The only good solution that I know of which:
- works out of the box
- is complete (systems, apps, realtime, VST support)
is the coming studio-to-go 2.0.
The 3rd beta has just been released, so it is not far from the final release.
Why do I say it is the 'only' solution :
- it is the only one working out of the box fully with jackdmp. Some other audio-distro (64Studio, Jacklab) think about it. Others just avoided this subject (Ubuntustudio). A dual core machine without jackdmp will mostly use one core = unefficient, back to Cubase and others few years ago on Win and MAC computers. Even on one core, jackdmp will improve performances in different ways.
-it comes with VST support as standalone and in Rosegarden .
Due to licensing, VST is not supported in Ardour. It is still a big drawback : Ardour is 'the' platform for multi track recording, and mostly final mix with automation. VST support in Ardour (which works absolutely fine once compiled) is the only way to get some functionalities and state of the art plug-ins (SIR reverbs, dynamics come to mind). Studio-to-go is still the best way to go so far on this subject too. You can use you VST synthetisers and effects as standalone and in Rosegarden, and you might be just fine for your mix in Ardour with the 300 or so ladpsa plugins available.
- compatible now with debian etch, easy to complete with synaptic if installed on HD. It comes as a live-cd, which is just great if you work with other musicians. You just bring your STG live-cd and your external HD with your audio files, and off you go...impressive!
- qjadeo. Loads of music, soundtracks are produced for either movies, cartoons, 3D animations,etc. So, having a video sync to audio is quite essential. That's what qjadeo provides, again, out of the box in STG. Just click on qjadeo, select your video, and here you go with your video synced to Ardour or Rosegarden through jack. Here again, it seems this is something which didn't seem to be relevant during the Ubunstudio think tank, even though it targets "middle to experienced users" which therefore would definitely look for this kind of feature.
So, my 2 cents are that you can wait for Ubuntustudio (I will obviously give it a try, but am for now quite skeptical on the relevance of the choices which have been made in the overall design of it...nice black theme though...) or try other free distros like 64Studio, Musix , Dynebolic, but if you really want to produce audio, then just get a live-cd of STG 2.0.
For now , you can download the free demo STG 1.5, but there is really a giant step in between 1.5 and 2.0, so I would wait for the final release of 2.0 to consider a purchase (£50). The core developers are also developers of some of some apps that you will use (Rosegarden, DSSI, etc) which obviously give a serious touch of professionalism to the support you get on STG forums...
Don't get me wrong : I work on Ubuntu 8 hours a day, I love it, and there is no way I would change it for anything else, for my day-today work. But STG for audio prod seems to be far beyond anything else for audio-prod on linux.
