If music production is your main objective, I would suggest Windows. I do some home recordings as well and have quite a baggage of pluggings and tools that are either unavailable, not compatible or not up to date on Linux (I'm on an Arch based distro). I have Windows and Linux on two separate SSDs for this exact reason. I managed to set up my Linux system in a way where I can work on some projects and got most programs to work one way or another but I always encounter hardware issues that have to do with drivers, especially with some of my older equipment. If you have the the option you can install another drive on youtrlaptop and run both Windows and Linux.

Now, there are folks out there that do music on Linux but there is a lot of work to do to keep things running, especially if you use lots different softwares and pluggins.

There's a music producer on YT called unfa who does all of his work on Linux. You may want to contact with him for specifics.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAYKj_peyESIMDp5LtHlH2A

I use Bitwig on an Arch Based distro. It works really well. Thanks to the flatpak package of bitwig, your choice of distro should not matter that much (in regard to running bitwig). So far I've only used bitwig and vst/clap plugins with a native vst version (vcv rack for example) those also work great. So far, I have not tried to get windows plugins to work. But that's a Todo item for the future. I plan to use yabridge for this, but as you have read yourself, current NI plugins are a hassle and hardware specific plugins especially. I face similar issues with overbridge for my elektron machines...

At least when it comes to native Linux audio software like bitwig and reaper, my experience is highly positive. But the landscape is a lot smaller then on windows and some things do require more reading and tinkering so I'm not recommending it to everyone but certainly encourage it if one can live with some downsides.

I might sound like an old fart but here's my 2 cents.

I was exactly in the same situation in 2005. I was heavily invested in commercial products but I wanted to switch to an all open source workflow. My advice would be to start small. First dual boot with windows. Get your DAW working at a basic level. Then get your hardware setup the way you are fully comfortable. Then try to get your visual instruments to work.

Keep in mind that it will be a somewhat different workflow. Linux is highly modular. You can definitely achieve the same results but sometimes with more tools. Jack is an amazing sound system which is now seamlessly integrated into the system with Pipewire. It makes routing your audio stupidly simple and opens up a whole different universe of possibilities.

All this is coming from someone that's using an all open source approach for almost 20 years now.

And if it does't work, it doesn't. No need to swim against the current.

I use REAPER, which also has native Linux support and run most of my vsts over yabridge. Works really well for me overall but i try to use as much native foss vsts as possible. See https://safereddit.com/r/linuxaudio/comments/wntpyd/linux_plugins_thread_2022/ for some examples

You certainly want to test out what you expect to use before moving. The advantage would also be finding apps that run natively on Linux. There certainly are some such DAW apps.

I'm using Manjaro KDE and my games are running fine under Proton on Steam Games. But I play Snowrunner, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc.

A tip on Windows VMs as I do keep one. I discovered that running one with it's Windows files rather on a separate partition formatted at NTFS, really works quite well for me (versus the VM sitting on one massive VM file on the Linux partition. Can see Chris' video about this at https://youtu.be/6KqqNsnkDlQ.

Nice thing for just testing Linux, is install it on an external drive, and boot with that. Then your existing machine is completely left as it is, and you can test Linux as it would really run on your computer.

I did some music production on windows, had a lot of vsts and everything worked pretty well. I then lost interrest for a while and switched to linux in the meantime. After starting again, I realize, how much easier it was on windows. While the bitwig plugins are great, there are so many things, like some effects plugins missing, that I really want to have. Of course carla and wine works quite ok, but it still isn't the same as native running plugins. My suggestion is to stick to windows if you do music production somewhat professionally, but if you have the time and motivation to work with a limited set of instruments, go for it. It can only change for the better in the future.

Check out traction

https://www.tracktion.com/

Sounds like you have some investment into hardware and software not really designed with linux in mind. Running windows in a VM could work. There might be issues with graphics though if your VSTs/DAW have a lot of eye candy, as you'll usually use a virtual GPU with a VM. You could always try a windows VM inside windows whether it works OK, before committing to linux + VM. An alternative could be to have a dual boot setup. You could use linux for day to day things, and reboot into windows to do music production.

The big issue is not the DAW. Reaper will work fine (as well others, I'm sure). The issue is plugins, particularly wrt extended functionality with NI stuff (Maschine, etc.), and a variety of other ones, from Plugin Alliance, etc.

Yes, you could probably get a lot of this stuff to work (though to what extent, I don't know), but it will not be supported. If things start having issues, or if a new version comes out, there are no guarantees. I had a wierd glitch with a certain PA plugin but since I was using Reaper, they wouldn't support it - this was on windows.

Also, although you could likely get your interface to run, it'll not be supported.

In the end, if the fun for you is the challenge of making it work (even with duct tape and bailing wire) then go for it. It would honestly be fun.

However, if the goal is to make music, you run the risk of spending valuable time grinding away on compatibility issues - time that could be spent doing the music thing.

There's a reason why people gravitate towards MacOS for music - it just works, even more so than with Windows. That said, I just can't stand Apple computers (it's the walled garden that gets to me - YMMV - it's a personal choice) and settle for Windows on a home built PC with a healthy dose of WSL.

The other big thing holding me back is Adobe - lightroom, mobile, cloud, are all very much part of what I need. No joy there in *ix-land.

FWIW, I exclusively ran linux (and FreeBSD) for several years. Switched back to windows for the sake of compatibility with my workplace.

Let us know what if you end up trying it out - I am tempted to test it out too, but I am unlikely to switch.

Almost all audio plugins you likely use do have native Linux equivalents (but not through the same developer). Check out Ubuntu Studio. Also I think highly of Reaper as a DAW. Reaper is not FOSS, but it is Linux native.

I would like to add that if you're eyeing switching to Linux in the future you may want to check before buying whether something supports Linux going forward. Also, you might want to make some noise on the forums so that companies understand that there's a growing demand for Linux support. I've been making music on Linux for quite a while but I've always bought DAWs (like Reaper, Bitwig, Renoise) and VSTs (U-He, ToneLib, etc) that already support Linux... trying to migrate a workflow from Windows to Linux could be pretty hard.

I'm on Ubuntu Studio and using Ardour (though I also got Reaper and have been meaning to try it out). There is a LinuxAudio community here on Lemmy you can visit to get some advice!

Ardour runs on Linux machines (because it was written for it iirc) and Reaper is working on RasPi iirc. You’ll have to dig deeper into those yourself, especially as they pertain to your VSTs and other software, but it’s not impossible.

I'm actually interested too; are you looking for a desktop or laptop? My biggest hurdle is laptop availability and finding decent places to start shopping. How have you approached it? I know it's not ideal but I prefer laptops for work.

Last time I tried to use low latency audio on a Windows VM the latency was still horrendous. You could get closer to the desired result via some non-trivial virtualization where you passthrough a whole USB controller to Windows and you plug your hardware in it. Unfortunately that still isn't as low latency as native Windows. It might be possible to get there via further optimization like CPU core pinning but I didn't get there. I keep a laptop with Windows for the purpose.

TL;DR: Windows VM for low latency audio isn't an option.

I think you’re going to have a bad time. You could always just dual boot Linux and Windows; use Windows when you need to use good software.

I would highly recommend Linux Mint.