Windows VSTs On Linux With Yabridge

For 30 years, WINE has bridged the gap between Windows and Linux for running applications, particularly games. But its utility extends further, even into the realm of audio. Enter yabridge, an application that unlocks the doors to running your beloved Windows audio plugins right on your Linux system.

LINKS

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Intro
00:16 WINE on Linux
00:24 Yabridge
00:28 Installing WINE staging
00:54 Installing yabridge
01:10 Installing Windows audio plugins
01:23 Syncing Windows plugins with yabridge
01:36 Testing Pro-Q 3 in Linux
01:46 Plugin performance under Linux
02:19 Plugin compatibility
02:31 Waves plugins

COMMENT BINGO!

[ ] Unrelated Linux question
[ ] I would run Linux if ______
[ x ] FREE
[ ] This is why I don’t run Linux
[ ] Asking technical questions in the comments instead of the forums

[skevvi]

vsts dont showing in reaper, i added all pathes, i rescan n clear cache, etc still not showing

[LilithBrex]

Seriously a lifesaver. Can't thank you enough for this! For sure the best tutorial out there for this. Great tool, too!

[PAVAGE]

Thanks man for making this video, have been looking for ages...Easy to understand and even i got it to work :D Much Appreciated. Keep up the good work!

[a_soulspark]

SOLUTION (leaving this here in case people come across this problem)
If your VSTs GUI have black screens or do not respond/update with mouse inputs, clicks and interactions, downgrade to Wine 9.21. It is a known issue stated in the yabridge github repo that Wine 9.22 and above does NOT work with yabridge at the moment. after downgrading, most VSTs should work really well.

I found this out when I followed the steps here, my VSTs in Reaper would open up and respond to MIDI input, but I couldn't use their UI. It'd either be pitch black, or wouldn't update nor respond at all to my mouse inputs. hopefully this will help some people out.

[sonasty]

Thank you so much! I was having so much trouble trying to figure this out solo from the github instructions. There were so many assumptions that were roadblocks to making it happen and your video cleared up literally every question I had for the install process.

[samuelbanya]

I did this for Addictive Drums 2, but you have to use the winecfg command to configure a virtual desktop. Apparently the latest version of wine staging has issues with yabridge, heads up for anyone trying this but is experiencing issues where the GUI shows a behavior where if you click in one section, the actual click event shows up to the top right of where you actually clicked.

[meowcula]

I use Ardour (just because I started on linux using that and never bothered to switch to reaper), yabridge works great on pretty much anything I throw at at, unless it's known notorious ones that don't work on any distro or daw on linux. I was actually pretty impressed by just how well it works, and how easy it is. lifesaver, really.

[CarlitoProductions]

Fabfilter has a licensing window that pops up and on Linux Mint Cinnamon, I can't copy and paste taste into the box. Is there a way to allow Wine's and Linux's clipboards to share copy data?

[joshwelker]

I'm trying to get wine to work on the steam deck. I can't figure out how to install it.

[bhaswardutta]

Thanks for the video good sir! I really hope the performance hit for windows vsts would become minimal just as it happened for games on proton. With studio one, my preferred daw also releasing a beta on linux, things are looking good.

Could you recommend a resource to start for absolute noobies who want to switch to linux for audio work? ( I did use linux for gaming a for a few months, but could not figure out the audio production and video production side of things) While the open source software and plugins like Ardour and stuff do look really capable, the also look really complicated AF. That's the reason I want to stick to proprietary stuff like Reaper, Bitwig or in my case Studio One.

Sorry if my comment is rambly, but I'm really a noob here.

[gravelrhoads]

I hit a roadblock with "Unable to locate package winehq-staging". No amount of searching reveals how to get past that. Any ideas?

[ruby-sr]

Wait, what plugin path in Reaper do I need to set? To wine or to yabridge? Or will it just see it automatically?

[trigomathmancer]

Although the VST does show up and clearly applies the expected effect, the UI is strangely messed up, it looks perfectly fine, updates perfectly, just for some reason the actual button locations are offset way up and away from where it looks like they are, I looked it up and apperently it's caused by newer Wine versions past 9.21, I hope you you can show us a workaround for this, thank you for the tutorial anyaways, I would likely not have known of yabridge otherwise.

[KyleDov]

I have traction Waveform installed on Linux. Will it work with that daw?

[joshodell]

Thanks for the video! To get this setup, would I need to use the Linux version of Reaper or the Windows version through Wine? Or does it matter?

[freddymercury]

Why do you have to install WINE Staging? Isn't normal WINE okay?

[cnfuzz]

Thanks for the compact brief on getting the thing up and running, the vst path setup in terminal needs some effort but it looks stable in reaper, the thing that doesn't work is jack on pci soundcards ( m audio/terratec, usb audiointerface was no problem

[piturripi]

damn that voice left me pregnant and I'm a dude

[Laihoistheman]

Trying to get this workign but im stuck on the part where its installed and yabridge is synced but im not sure where to point my vst folder for the yabrisdge'd files. i tried but its not finding them