Studio

🎵 Studio — Audio Production Setup

This section covers the audio production stack installed by HorneroConfig, including DAW, guitar amp simulation, plugins, and Windows VST bridge support.

Tip

The full studio stack is installed automatically via chezmoi on Arch Linux. The install script lives at: home/.chezmoiscripts/linux/run_onchange_before_install-studio.sh.tmpl

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📁 Managed Config Files

The following REAPER files are tracked by chezmoi under home/dot_config/REAPER/:

File	Description
reaper-fxtags.ini	FX plugin tags — user-curated organization of all plugins
ProjectTemplates/Basic Vocal Tracking - Linux Scarlett.RPP	Project template for vocal recording with Scarlett interface

Everything else in ~/.config/REAPER/ (plugin scan caches, window positions, recent files, license info) is intentionally excluded — it is either machine-specific, auto-generated, or sensitive.

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🔊 Audio Server — PipeWire

PipeWire is the foundation of the audio stack. It replaces PulseAudio and JACK while maintaining compatibility with both.

Installed packages

Package	Role
pipewire	Core audio/video server
pipewire-alsa	ALSA compatibility layer
pipewire-pulse	PulseAudio compatibility layer
pipewire-jack	JACK compatibility layer (low-latency audio)
wireplumber	Session/policy manager for PipeWire
pavucontrol	GTK volume control GUI

Manual install

sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack wireplumber pavucontrol

Enable & start

systemctl --user enable --now pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Note

On a fresh install, chezmoi handles package installation but you may need to log out and back in for PipeWire to fully replace PulseAudio.

Verify PipeWire is active

After logging back in, confirm that PipeWire is serving as the PulseAudio backend:

pactl info

Look for this line in the output:

Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire)

If you see PulseAudio (on PipeWire), everything is wired up correctly. Any other value (e.g., plain PulseAudio) means PipeWire is not active — check that pipewire-pulse is installed and wireplumber is running:

systemctl --user status pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

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🎛️ DAW — REAPER

REAPER is a professional, lightweight, and highly customizable Digital Audio Workstation.

Installed via

sudo pacman -S reaper

Notes

• On Arch Linux, REAPER uses PipeWire-JACK for low-latency audio.
• Configure the audio device under Options → Preferences → Audio → Device.
• Set the device to JACK and start the session via PipeWire's JACK layer (no separate JACK daemon needed).

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🎸 Guitar Amp Simulation — Guitarix

Guitarix is a virtual guitar amplifier running through the JACK audio system.

Installed packages

Package	Role
guitarix	Virtual guitar amp
gxplugins.lv2	Guitarix LV2 plugin set

Manual install

sudo pacman -S guitarix gxplugins.lv2

Usage

Guitarix connects to the JACK graph. With PipeWire-JACK active, simply launch:

guitarix

Use qpwgraph or helvum to visualize and patch audio connections in the PipeWire graph.

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🔌 LV2 / Audio Plugins

A curated set of open-source LV2 plugins is installed for mixing, mastering, and effects.

Installed packages

Package	Description
calf	Studio-quality LV2 effects (EQ, reverb, compressor, chorus…)
lsp-plugins	Linux Studio Plugins — professional mixing/mastering suite
lsp-plugins-docs	Documentation for LSP Plugins
x42-plugins	Collection of LV2 plugins by Robin Gareus (meters, MIDI tools…)

Manual install

sudo pacman -S calf lsp-plugins lsp-plugins-docs x42-plugins

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🪟 Windows VST Bridge — yabridge + yabridgectl

yabridge lets you run Windows VST2/VST3 plugins natively in Linux via Wine.

Installed packages (AUR)

Package	Role
yabridge	Wine-based VST bridge
yabridgectl	CLI tool to manage yabridge plugin installations

Manual install

yay -S yabridge yabridgectl

Basic setup

1. Install Wine and your Windows VST plugins as usual.

2. Add plugin directories to yabridgectl:

   yabridgectl add "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steinberg/VstPlugins"

3. Sync to generate bridge files:

   yabridgectl sync

4. Verify the setup:

   yabridgectl status

Tip

Use yabridgectl sync --prune to remove bridges for plugins you've uninstalled.

References

• yabridge GitHub
• Arch Wiki — yabridge

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📦 Full Package Summary

All packages installed by the studio chezmoi script:

# Audio server
sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack wireplumber pavucontrol

# DAW + Guitar amp + LV2 plugins
sudo pacman -S guitarix gxplugins.lv2 reaper calf lsp-plugins lsp-plugins-docs x42-plugins

# Windows VST bridge (AUR)
yay -S yabridge yabridgectl

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🆘 Resources

• REAPER Linux Guide
• Guitarix Docs
• Arch Wiki — PipeWire
• Arch Wiki — JACK
• Linux Studio Plugins
• Calf Studio Gear
• x42 Plugins