Linux Audio Development (LAD)
Chris Mills
Linux Audio Artists Spotlight interview with Chris Mills
This interview was conducted by Amadeus Paulussen in 2026.
Dear Chris,
it's been quite a while since I first wanted to interview you, and at least from my perspective, the whole situation around making music on Linux has continued to improve drastically since then. 😎
I remember that, back then, we talked about asking you about your journey to transition from Windows to Linux as the central platform for your music production.
Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your musical journey so far, especially with a focus on technology?
Sure. I self-identify as an Italian-American immigrant who moved to New Zealand to be a part of the film industry in 2002 and stayed for the food, and later started a small packaging brewery. Art and science have both been strong influences for all my life. Commercial art with 3D graphics and visual effects, brewing and electronic music all sit solidly, and comfortably in each discipline.
My musical journey began when I was very young and I learned to read music and play recorder when I was 7, and violin when I was 10-15 years, and French horn from 14-18 years. The music I played was classical or, later, marching band. I love listening to nearly everything: jazz, classical, blues, folk, techno, funk, prog rock, etc.
In 1998 I encountered my first music software and I made some tracks with Acid, explored ReBirth, and then Reason and Cubase. I had an Access Virus B and I loved all the sounds it could make. I down-shifted to dabbling with Reason from 2002 to 2018 while I tried to find my way with the film industry and then as a brewer. In 2018 I began participating in some online challenges where I would make a new track every week. This lasted about a year and I crested a point in my personal development where I was less precious about what I was making, and felt a bit more confidence in how much music theory was (or wasn't) needed to make music that made me happy. Reason, VCV Rack, and then Bitwig Studio all played a part in my explorations.
Exploring how technology works and recreating it in VCV Rack or Bitwig Studio became an integrated part of my workflow. Windows 11 caused me to look to Linux and from mid-2025, I actively began exploring migrating to an all Linux production environment. I have been almost exclusively producing electronic music now in the Linux ecosystem as of November 2025.  Â
Where do you stand today in your goal of using Linux for your music production?
I am most comfortable using Linux now and feel my goal of using Linux for my music production has been realised fully.
What would you say were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome on your way to Linux (so far)?
The biggest hurdles were the imagined ones. I imagined that Linux was a lot more complicated than it actually is and I overthought things too much. What helped me through this was to document my steps, and to revise this document as I learned what worked best, or better, so that when I eventually have to rebuild my system I will be able to do this easily and efficiently by following my notes.
On the other hand, I'd also love to hear about any particularly rewarding or maybe even unexpected moments you've experienced during your Linux transition so far.
I do not have an audio interface (my 20+ year old MOTU 1224 failed in 2024) and everything I do now is "in the box". Discovering that it is possible to wire qpwgraph to take the audio output from Chrome and pipe it directly into Bitwig means that I can make "field recordings" from Web Software-Defined Radio websites, or any other sources. This is not possible with Windows without an audio interface.
In your immediate circle, do you feel like you're taking this path toward Linux mostly on your own, or do you actually notice a growing trend in that direction?
In my local friend network I have discovered that the more I talk about Linux, the more I discover that the people around me are already using it. Many know much, much more than I do and are all very helpful.
The Mastodon circle of friends is global and it seems that many are already well versed and steeped in Linux and are generally very helpful and welcoming of my questions. It has been quite liberating.
Quite a few musicians and producers who switched their music production to Linux told me that rediscovering and rebuilding their software arsenal was limiting at first, but ultimately became an inspiring experience. How was that for you?
I miss the mellow and amazing sound of Audio Modelling's SWAM French Horns, which are unavailable on Linux (this VST is too hard to get to run under Linux due to the licensing server), but I have all the sounds of the Access Virus from The Usual Suspects and I don't really feel I am missing any aspect of my musical voice.
Can you name 10 tools that you discovered, learned to appreciate, or even fell in love with through your move to Linux?
GIMP, Inkscape, Kdenlive, OBS, and qpwgraph are the main tools that I have come to use and appreciate at least weekly.
Do you use Wine/yabridge, or did you go fully native?
I've not installed Wine or yabridge. I keep it all 100% native.
How did you initially find your way through the infamous forest of distributions, desktop environments, window managers, display servers / compositors, and audio servers? And, looking back, do you wish there had been more information or guidance available while finding your way into Linux?
I first installed Suse Linux in 2003, I used Ubuntu regularly at the brewery from 2011 to today and felt that Linux Mint offered the closest experience to what I had come to appreciate as the "better" parts of Windows XP and 10 user experience and early Mac OS X days (pre 2016).
How did you experience the huge number of options when you first got into Linux, and how do you see it now after gaining more experience?
As I mentioned earlier, I overthought things. Keeping a living notebook of solutions means I no longer need to remember everything and can call this up anytime to review what I've done.
Can you tell us a bit about your current computer setup, both hardware and software?
I have a home-built PC based around a Gigabyte Z390 UD motherboard fitted with an i9-9900k CPU (which is not over-clocked), has 32GB or RAM and an RTX 2080 ti GPU.
Linux Mint 22.3 with X11 is installed on an HDD fitted where the optical drive was on my PC, and Windows 11 is installed on an SDD.
I boot into Windows once every week or two to let Backblaze make archives of my work files (I put most of my Linux projects on the C: drive in my Windows documents folder) and ever since I stopped using Rclone with Google Drive, my user experience became much, much more pleasant and responsive.
Are there still unresolved problems for you, or would you say you've fully arrived at this point?
A better backup solution is wanted. I don't want to store my archives in the US. I would also like to de-Google, but nothing comes close in terms of performance, ease of use and cost (I operate on a shoestring). I'm trialing kSuite on Infomaniak, but the experience in New Zealand is a bit sluggish.
What would you recommend to other music producers who are thinking about giving Linux a try?
Do it. Follow my notes and see if that helps to get you started without too much hassle. I've spent years trying things and my current recipe feels pretty good for an all in the box DAW experience.
What are your hopes and wishes for the future of Linux Audio?
That plugin and software makers embrace it more fully and stop marginalising it. Audio Modelling, I am looking at you, specifically. I would welcome access to SWAM horns natively in Linux.
And finally, to give people some context about your work: could you share three of your own tracks or projects so we can get an impression of your music?
If you would like to hear some of my recent creations (everything from 2026 is all made on Linux) then please head to Bandwagon.fm.
Would you like to add something?
For my Linux Audio consideration notes and other technical writings on electronic music making in Bitwig Studio, VCV Rack and plugdata then please head to my website.
Thanks for interviewing me!