Good Linux instruments and plugins sources?

[RastaManKing]

i have always made music in windows with windows vst's like kontakt 5, Spectratonics Trillian, and XLN addictive drums and keys...
now that i dont use windows any more, and im comming back to music, im interested to know what are good sources for instruments and plugins in linux?
i mostly try and emulate real sounding instruments rather than techno synths.. i use a MIDI keyboard if that matters..
thank you for your suggestions

[Luc]

If you want emulation of real sounding instruments, then your second best bet in Linux would be to search for collections of SF2, SFZ and GIG libraries, and Google can help you with that.

The notable exception in Linux is drumming. Hydrogen and Drum Gizmo have bona fide carefully sampled drum kits.

Your best bet is to install Wine and still run Kontakt and most of the Windows plugins you used to run. Yes, most Windows plugins will run on Linux, because Linux is awesome like that.

I just woke up and rolled out of bed so I must be forgetting something.

EDIT: I just remembered these two:
http://freepats.zenvoid.org
https://www.karoryfer.com/karoryfer-samples

[CrocoDuck]

Have a look at pianoteq. It has a native Linux version. It is not opensource, or free, but I managed to do few recordings with the demo, which is pretty functional. Great modelling synth, the best in my opinion: https://www.pianoteq.com/

Also, have a look at https://musical-artifacts.com/.

[nils]

There are good Pianos and Drumsets in Linux. Salamander Piano sfz is open source and sounds very good. Pianoteq is excellent, but proprietary and commercial.

For drumsets there are good options. Hydrogen for some fast click-and play, AVL Drumkit by x42 is very good as well, Drumgizmo is objectively the best sound and flexibility but it comes at the "price" that you need to learn how to route and mix drums (in general).

There are some other smaller "real sounding" instruments for very limited usecases but in general sampling is the single worst field in Linux and Open Source Audio.

If you want orchestral sounds or anything with strings, wind- or brass there is only frustration ahead and you shouldn't use Linux if you want to make good sounding music.

[CrocoDuck]

If you want orchestral sounds or anything with strings, wind- or brass there is only frustration ahead and you shouldn't use Linux if you want to make good sounding music.

I wouldn't be so dismissive, since apparently this happens:

Your best bet is to install Wine and still run Kontakt and most of the Windows plugins you used to run.

[tavasti]

If you want orchestral sounds or anything with strings, wind- or brass ...

Are all commercial orchestral-things some VST or some other windows-binaries, nothing available as sf2 or sfz? And ok, windows VST most likely is possible. For using kontakt, what it is, does it integrate with linux-native daw when used with wine, or does it mean you have to run windows daw?

[rghvdberg]

When using LinVST or Airwave to bridge to windows vst plugins the plugins show up as native Linux vst in your Linux daw.
You'll need to set up the correct paths in your DAW to find them of course.
I've used Airwave up til now but I read linvst is even better.

There's also the possibility to load carla plugin host as a plugin in your Linux daw and load the windows plugin in carla. So yes, a plugin in a plugin.

[tavasti]

https://www.karoryfer.com/karoryfer-samples

Have you managed to get their UI's working on linux? Sforzando runs with wine, but drag'n'drop karoryfer xml did not work.

[Linuxmusician01]

@RastaManKing: want instruments? I download them from http://www.vst4free.com.

[rghvdberg]

anyway : collection of sfz instruments
https://www.bandshed.net/sounds/sfz/

using sfz samples with LinuxSampler and Ardour (should work the same with other daws)
http://libremusicproduction.com/tutoria ... m-together

I noticed the Karoryfer samples have sfz samples in the zip, you might get them to work, with lot's of fiddling. Dunno if worth it.

[Luc]

https://www.karoryfer.com/karoryfer-samples

Have you managed to get their UI's working on linux? Sforzando runs with wine, but drag'n'drop karoryfer xml did not work.

I never knew they were supposed to have a UI without a dedicated player. Do you mean a GUI? The one time I actually used an SFZ library was with Carla. Not all of them work. Some will produce no sound at all. I think I used one or two others, but I used the individual .wav files. Sforzando never worked for me before for some reason I don't remember, but I just reinstalled it and it's working now. Go figure. Well, thank you for that!
Drag'n'drop doesn't work for me either, but there is a LOAD menu operation that works fine.

(Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I was too busy and wanted to try Sforzando again before I'd get back to you.)

[glowrak guy]

https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/

I think nearly everything comes with format choices
including sf2 and sfz

I have some of the sf2, and the sampling is well done.
Maintained by a longtime e-mu employee, Timothy Swarz
Cheers

[Jack Winter]

For orchestral stuff you could also chase down second hand gigasampler libs to use with linux sampler.

[glowrak guy]

IK Multimedia Sampletank 3 in wine, with Reaper daw,
is the best real-instrument option I've found for linux.
It goes on sale sometimes, and the registration/account
system works, and they have free versions of their products,
so you'll get some very nice 'bait' to try out. ST3 is 16 part multi-timbral,
and has a huge library of sounds, and most are very good.

For wine, I suggest the stable version of wine-staging, from wineHQ,
installed in a linux that has no other version of wine installed.
Then install a debian package of wineasio, and run commands

wine64 regsvr32 wineasio.dll

wine regsvr32 wineasio.dll

The actual wineasio.dll may have to be copied in a
few wine folder locations, depending on your linux version,
for the above commands to find it.

LinVst and the older Airwave, are vst wrappers, that each,
in their own way, provide a linux-native vst with .so extension,
alongside the actual windows plugin .dll
The .so versions can be scanned and used in most linux daws.
Cheers

A small learning curve, with excellent long-term rewards.

[d.healey]

I've just setup a website where I'll be releasing GNU/Linux compatible instruments and effects. Currently there is just one product, a solo woodwind library, but more will follow soon.

https://librewave.com/