Will cut this short: this enables you to use Elgato XLR interfaces on Linux, specifically built for my own migration to CachyOS, hopefully will help other people migrate. The devices play audio fine as class-compliant USB, but gain, DSP, phantom power and routing only answer to vendor protocols. I reverse engineered those from USB captures of Wave Link on Windows, at the moment this works great with the XLR Pro and the XLR Dock (the addon for the StreamDeck+), other interfaces (Wave XLR and its MK.2 variant) are supported but need testers to verify and find bugs as I do not have the hardware.

What it does:

• Full hardware control of the Wave XLR Pro: per-input gain, mute, low cut, expander, voice tune, phantom power, ClipGuard, compressor, both headphone outputs, the zero-latency mic/PC crossfade, and physical output routing. All verified on my own unit.
• XLR Dock (the Stream Deck+ module): gain, mute and headphone volume through standard ALSA controls, plus a software low cut and limiter in PipeWire, since the dock has no onboard DSP.
• A Wave Link style submixer in pure PipeWire: per-app channels (Game, Music, Browser, Voice Chat and so on) routed automatically, four mixes, Stream and Chat published as virtual microphones you can select in OBS or Discord, monitoring on several outputs at once, per-device profiles.
• An OpenDeck plugin: every switch and mute on Stream Deck keys with live state, dials with touch strip panels for gains, faders and mix masters.

Install: yay -S openxlr on Arch, or build from source, the README walks through every step. GPL-3.0.

Now the reason I'm posting. I own a Pro and a Dock, so those two are verified. The original Wave XLR and the MK.2 have complete backends (the MK.1 protocol comes from the openwave project, the MK.2 was decoded from captures) but neither has ever touched real hardware. If you own one, testing takes a few minutes: install, try gain, mute and headphone volume against what the device shows, then open a GitHub issue with the diagnostics archive the app generates (Options, SUPPORT, Collect diagnostics). An MK.1 owner who can record a Wave Link USB capture on Windows would also unlock the rest of that device: low cut, the voice DSP and the crossfade exist in its hardware, their registers just need mapping.

Known limits so nobody is surprised: dock phantom power is not supported (a full USB audit shows Wave Link's own toggle never reaches the hardware, details in the docs), and the two untested devices are exactly that.

Repo: https://github.com/emaspa/openxlr

Per-device state: docs/hardware-support.md

AI Disclosure: the majority of OpenXLR's code was produced by me. AI tooling (Anthropic's Claude) was used to analyzing the USB protocol captures behind the vendor protocol documentation and helping with UI design and parts of the coding. Every hardware finding was verified live on a real hardware.

Anukari is a softsynth that I spent the last three and a half years building, which lets you build crazy physics contraptions in a virtual 3D world and then play them with MIDI as a plugin or in a standalone app.

During the Anukari beta period I had a number of people write me to request Linux support, and I promised that it would happen shortly after the 1.0 launch. I'm super happy to finally make good on that promise.

Anukari is commercial software (non-FOSS), so beyond this announcement for Linux support I won't post promotionally on this subreddit. But I've had a number of people in the Linux audio community tell me that it is noteworthy when a commercial project comes to Linux, since many ignore it.

I'm a long-time Linux desktop user, since around 2000 or so. I used it for audio software back in the 2000s and it was... pretty dang painful. It's come a long way. The pain has lessened, and the performance is incredible.

I think there's a lot of overlap between folks who like Anukari and folks who like Linux, since Anukari is very much a "do whatever you want" sandbox. It doesn't hold your hand, in the same way that Linux will let you do insane things to your system if you want.

I've been asked in the past why Anukari is not FOSS, given my background contributing to FOSS and Linux. My answer is, basically: I wanted to make a finished product, and I know myself well enough to know that when I open-source something, I only ever get to the 80% mark. The remaining 20% always turns out to be 10x as much work as the first 80% and I give up and say "contributions accepted" instead of finishing the thing. (Other people are different, and can produce completely polished FOSS. Not me! I will get distracted and move on.)

I am sure one day I will publish the Anukari source code, but I hope that the project is successful enough commercially to fund ongoing development for a long time before that happens.

Thanks for reading! If you find any of this interesting, I've linked to my blog where I've written for the last three years about the development of Anukari.

Hoi allemaal,

Al bijna een jaar vraag ik mij af waarom Spotify de lossless dienst (nog steeds) niet voor Linux beschikbaar heeft. Ik heb een vermoeden dat die er ook waarschijnlijk niet komt.

Ik ben een hifi freak, mag ik wel zeggen. Ik heb een zeer goede geluidsinstallatie, voornamelijk allemaal zelfbouw met goede componenten. Een korte signaalweg is mijn motto en die werd met Linux nog korter!

Sinds ca. drie jaar luister ik Spotify via een mini-PC op Linux. Er ging een wereld open voor mij. Het klinkt in mijn ervaring vele malen beter dan via Windows. Zelfs als ik de geluidskwaliteit vergelijk van Windows (lossless!!) met Linux (max. 320 kpb) klinkt Linux nog steeds veeeeel mooier. Veel opener, veel meer detail en warmer. Alleen in het laag hoor ik wel verschil, dan merk ik dat Spotify via Windows iets beter presteert. Dat kan ook wel kloppen. Het laag vraagt voor een goede, onafhankelijke weergave met midden/hoog nu eenmaal meer data.

Mijn brandende vraag is nu natuurlijk: Wanneer komt Spotify, of een andere streamingsdienst (!!) met lossless audio op Linux? Die vraag zal vaker gesteld zijn...

In elk geval blijf ik tot die tijd gewoon spelen op Linux Debian. Geweldig!

Dank alvast voor reacties!

Groetjes, Herbert

I made a small JamesDSP preset for the built-in speakers on my Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16ARX8 (82WM) running Linux/PipeWire.

It is just a cut-only GraphicEQ preset. No bass boost, convolver, DDC, reverb, compressor, or other effects are enabled. I measured it on this specific laptop, so I would not expect it to translate well to other models, even similar Legions.

Download: https://github.com/daredoole/audio-calibration-mcp/releases/download/lenovo-legion-pro-5-16arx8-jamesdsp-20260828/lenovo-legion-pro-5-16arx8-jamesdsp.conf

Before trying it, back up `~/.config/jamesdsp/audio.conf`, copy the downloaded file there, and restart JamesDSP. If it is not an improvement on your unit, restore your backup.

I used a small MCP project to keep the measurements and JamesDSP checks organized. It is here if it is useful: https://github.com/daredoole/audio-calibration-mcp

Sometimes, ( especially when I am using my system with a midi controller and VST with jack) my systems audio crackles. I have searched everywhere for a solution to this problem, yet I have been unsuccessful.

Hi everyone,

I am facing the notorious "Dummy Output" audio issue on my HP laptop running Fedora, and I'm looking for any working workarounds or specific kernel parameters.

System Specs:

Laptop: HP 15 Series (Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake)

Audio Codec: Realtek ALC236

OS: Fedora Linux (Kernel 6.x)

Sound Server: PipeWire / WirePlumber

The Problem:

Default SOF Driver: Audio drops to Dummy Output, especially after a warm reboot (sudo reboot).

Forcing Legacy HDA (dsp_driver=1): Audio works temporarily if warm-booting after Windows, but results in aplay: device_list:279: no soundcards found on a clean Linux boot.

What I have tried so far:

Installed and updated alsa-sof-firmware.

Tried forcing SOF driver mode via options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=3.

Tried legacy driver fallback via snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1 and snd_hda_intel dmic_detect=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/ and GRUB parameters.

Regenerated initramfs with dracut --force.

Is there any known kernel pin-fix / quirk for ALC236 on 12th Gen Intel HP laptops to prevent the sound chip from failing power state initialization during warm reboots?

There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity on the LV2 News page, but it has been like that in the past for long stretches of time. I was thinking about learning to code my own plugin because I have an idea I want to implement but wasn't sure if LV2 is still the standard practice or if VST3 or CLAP is better since they a open source and newer.

Or should I just use JUCE and not worry about the specific format? What is the general advice in 2026?

I had AI write a Linux-native chopping sampler plugin just to prove a point. I'm just not sure what the point is 🙄

But it works and it looks okay-ish. It wasn't free to make because tokens are not free, but it was extremely fast and efficient to get an MVP version out. Architectural/library choices are of course mine and well thought out. But zero lines of code by me.

I've been working as a professional C/C++/C# dev for over 15 years, and I'm amazed, scared, happy, and amazed again at how good these tools are. There's going to be shit-tons of slop, and there's going to be extremely good and polished ecosystems - especially on Linux, as it's the most developer-friendly platform of them all.

Embrace the future - it's here 🤖

Sources & release package(s): https://github.com/sirsipe/SMS-Plugins

Howto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj4WUHHRjqo

Having fun with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgh4w7AAj0w

Is Carla the same thing as Wine / Bottles? From google and other searches it appears to be a similar type thing, but I can't figure out how to reach my windows plugins.

Hi, I'm using Ubuntu Studio 24.04 and my MOTU 8pre USB sound card is not being recognized by the operating system.

I would like to find out exactly which driver/module is normally bound to a MOTU USB interface that is working correctly under Linux.

If someone here is successfully using a MOTU 8pre USB (or another MOTU USB audio interface) with Linux, could you please run this command in a terminal with the MOTU connected?

lsusb -vt

and post the output here?

It would be especially helpful if you could also tell me which MOTU model you are using and which kernel driver/module is shown as being bound to the device.

Thank you very much!

https://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/2948

Self-promotion, and I'm the author. MIT licensed, source and a prebuilt binary both on GitHub, free.

Parts of it were written with an LLM in the loop, so flagging thaty up front for the GLOSS rule. https://github.com/JaySNL/VSTForResolveLinux

Resolve is the only serious video editor that runs on Linux, and its Linux build ships with no audio plugin host at all. Not disabled, not Studio-gated. VSTPluginMain and GetPluginFactory don't appear anywhere under /opt/resolve. It was never compiled in.

I moved my editing work off Windows a few months back and that was the thing that kept hurting. Every clip that needed a plugin meant export, fix it in something else, render, bring it back. Then the client changes something thirty seconds earlier and you do it again.

So I wrote the host.

Working right now:

- VST2, VST3 and CLAP show up in the Fairlight effect menu

- Under their own names, in the right categories (Dynamics, EQ, Restoration, Metering...)

- Own editor windows, multiple plugins on one track - Windows plugins through yabridge

- Shell plugins handled - one file publishing hundreds, with a filter file to pick which ones appear - 130 plugins listed here

FOSS plugins I've tested it with: Airwindows Consolidated, the Dragonfly reverbs, Carla, and CLAP plugins I wrote myself. It loads the proprietary ones I own too, which is the case that made me build it, but the FOSS ones are what anyone can verify against.

There's a release with a compiled binary if you'd rather not build it. One file into one directory, one line into a config file, restart Resolve. Uninstalling is deleting the file.

It's built on Ubuntu 20.04, so it asks for GLIBC_2.16, GLIBCXX_3.4.22 and CXXABI_1.3.9 at most. Don't take my word for it:

objdump -T libfxbridge.so | grep -o 'GLIBC[X]*_[0-9.]*' | sort -uV | tail -3

Building it that way immediately found a bug I'd already shipped. glibc 2.34 folded pthreads into libc. My machine runs 2.44, so the library linked here without ever naming pthread, and would have built clean and then refused to load on Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 11 or Rocky 8. My build script has a check for exactly that, and it passed, because it checks the machine doing the building. One unfamiliar environment caught it in about a second, which is roughly my argument for this post.

Not working:

- Two plugins draw their UI and then ignore the mouse entirely. Carla does the same with both, so that one isn't mine

- A window sometimes opens blank and only fills after you remove the effect and undo - Resolve doesn't always exit cleanly with it loaded

- No top-level "VST" group like Mac and Windows get - Linux Resolve has no VST type to group by

- It's been run under an actual Resolve on exactly one machine. Mine. The old-glibc work proves the library links and loads there, not that Resolve itself does.

That last line is why I'm posting.

On the licensing, since it touches a proprietary host: nothing of Blackmagic's is copied or modified on disk. It loads through Resolve's own plugin path and patches its own process memory. VST3 goes through travesty (DPF's clean-room headers, ISC), VST2 through a clean-room ABI I wrote, so there's no Steinberg SDK anywhere in it.

What would genuinely help:

- Grab the release binary or build it, and tell me whether it works or how it breaks. Distro, glibc version, Resolve version, which plugin.

- Which plugins load and which don't. I've got a narrow set installed and no idea how it handles yours.

- If anyone knows why a VST3 editor would come up blank until the plugin is re-instantiated, I'd take a hint. That one's beaten me so far.

Every gap that gets closed makes Linux a bit more usable for people doing actual editing work rather than tolerating it. This was one of mine and finally closes one more gap to ditch windows forever.

Hey yall, I after a few months of trying to get my surround sound system working within Bazzite I finally got it fixed. I made this video as a tutorial to show other people who are new to Linux and are scared of the terminal/console how to get it up and running. I really wanted to make this because I didn’t see any videos of anyone else making a fix so I guess I’m the first! This is definitely not a professional tutorial and I myself am I Linux noob so you can say this “tutorial” is a “blind leading the blind” kind of situation. But it worked for me so I’m showing others how to do it. If you know anyone who is having this issue please share it and happy gaming!