FL Studio

What works

Almost everything ...

What does not

Any bridged VST's will glitch if they function at all. Since it's best to use the 32-bit application versus the 64-bit one, the bridging function shouldn't ever invoke anyway in that mode.

Workarounds

CPU usage is still quite excessive, despite the 0.4 update being a performance-based update; and this in turn still results in some audio driver overruns (but not like before). On Windows this issue is not present and the application is much more efficient. Could this indicate a problem with how the WINE audio driver works? For best results, turn the UI effects down in the general options. Also, turning off "safe overloads" and increasing the FL ASIO Driver buffer to 1024 samples will greatly enhance how the application performs in WINE and mitigate the CPU issue somewhat.

Patcher is still very CPU hungry, more so than on Windows by a factor of two or three. And because multithreading in WINE is still problematic, the problem is exacerbated in Patcher so avoid using it.

As before, it's still necessary to install the mono-complete, mono-vbnc and corefonts packages on the 'nix (and WINE, for corefonts) side to get FL Studio and some VST's working & displaying properly.

Also of note: using the "fl.exe" version of the application is the way to go. Not the 64-bit one, nor the shared memory one. Adjust launchers to point to that instead. It'll avoid your 32-bit VST's being loaded in the vst bridge (which is terribly glitchy and doesn't function correctly). What I do is create a shell script to run FL Studio from. It's easier to work with and I can patch in extra things I need to do easily -- working from a launcher commandline is more cumbersome than I care to deal with.

The shell script is straightforward enough.

[code]
#!/bin/sh
cd "/home/[your user folder]/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Image-Line/FL Studio 20/"
wine FL.exe
[code]

Save it, make it executable, then create a launcher on the desktop (or wherever) pointing to the shell script. A very good Faenza/Faience-like FL Studio icon by minstreldesign can be found at their DeviantArt page [here]. It's part of a set, but as the set contains many other useful Faenza/Faience-like icons, why not?

[Updated 9-12-2018 | FL Studio version 20.0.4 | WINE version 3.15-staging-amd64]

What was not tested

ASIO4All -- it doesn't work in WINE and isn't needed anyway.

FL Studio as a plugin for Tracktion 7 (homepage). Now that Tracktion has a dedicated Linux port, and is free for personal use, it stands to reason that Tracktion would be the "go-to" application for DAW on Linux. I have not used Tracktion 7 yet or even looked into it other than being aware of its' existence.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: Nvidia
• Driver: proprietary

Additional Comments

Remember to be efficient with your VST plugins, as too many of the delays and modulation ones (Chorus, Flangus, etc) can and will exacerbate the audio driver overruns.

Occasionally the Settings UI will lock up the application when being used. No idea why.

All of the issues, caveats and workarounds are why FLStudio doesn't get a Platinum or even a Gold rating. It's back to Silver.

(This testing data will be updated as needed.)

[Updated 9-12-2018 | FL Studio version 20.0.4 | WINE version 3.15-staging-amd64]