iRig+DAW newbie questions

[mafaldinha]

Hi all,

I have the iRig 2 interface that I've been using with my iPhone and Garage Band app, but wanted to switch to my PC for convenience, more space, etc. What I want is to be able to record a couple of guitar tracks, maybe add some generated drums, or play over a ready-made backing track. I also want to have guitar effects, I read about a wide array of possibilities that plugins/effects in DAWs give.
I have read a bit, downloaded some software, but got overwhelmed with information and got stuck at setting up the Jack. Do I need Jack? Where should I start to avoid a very steep learning curve, where do I start to plug my guitar into the interface, that into my PC and record? Which DAW would best suit my needs?
I'm on Mint 18.3.

thanks!

[lilith]

You don't need Jack as long you are not routing between different applications (e.g. Hydrogen into Ardour). ALSA works fine for recording and working in the DAW. What's the problem with Jack?

http://jackaudio.org/faq/

I would recommend using Ardour (if you want to keep it simple and basic) or Reaper (if you can live with a ton of functions you might not need in the beginning) for recording guitar. Or just try both DAWs. Reaper is free for 60 days, Ardour is free when you download it form the KXStudio repositories, otherwise you can pay a little (from 1€ upwards) and you can download it from the Ardour website. Using Ardour 5.12 is highly recommended.
Please also don't use any Ardour version which comes from your distribution. Only Ardour which comes from 1) Ardour website 2) KXStudio repositories or 3) AVLinux is fine and officially recommended.

For guitar effects GUITARIX is a must.

Does you interface work?

[mafaldinha]

Yes, I have set up the KXStudio repos, got Ardour 5.12. Created a session and after some tinkering I was able to record my guitar through the interface, yay!

Will I need jack to use GUITARIX?

When I tried starting JACK, QjackCtl gives this error:

Code: Select all

14:27:56.430 D-BUS: Service is available (org.jackaudio.service aka jackdbus).
14:27:56.490 D-BUS: JACK server could not be started. Sorry
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
14:27:56.566 ALSA connection graph change.
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: Starting jack server...
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: JACK server starting in non-realtime mode
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: ERROR: Cannot lock down 107341338 byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: Acquired audio card Audio0
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: Using ALSA driver HDA-Intel running on card 0 - HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7d1c000 irq 45
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: ERROR: ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for playback. Falling back to capture-only mode
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: Released audio card Audio0
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: ERROR: Cannot initialize driver
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: ERROR: JackServer::Open failed with -1
Thu Aug  9 14:27:56 2018: ERROR: Failed to open server
Thu Aug  9 14:27:58 2018: Saving settings to "/home/joanna/.config/jack/conf.xml" ...
14:28:05.836 Could not connect to JACK server as client. - Overall operation failed. - Unable to connect to server. Please check the messages window for more info.
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started

Any ideas what's wrong?

[lilith]

Will I need jack to use GUITARIX?

There are several options:

1) You can use Guitarix with Jack to directly record your processed guitar (+ dry if you want) signal into the DAW
2) You can use the LV2 plugins from Guitarix as a plugin chain in Ardour like here for example:



Here I used the GX Rat pedal, the GX Amplifier X and an impulse response file loaded in Klangfalter which simulates the Guitar Box. That's why the Cabinet simulation in the Amplifier is switched off.

3) You can export the whole guitarix rack as a LV2 plugin: viewtopic.php?t=18280

Jack: Did you select your soundcard in Jack? Can you post a screenshot with the settings?