Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

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MarkR
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Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by MarkR »

Greetings,

I have a Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 USB audio interface that I'm trying to use with KXStudio 14.05.04. I just did a clean install of KXStudio and am trying to get everything established new. My problem is that the Scarlet does not get discovered on startup, and when I try to discover it by replugging it in, things seem to start breaking. I'm not sure where to look to solve this.

In Phenom, I have it setup to be the preferred device, but it is disabled. Sometimes I have a "Scarlet 2i4 UBS Audio" device that shows up and it may or may not work. I have it set as default on the Recording and Music tabs.

This morning, I booted KXStudio and I was able to play an audio clip through the Scarlet, however, I could not control the volume. I could not see the Scarlet on the default Alsa Mixer, just the onboard audio and the Audacious volume controls didn't work. I know it was going though the Scarlet though as I have it all wired into an external mixing board and the Scarlet output was what was lighting up. I then uplugged the Scarlet and reconnected. Now I had several Scarlet USB options in Phenom, but now nothing worked. I could not get any audio out of it, and I couldn't readjust the onboard sound in Phenom to start working again by making it the preferred device. Everything just broke at this point and nothing would work.

What I would like is for the Scarlet to be discovered at system boot and become the default device for recording and output/music every time, but it comes up disabled until I replug it in. Every time I boot though, I get mixed results with the onboard and scarlet audio.

Any insight would be appreciated. I see this is a fairly common audio device and Linux does seem to work with it pretty well, but I just can't get consistent results with it and I'm getting frustrated having to figure out what is different each time to get it working, often just failing. Thanks.

v/r
Mark
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Re: Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

There's a large topic 'bout this device here on the Linuxmusicians forum. Good luck! :)
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Re: Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by bluebell »

I have 2i2, 2i4 and Solo and all run out of the box.

Please note that they have no builtin mixer so the volume can't be set with a mixer tool.

To do audio stuff with Linux you should setup JACK, see
http://libremusicproduction.com/article ... arted-jack

Other sound systems like Pulseaudio or Phenom or whatever should be removed or - much better – output to JACK because only ONE audio system can own the audio interface. Then you can run all kinds of apps regardless which audio system they use.

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MarkR
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Re: Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by MarkR »

Thank you both for the replies. I'm still struggling with this but at least I know now that the 2i4 can't be volume controlled directly. I seem to be OK getting consistent input, but getting the device to output is still having issues that I have to replug in the device, and even then it just doesn't want to produce. I've tried disabling in Phenom and Pulse (Pulse is not installed on this distro), but I just can't get consistent results. I'll study the links provided and see if I can make some more headway. Thanks again.
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Re: Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by tseaver »

I seem to be OK getting consistent input, but getting the device to output is still having issues that I have to replug in the device, and even then it just doesn't want to produce.
MarkR, just a suspicion: is it Jack-based apps which don't give you output, or something else (e.g., Firefox)? Firefox doesn't know from Jackd (recent versions even dropped bare ALSA support!), and so to get it functioning while Jackd owns the Scarlett interface, you will need to use something like the "pulse-jack" bridge (pulse sees a "jack-source" input and a "jack-sink" output).
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aicram
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Re: Scarlet 2i4 USB Audio Not Detected at Startup

Post by aicram »

Hello,

I agree with tseaver's advice. To add to it, maybe using falkTX's wonderful tool cadence could help
you with this. Once you have everything needed installed, jack working correctly and cadence configured
the bridges offered in cadence are automatic for me. I use alsa loop jack, but there are other choices:
screenshot:
cadence.jpg
cadence.jpg (138.52 KiB) Viewed 1077 times
A pulse audio bridge audio is also available, which I have used occasionally and it worked well.

Good fortune.

aicram
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