Remote sound device inputs to a master machine
Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2020 2:55 am
Recently, I've fallen down the rabbit hole of networked audio components. It all started from a relatively innocuous Google search for "Linux AVB", and then I got excited as I read some threads on the official Ardour forum:
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/dante-pr ... udio/89782
and
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/linux-avb-support/89168
I also found this thread of Frank's to be quite interesting:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=14159
So I fired up an old PC that I have, put Ubuntu Server on it, installed Jackd2, and fiddled around. I was most successful with the zita-njbridge method
(the netjack2 method ended up falling behind) of connecting, although I must admit I'm going through a switch, and my ideal situation would be a direct cable between the two machines.
My goal is to use the 'remote' machine as a way of carrying audio signals from an interface to my master machine. Most of my audio interfaces are USB, and so I've found in my experience that I need to keep the cables short to save on dropouts, which is less than practical.
I still couldn't really get the latency down to where if I played (my Bass) through the AD interface there was no noticeable delay in the output sound. I suppose I could 'monitor' what I'm playing from the device itself (a Zoom B3) while I'm recording, but I wanted to embark on a 'low latency exercise' to see what really can be done
So, for those experienced in this realm:
1. What is the most successful software setup used to get audio channels over the network?
2. Is Jack necessary for this task, or is there a way to do this at the ALSA level? (I did think about sending audio with netcat, but from what I've read it doesn't really do well in terms of latency)
3. Is there anything obvious that I'm missing (e.g. a newer session/connection manager) that can do all of the work for us?
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/dante-pr ... udio/89782
and
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/linux-avb-support/89168
I also found this thread of Frank's to be quite interesting:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=14159
So I fired up an old PC that I have, put Ubuntu Server on it, installed Jackd2, and fiddled around. I was most successful with the zita-njbridge method
(the netjack2 method ended up falling behind) of connecting, although I must admit I'm going through a switch, and my ideal situation would be a direct cable between the two machines.
My goal is to use the 'remote' machine as a way of carrying audio signals from an interface to my master machine. Most of my audio interfaces are USB, and so I've found in my experience that I need to keep the cables short to save on dropouts, which is less than practical.
I still couldn't really get the latency down to where if I played (my Bass) through the AD interface there was no noticeable delay in the output sound. I suppose I could 'monitor' what I'm playing from the device itself (a Zoom B3) while I'm recording, but I wanted to embark on a 'low latency exercise' to see what really can be done
So, for those experienced in this realm:
1. What is the most successful software setup used to get audio channels over the network?
2. Is Jack necessary for this task, or is there a way to do this at the ALSA level? (I did think about sending audio with netcat, but from what I've read it doesn't really do well in terms of latency)
3. Is there anything obvious that I'm missing (e.g. a newer session/connection manager) that can do all of the work for us?