I recently started playing around with Reaper on Linux. It’s no different from it’s windows counterpart. You can use something like yabridge to use third party VSTs. All I had to do was point it to my VST folder and viola, almost all of them work. The only problem I have is that none of them work graphically. The sound works and they render just fine but for some reason clicking on a knob or button is waaaay off. For example in Pro-Q, if I put the mouse by the top of the plugin the frequency knob will highlight like the mouse is on top of knob. Nothing happens if the mouse is actually on top. This may be a yabridge issue. Their GitHub does say Wine versions greater than 9.22 don’t work. I’m on the latest Wine and haven’t fucked with different versions yet. If the fix is that simple then the experience is no different for me at least. Otherwise I just have to use the UI-less mode where Reaper turns the plugins into a series of sliders you can adjust instead.

The .wav format is actually very simple. You should be able to write a bash script to produce wavs without too much trouble. If you’d rather not work that low-level you can always use the DAW features in emacs.

/s

If you switch DAWs, bitwig is really very good and runs natively on Linux.

I use Ableton with Bottles (wine) with VSTs too, like Serum.

There are several commercial options for Linux. The most-Ableton software out there is Bitwig Studio that has a Linux port. However, it’s expensive. The cheapest commercial solution, with a bit of learning curve but powerful nonetheless, is Reaper.

However, if you want to go 100% open source, there’s Ardour and LMMS (which is a lot like FL Studio). Ardour 9, which is expected by the end of the year, will be more MIDI-friendly than it used to be. LMMS latest git version (offered as binary on their site) has some good new features compared to their stable version, however, there’s still no vst3 support.

I’m an visual artist and I used Photoshop for years to edit my hand-painted scanned paintings. When I moved to Linux, and Gimp3 was out, I was finally ready to leave Photoshop behind. Some features of Photoshop aren’t there, but I was ready to leave them behind. Same with video, I used to have a rather popular blog about color grading with Resolve. I moved to kdenlive, which has none of these tools or plugins. It’s a decision that I simply had to make. I wanted to use foss tools, and that was the price to pay. I’m cool with my decision.

If you gotta go commercial, go with Reaper. The people (a small team of 3 or 4 I believe) behind it are really cool, and they’re doing it for the love of it, their profit is very small.

I’d suggest no-one ever dual-boot Windows with anything. There are to many mishaps when Windows takes it into their head to fuck the bootloader.

Put the OS into a VM. If you only use Windows for one app put Windows into the VM. Otherwise put Linux into the VM until you find you’re mostly using Linux.

Unless you have an old PC laying around …

Focus on productivity and pleasure, so make the transition easier :

• try Linux without dual boot, e.g. https://distrosea.com/ (I made a 30min video discussion if you are curious)
• try Linux on a USB stick to get persistence and not be afraid of using private data
• try dual boot with default on Windows, your important data backed-up (e.g. music you created)
• try dual boot with default on Linux and Ableton or whatever you need on Wine, if it doesn’t work in virtual machine
• try boot on just Linux with Wine
• try boot on Linux with Ableton FLOSS equivalents (few listed in this thread)
• try boot on Linux with e.g Ardour or LMMS but genuinely benefit from FLOSS by making and sharing your own plugins

The entire process must be risk free and fun!

I’m a happy Ardour user

I can greatly recommend Reaper to you, in case Ableton + Wine doesn’t work out.

I only recently got into music making as a hobby so my overall perspective might be limited, but other DAWs I tried included:

• Ardour
• Bitwig
• LMMS
• Zrythm

I settled with Reaper bc of it’s customizability, freedom in workflow and cheap price without compromising in pro features. It’s actually completely free as long as you are evaluating buying it, which is up to you for how long. And the customizability is off the charts compared to any other DAW.

But what really sold Reaper to me was the lack of hurdles that got into my way of learning to make music.

Have fun

There are a couple of solutions, I’m using Ardour myself, but LMMS might be more like Ableton

There is a more or less complete list here: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/apps/daw_apps

I am a hobbyist and was using ableton live before. As mentioned by others, unless you dual boot - try bitwig studio for similar experience. It is from people who worked in ableton. Have a trial, pirate if can’t afford now.

Foss alternative - ardour is great, but you will have to bring your own plug in suit.

Yabridge tool can help you to run windows vsts on Linux, but not everything works. And beware - it does not work with flatpak version Bitwig, at least it did not.

I haven’t personally used Ableton ever but am a hobbying musician, and pro-audio is possible on Linux as well as running non-native applications via Wine. I found this just searching, there’s apparently a Discord group also dedicated to this project.

Usually doing a web search like “xyz windows program+linux” will produce results, and putting in your distro name will produce better. Anyway, good luck on your journey!

Someone in here mentioned bitwig.

I started on abelton and moved to bitwig around 3.X and have been with it ever since.

I love all the different modules and the grid which has give me a lot more expressive control over my sounds.

they are similar yet different; I believe the core bitwig team were ex ableton devs who wanted to take things in a different direction.

I know it’s silly but one of the biggest things that I like about bitwig is customizable shortcuts; this is especially good if you’re coming from ableton because if your a shortcut key wizard you can easily remap similar functions.

if you’ve got an extensive VST collection you can run them with wine + yabridge.

Bitwig is not the only option, but coming from ableton if you want to run single boot it is the most similar (IMO) to Ableton.

Happy to answer any questions you may have about it as well.

According to WineHQ, Ableton’s compatibility with wine isn’t stellar. FL Studio works quite well in it, but switching DAWs can be a pretty major undertaking.

For Linux native DAWs, Reaper and Bitwig are the two best options. Reaper is the most affordable at 60 bucks, with an infinite free trial.

If you’re an Abelton user, I cannot recommend Bitwig enough.