Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

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empowerg
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by empowerg »

basstrombone wrote: Other downs:
Not able to play YouTube videos anything via jack (probably because we have black listed the send-dice command) which is fine with me (I want a machine that records nicely) If I want to listen and watch videos etc. Just switch to on board and I'm totally cool with that.
I have all my browsers running via jack on the Saffire via ffado. I used KXstudio repos to install Cadence, removed PulseAudio completely and in Cadence activated the bridges (ALSA->Jack I think). I think browsers by default use PulseAudio and fall back to ALSA. With the bridges they are redirected to jack.
basstrombone wrote: 2. Last night I've also found a blog discussion in French arguing that the more recently, models do not work on Linux... I Don't know if that's the case. He uploaded some pictures showing the "Newer unsupported models* that resembles mine one...? The only difference is that mine does not display the 2015 manufacturing date. But I'll run some commands tomorrow to check exact model I have.
I have also heard this. I still have the older model, so I can't confirm but I suspect this is true.

lg,
Michael
phfactor
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by phfactor »

empowerg or dufflespank, or anyone else for that matter.

Would you be willing to describe or send some screenshots that show how you have ffado-mixer set up with a Saffire Pro ?
I've been running a basic setup with my Saffire Pro 24DSP. But I don't understand the routing. Yesterday, I tried to understand it. As a result, now nothing works.

According to the ffado site (http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/ffadoMixerGuides), you route sources to sinks, and the label "1394" refer to the computer. But nowhere is there a description of the overall signal path. So I've been experimenting.I tried bypassing the mixer, just routing analog inputs to the computer, which should be something like: Source: Anlg/In1 mapped to Destination/Sink: 1394/Out:01. This doesn't seem to do anything. So I'm assuming that the mixer MUST be involved. So I tried mapping Source: Anlg/In1 to Dest/sink: Mixer/In:01, then Source: Mixer/Out:01 to Sink: 1394/Out:01, and setting the level in the Mixer matrix to 0 db. This does nothing.

I will keep experimenting, but if anyone has mixer shots or can enlighten me on how the damn signal routing is supposed to go together, I'd sure be grateful. My next step is to get rid of fffado entirely and buy a class compliant USB interface. But it just irks me that I don't understand this. Thanks.
Ubuntu 18.04 low-latency kernel.
Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire interface
Mixbus 5
basstrombone
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by basstrombone »

phfactor wrote:empowerg or dufflespank, or anyone else for that matter.

Would you be willing to describe or send some screenshots that show how you have ffado-mixer set up with a Saffire Pro ?
I've been running a basic setup with my Saffire Pro 24DSP. But I don't understand the routing. Yesterday, I tried to understand it. As a result, now nothing works.

According to the ffado site (http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/ffadoMixerGuides), you route sources to sinks, and the label "1394" refer to the computer. But nowhere is there a description of the overall signal path. So I've been experimenting.I tried bypassing the mixer, just routing analog inputs to the computer, which should be something like: Source: Anlg/In1 mapped to Destination/Sink: 1394/Out:01. This doesn't seem to do anything. So I'm assuming that the mixer MUST be involved. So I tried mapping Source: Anlg/In1 to Dest/sink: Mixer/In:01, then Source: Mixer/Out:01 to Sink: 1394/Out:01, and setting the level in the Mixer matrix to 0 db. This does nothing.

I will keep experimenting, but if anyone has mixer shots or can enlighten me on how the damn signal routing is supposed to go together, I'd sure be grateful. My next step is to get rid of fffado entirely and buy a class compliant USB interface. But it just irks me that I don't understand this. Thanks.

Greetings,

What I've done with mine was:

I've loaded the interface on my iMac, then did Factory reset. After this, Headphone jacks work just fine. All ADAT ins work fine. Sometimes FFADO mixer saves this settings, Sometimes not. Have you intalled JACK2 and the most Recent FFADO MIXER ?
I'll indeed take screenshots of my system and send it to you.
I apologize for these silly questions, but have you done all the FireWire install according to the:

https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system ... g_firewire ?

After all the optimizations I get everything working on Ardour, MixBus.

I'll indeed send screenshots of Everything ok? I'm at home right now and only be in the place where the Interface is in the Afternoon (Brasil's time zone)

Thanks
basstrombone
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by basstrombone »

empowerg wrote:
basstrombone wrote: Other downs:
Not able to play YouTube videos anything via jack (probably because we have black listed the send-dice command) which is fine with me (I want a machine that records nicely) If I want to listen and watch videos etc. Just switch to on board and I'm totally cool with that.
I have all my browsers running via jack on the Saffire via ffado. I used KXstudio repos to install Cadence, removed PulseAudio completely and in Cadence activated the bridges (ALSA->Jack I think). I think browsers by default use PulseAudio and fall back to ALSA. With the bridges they are redirected to jack.
basstrombone wrote: 2. Last night I've also found a blog discussion in French arguing that the more recently, models do not work on Linux... I Don't know if that's the case. He uploaded some pictures showing the "Newer unsupported models* that resembles mine one...? The only difference is that mine does not display the 2015 manufacturing date. But I'll run some commands tomorrow to check exact model I have.
I have also heard this. I still have the older model, so I can't confirm but I suspect this is true.

lg,
Michael

Hi Michael!

Now everything works with Jack! Youtube etc...
I suspect mine is older model too. Works like a charm. Limitations are the lack of control and saving modifications done at FFADO Mixer and really not been able to playback @ 96K.
One funky thing is: I've recorded some bass and alto Trombone Orchestral excerpts @96K with the Pro40 and would not play back at all. But when I've hooked a M-Audio 2626 Also FireWire, It played perfectly what I've recorded! Funny But PRO 40 did record at 96K but doesn't playback. I Think I'm close to find something good! ahahahah
basstrombone
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by basstrombone »

phfactor wrote:No, not boring at all!. Merci, basstrombone, for both suggestions. I have tried to optimize my machine for audio, that is, I've installed a low-latency kernel, set priorities in audio.conf, added myself to the audio group. Most of this from reading various how-to's and guides. But I've never gone through methodically and used "quickscan," as the link you gave me suggests. So I'm going to do that and report back.

I don't have a laptop. My machine is a home-built core i7 hackintosh that dual boots into Linux. It's built in a wine box. I have dual drive bays, so the linux and Mac OS installs are separate, but they both use the same EFI partition. I have a compatible firewire card that is definitely NOT a VIA chipset, although I can't remember right now what it uses.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I'm looking forward to going through that wiki.

De Rien !! Very excited to see what your results are! Don't forget to tell us how things are going ok?
Take and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!!

A tout A bientôt ou a tout à l'heure!!

Alex Ferreira
basstrombone
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by basstrombone »

Before I forget:
Still related to the snd_dice chipset, If you don't blacklist the alsa modules for it, and set qjackctl as "firewire" It won't start. Either use ALSA (as it is with its already mentioned limitations) or blacklist the ALSA in order to run FFADO Driver with Jack

This is happening to me. Just forgot to mention it

I hope everybody is just fine


Great hug!!
samdcarvalho
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 not being recognized on my Linux pc

Post by samdcarvalho »

Hello, I’ve recently switched one of my rigs over to Linux and so far I’m in love with it. I have an old Saffire Pro 40 laying around and I wanted to get it working with my setup. When I plug it in it’s not showing anywhere that it’s plugged in so I’m at a stand still on trying to get this working as my new interface.

I have the drivers for it that I ran through Wine but no luck.
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 not being recognized on my Linux pc

Post by Chibchan »

samdcarvalho wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:39 pm Hello, I’ve recently switched one of my rigs over to Linux and so far I’m in love with it. I have an old Saffire Pro 40 laying around and I wanted to get it working with my setup. When I plug it in it’s not showing anywhere that it’s plugged in so I’m at a stand still on trying to get this working as my new interface.

I have the drivers for it that I ran through Wine but no luck.
If it helps any.
I have running a Saffire Pro 24
on stock debian 11 kernel 5.10.0-18
all the tweaks suggested by running realtimeconfigquickscan.
PCIE firewire card. Chipset: Texas Instruments XIO2213A/B/XIO2221
blacklist-snd-dice.conf (Text file with these words "blacklist snd_dice" without quotes) in directory /etc/modprobe.d

add to grub:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="intel_idle.max_cstate=0 processor.max_cstate=1 threadirqs"

I run reaper (Native) with many plugins on any given project. Some of the plugins are Vitalium, surgeXT, Sfizz, DecentSampler and maybe some wine vst fx. xruns are rare.
Qjackctl auto starts at login.
These are my qjackctl settings. Some may not be necessary now but they haven't failed me yet.
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asbak
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Re: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40: Tips and tricks

Post by asbak »

Saffire Pro 40 works OK'ish in Pipewire but with the same ALSA DICE driver limitations for this particular device.
Native Jack & FFADO driver allows lower latency operation.
Pulse can be piped via Jack w. FFADO drivers.
For MIDI you may be better off using a separate MIDI interface.

Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
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