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I would say that with Ardour on Linux, the lack of plugins will allow you to jump straight up to hardware synths and effects. The big boys are not using very m

I would say that with Ardour on Linux, the lack of plugins will allow you to jump straight up to hardware synths and effects. The big boys are not using very much in the way of plugin synths, there are a few good plugins but they are at the price of hardware. Unless you intend to do your own mastering (don't) you're good to go with Ardour and a good analog mixing board plus a compatible high-quality DAC/ADC (if you're like me, an Apogee ONE is all you need).

dawhead 10y ago
That's actually not true. The "big boys" use tons of plugin synths. Hans Zimmer comes to mind (the entire soundtrack to Nolan's Batman series was done with U-he's Zebra2, which is an amazing synth). What you tend not to see are large-scale touring bands playing live with plugin synths. This is mostly from fear - that something will crash. There are gazillion of smaller bands performing live with Ableton Live and its own plugins, along with 3rd party engines.