I'm very glad that you've learned the basic tricks for arguing and winning arguments.

Your question "what is a large enough number of plugins in your opinion? Thousands?"

It's very clever to talk about thousands of plugins, most of which duplicate the work of others.
Lets start from 4 plugin category I listed above.
And without knowing that, I entered into a duel against you, and since you did not answer my question, I declare your lose.

 

this is actually a very good summary I can fully agree with,

speaking of specific distros, I'd rather bet on something immutable, to minimize user damage

nevertheless, seeing OP's question I do think Linux is a struggle unless OP has some spare hardware to test on, independently from his main workstation PC

 

U-He, Kazrog, TAL-Audio, ToneBoosters, Audio Damage, AudioThing, Auburn Sounds, HY-Plugins, Audio Assault, discoDSP, SineVibes, Harrison Audio.

That should cover all your bases for FX (and maybe synth instruments too) with very, very high quality plugins.

For samplers, there's Decent Sampler, which today is probably the 2nd most popular sampler after Kontakt (by number of instruments released). There are several implementations of sforzando for Linux as well.

Neither can hold a candle to the functionality or number of instruments for Kontakt though.

I'm not going to list open-source or freeware, because that would be way too much. But the ZL suite, Vital, the Surge Synth Team suite would be my top picks.

 

You just listed companies that make plugins for Linux. I already know them.

You didn't answer the question about soothe2 (I know that it can be launched via Yabridge.), Melodyne.
Music production not just recording some instrument or vocals, you need to edit, align and tune vocals. Reaper Linux got ARA2 support, but there are no available options.

 

You're asking for impossible OP. To the point I think you may be trolling. I mean what an attitude. You want to run a different OS with all the programs from another. Are you even aware of what you're asking for? How about someone told you "I would use Windows if I could run all the Linux programs on it." Well, I am a computer geek and know both and MacOS inside out, so I find it funny. Sorry.

Linux is very powerful and very flexible OS. It's completely different to Windows, (MacOS is more like Linux... but same as Android, corporations ruined them). Its ways are completely different. If you want to use it, first learn how to use it. Try a distro and desktop environment you like, and use it for browsing and tinkering with Linux first. After giving it a chance for a year or two, decide if you can use it for audio. I personally find it absolutely exceptional and would never go back to Windows. Especially because I can run ALL the plugins I LIKE, both Linux and Windows ones in Reaper (Linux). I don't need anything else, the least ALL Windows plugins.

Reaper tells me I have 1418 plugins. Of which I probably use like between 50-100, of which about 20-30 are synths. Of course, many are JS and I have all Airwindows' plugins installed. I use u-he (Linux), TAL (Linux), The Usual Suspects hardware emulations (Linux), Waldorf, Korg, Audio Damage (Linux), ToneBoosters (Linux+Windows), Roland, TC Electronic, Eventide, Lexicon, Line6, Valhalla, DMG, Native Instruments... and lots of other either Linux or Windows plugins. I do prefer native Linux ones, but many of these will never have a native Linux version, so I have to use WINE 9, Yabridge 5.1.1 and DXVK 2.6.2 to run Windows plugins, and they work surprisingly good and efficiently, once you get them to run with the help of these programs.

I also run Windows games with WINE. Works great! But I prefer PS2 and PS3 emulators. Soon PS4, too. :P Cheers!

p.s. I also have Photoshop CS but only so I can tell people that I have it and it's working in Linux.

 

Last edited: Oct 10, 2025 at 7:48 PM

TAL Sampler is a premium sampler in the Linux world. It reads sfz files, which includes the entire Zampler catalogue. Plenty to choose from.

 

Melodyne works under WINE, but GSnap, Auburn Sounds Graillon and ReaPitch (Reaper) are among native Linux pitch correction plugins.

Are you claiming that modern music can't be produced without ARA2, Soothe and Melodyne?

What's your point actually?

 

Statcounter measures which operating systems attract visitors to numerous websites and compiles the figures into monthly statistics. According to the May 2025 sample, Linux had a market share of 4.06 percent. Exactly one year ago, 3.77 percent used the free operating system. Interestingly, Windows lost users during this period – but only by around 3 percent. Incidentally, Linux's market share would be as high as 5.89 percent if Chrome OS devices, which also run Linux, were included – Statcounter lists this operating system separately in its statistics.

 

it can be legit question,
my feeds everywhere are recently flooded with Linux wannabes and "influencers" that are abusing the fear of upcoming end of Windows 10 official support and keep throwing made up shallow excuses to go Linux instead just upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 so a normal person that isn't keeping up with IT matters almost gets a notion Linux and Windows is interchangeable - just as OP wrote - and I genuinely understand that mindset

I'm just nitpicking now, but ARA2, Soothe and Melodyne are audio tools compared to Linux, Windows and MacOS that are just operating systems,
what I mean is, if someone wants to keep using certain (audio) tool, choice of underlying OS cannot be justified by throwing that aforementioned tool away

 

Time saving. With ARA2 I can tune, align 20+ vocals superfast. I am sure that I can achieve the same result on Linux, but it will take me much longer. If music is a hobby and you don't have any deadlines, then good luck with constantly solving problems.

I also want to be understood correctly. Let's say we have all of the above plugins for all three operating systems. Under these conditions, I personally would choose Linux. Here we move from the topic of audio instruments to the topic of operating systems, where Linux surpasses the rest.

 

And now more even more people know where to get native Linux plugins, isn't it great?

I use ReaTune for paint-in pitch correction.

I prefer dynamic EQ / mu-band compression (ZL Equalizer or ToneBoosters EQ for example). Spectral Compressor if you want spectral resonance suppression.

 

Just to nitpick on your nitpick, even though I do agree with your point. Your post might confuse "someone". ARA2 isn’t actually a plugin or standalone audio tool like Soothe or Melodyne. It’s a protocol/extension that allows DAWs and compatible plugins to communicate more tightly with audio data (like Melodyne editing audio non-destructively in the host). Soothe and Melodyne themselves are true audio tools/plugins, whereas ARA2 is more like a bridge or integration layer.

So your broader point still holds — the OS choice doesn’t justify giving up these tools but only Soothe and Melodyne are actual “tools,” and ARA2 just makes them work better inside compatible DAWs.

I personally wish everyone in the audio world can have a nice free version of Soothe2. So I can stop hearing about it for the same reason R2R released it for Windows. People get all hot to trot about one plugin until they get it, and then you never hear about it again.

 

Hey, thanks for this tip. I've been using the excellent ZL Equalizer, but somehow missed the Spectral Compressor.

 

A fair point.

That said, there are not that many problems in Linux that require constant solving, but a fair point nevertheless. I'm happy that we can finally have a constructive discussion.

 

What you call nitpicking is a breath of fresh air and a sign that we can finally have a nuanced discussion, and discuss nuances, instead of dealing with the usual blanket statements (BS).

Not that the opportunistic Linux evangelism you described above is any less damaging.

 

Perhaps it is not difficult for you and me to search the internet for a solution to a problem or ask ChatGPT, enter a couple of commands into the terminal, and continue working. But unfortunately, we should not judge others based on our own abilities.

A Windows user who installs Linux and Wine without outside help will not know that they need to create separate ‘prefix’ folders with different components for certain plugins. I myself did not immediately understand how it all works. They have never done this on Windows and they do not understand why these extra steps are necessary.

Don't forget about people who can't install the crack on Windows according to the instructions.

 

is Melda MSpectralDynamics that much worse really, or just uglier?
though it's not officially supported on Linux, devs do mention WINE compatibility at official site:
https://www.meldaproduction.com/about/system-requirements