is a subtractive synth.

Helm was the first synthesizer that I really excelled with. I would recommend anyone who wants to actually learn the fundamentals of synthesis, to start on it. Once you get good at to it, it's faster to dial in the exact sound you want than to reach for a preset.

It's far more straightforward and less complicated than additive (ZynAddSubFX), FM, or wave table synths.

That being said, if you just want a very advanced synth with a lot of great presets, Vital is far more advanced.

I agree that the SSL channel strip GUI is deliberate because users want something that operates like the hardware. However, I would love the option to grab the freq knob and have it work like an x/y slider for freq/gain.

Sure it mismatches the GUI, but it gives users the option when they don't want to do a click/drag for freq, then gain, then freq, then gain, then Q. You know?

That tediousness is what keeps me from using the SSL channel strip altogether.

Re: channel strip plugins: The advantage to using them in DAWs is speed and economy. Having everything in one window (ala the Scheps Omni Channel) saves me a lot of clicks vs. when I have multiple plugins in different slots.

I do absolutely everything in the box with a laptop keyboard and track pad. My primary motive is being quick and precise, and the less plugin window management I have to do the better. The channel strip keeps the tools compact and my movements minimal.