Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Talk about your MIDI interfaces, microphones, keyboards...

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

glowrak guy
Established Member
Posts: 2315
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:37 pm
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by glowrak guy »

Do you think Amplitube would have been born, if the IKM experts in
circuitry, dsp, and coding had become baristas, and fiddled around with
ampsims in their spare time?

How about the inventors of MRI technology, vaccines, and surgical tools?
Surely we could do without such proprietary nonsense, since we all are going to die?

And what about beverages? Like coffee, tea, and beer?
What right do Starbucks, Bigolo, and Coors have to
hold processes, ingredients, and recipies in confidence?

Wow, lets have floss everything and everywhere. Long live $15 per hour and vanilla.
glowrak guy
Established Member
Posts: 2315
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:37 pm
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by glowrak guy »

"Guitarix doesn't compete on par with Amplitube"

Are you sure about that? Is that opinion based on experienced opinion,
or assumption?
wolftune
Established Member
Posts: 1350
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:40 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Been thanked: 2 times
Contact:

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by wolftune »

glowrak guy wrote:Do you think Amplitube would have been born, if the IKM experts in
circuitry, dsp, and coding had become baristas, and fiddled around with
ampsims in their spare time?
I'm glad you posed that as a question at least. Stop making up straw men. *Everything* I say, everything I'm working on and everything that Snowdrift.coop is about is *funding* people. So your question and the rest of your comment are completely non sequitur.

I don't understand why this is hard. I didn't say I want things not to exist, I said I want them to be free/libre/open. I didn't say I think they shouldn't be funded, I said I want things funded. I'm not even denying that it's hard to fund things that are FLOSS, I'm specifically talking about how unfortunate it is *that* it is hard to fund FLOSS.

It's as though someone comes along and says, "public schools have crumbling buildings and severely underpaid teachers with tons of turnover; we need to fund them much better instead of the status quo where people who can afford it all go to private schools", and your reply is "so you want all the private school teachers to lose their jobs and to be underpaid and have all schools have crumbling buildings?"
"Guitarix doesn't compete on par with Amplitube"
That is based on experience. I've used both, and Guitarix sounds superb and I love it, but it's not on par. I'm not talking about "does it have a nice tone" at all, I'm talking about how Amplitube has a wonderful graphical interface, tons of excellent presets and lots of polish. Guitarix is an example of FLOSS excellence but if it had dedicated design team like Amplitube has, it would be a lot better, and there's tons of things that it lacks in comparison. Yes, Guitarix is perfectly usable to where nobody needs Amplitube, but on user interface and features, Amplitube has a lot of advantages. I want Guitarix better funded to where nobody would bother using Amplitube and/or get Amplitube to be FLOSS (and still funded!).
Aaron Wolf
Music teacher, scholar
http://wolftune.com
asbak
Established Member
Posts: 897
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2014 3:04 pm
Has thanked: 71 times
Been thanked: 64 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by asbak »

I wonder how that fancy Guitarix GUI from Markus is coming along :mrgreen:
Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
glowrak guy
Established Member
Posts: 2315
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:37 pm
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by glowrak guy »

wolftune wrote: "It's as though someone comes along and says, "public schools have crumbling buildings and severely underpaid teachers with tons of turnover; we need to fund them much better instead of the status quo where people who can afford it all go to private schools", and your reply is "so you want all the private school teachers to lose their jobs and to be underpaid and have all schools have crumbling buildings?"
You sure have a convoluted way of putting words in my mouth.
So now you change the subject from software to schools,
to tell me what I'm saying?

Tax-payer funded schools are not crumbling, except in cases of mismanaging the publics money.
Common as that may be. Trusting schools to spend other peoples money wisely
is mostly a fools errand. In some places, taxpayer funded teachers are overpaid, underperforming,
guarantee themselves raises by continually going on strike 'for the children',
while enjoying tremendous job security, and amazing benefits, yet providing dismal results.

To make it worse, too many teachers (and their administrative support system) have abdicated
control of their classrooms, to any brats with the cajones to take it.
Making a hell for well intentioned students.

You only have kids once, so choosing a private school education should be prioritized
over fancy homes, cars, and sundries. But most parents don't care. In lala land,
school = free daycare, and as long as the tests keep getting easier,
the faux graduation rates can stay above 60%.

Competition for customers exists between private schools, and taxpayer schools,
a bit different than the competition for users between various floss and commercial softwares.
But taxpayers are forced, ultimately at gunpoint, to fund public schools, while the sheriff won't take your home
for refusing to buy commercial software, or donate to floss.

I really like the guitarix gui. To me, it looks like gear I would want.
It is also a plugin host, (which amplitube is not) and it's easy to use.
I find the uniformity enjoyable, and fluid in use. Switching amps in amplitube is jumpy,
and the big pictures of stomps are cute, but limiting in use.

Amplitube has the free version, and then the custom-shop ala-carte purchase system, group-buys,
48 hour testing for models, so it's affordable for a lot of people, and works well enough in wine,
for a linux user to consider. The gui does appeal to people who are familiar enough
to recognize the modeled hardware, and the presets can help people in cover bands,
who aren't rolling their own sound very often. The two actually compliment each other pretty well.
wolftune
Established Member
Posts: 1350
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:40 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Been thanked: 2 times
Contact:

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by wolftune »

glowrak guy wrote: You sure have a convoluted way of putting words in my mouth.
So now you change the subject from software to schools,
to tell me what I'm saying?
It's called "analogy". I didn't say you had anything to say about schools, and the analogy holds even if reality was completely different. The abstract version is:

Person A: "thing x is struggling yet we keep giving all our money to thing y, we should fund x better!" Person B; "so you want the status quo for thing x to be the status quo for everything?"

That's what you said. I said: Free software struggles and needs more funding, I wish we'd fund it instead of funding proprietary stuff. And you brought up non-sequitur comments about how could the proprietary software we know get made if we won't fund it. I was saying all along that I *want* to fund things, only I want the things *that* we fund to be FLO.

It's really this simple: I am suggesting that we use our resources *differently*, and you can logically disagree with my suggestions, but you cannot logically talk to me as though I am proposing not providing resources. Here's another analogy:

Person A makes some proposal: "we should have total authoritarian communism: nobody gets any money, we require them to work in order to get food and shelter, and we'll distribute food and shelter and other resources to everyone" Sure, there's plenty you could criticize there. Here's what would *not* be a reasonable reply: "You think people will work if they don't get food and shelter?"

My whole point is: you can logically reply to "let's fund FLOSS and stop funding proprietary" with an argument about why you don't like that idea or why you think it won't be realistic or even agree it would be nice. But you replied to an argument nobody was making. Your reply would have worked for someone saying "let's stop funding proprietary software and just get everything freely without funding any of the work". Since *nobody* was saying that, it's not reasonable to argue against that straw man.
I really like the guitarix gui. To me, it looks like gear I would want.
It is also a plugin host, (which amplitube is not) and it's easy to use.
I find the uniformity enjoyable, and fluid in use. Switching amps in amplitube is jumpy,
and the big pictures of stomps are cute, but limiting in use.
I agree Guitarix has some benefits. I don't mind the UI too much, but there's just tons of little details that make it feel clunky or harder to deal with than ideal. Certainly there's also some sounds and tone options and tons of presets that Amplitube has better.
Amplitube has the free version, and then the custom-shop ala-carte purchase system, group-buys,
48 hour testing for models, so it's affordable for a lot of people, and works well enough in wine,
for a linux user to consider. The gui does appeal to people who are familiar enough
to recognize the modeled hardware, and the presets can help people in cover bands,
who aren't rolling their own sound very often. The two actually compliment each other pretty well.
I think it's a wonderful thing when software at least is independent of having to run a proprietary OS. I use Wine for Bounce Metronome mainly.

The "free" Amplitube isn't free-as-in-freedom, it doesn't let people do whatever they want.

I actually think the MOD project is probably the most exciting thing we have going on here.

Now, to be clear, if all proprietary issues were like the issue with Amplitube, I would never have come to care about these things. I'm much more concerned about bigger systematic problems with proprietary power, like the fact that Apple can control iOS to the extent of censoring out GPL software. I don't think all proprietary software is equally evil. I think some is overall great and would just be *better* if it were free/libre/open, while other proprietary software is malicious, invasive, etc. And I'm more concerned about people's freedom to remix music and do creative things with cultural material than I am about some problems with proprietary culture.

At any rate, if you're really so anti-government, you should accept that government-enforced monopolies (copyright, patent) are a problem.
Aaron Wolf
Music teacher, scholar
http://wolftune.com
slish76
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 11:01 pm

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by slish76 »

Hi all.
I bought a Focusrite Scarlett Solo few days ago and I use it with no problem under Windows.
I was trying to get it working under Ubuntu (15.10) and Ubuntu Studio (14.04) but it seems like it doesn't record any audio signal from the input even if the pulseaudio monitor seems to read this input signal.
Does anyone use this audio card with success?
I already checked the connection under Jack and they seem to be okay.
What else could I try in your opinion to get this audio card working under linux?
slish76
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 11:01 pm

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by slish76 »

Thanks a lot, I will try to figure it out :D
jimjazzdad
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 5:09 pm

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by jimjazzdad »

OK folks - I'm a Linux newby. Installed Mint a couple of weeks ago on an old laptop (clean install - wiped out Vista) and I'm having fun with it. But trying to get my USB audio interface (Lexicon io42) working is driving me nuts! I plug it in and the USB led lights. I look in Jack and I can see the MIDI through but I can't find the four audio inputs and the two outputs. Maybe ALSA doesn't provide a driver for this unit? AFAIK it should be USB 2 compliant... Help to point me in the right direction, some stuff to type in the terminal to troubleshoot...anything would be appreciated. I have be reading, searching and casting around but I am swimming in circles. Thanks
glowrak guy
Established Member
Posts: 2315
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:37 pm
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by glowrak guy »

Hi, commands aplay -l and arecord -l
should list the audio playback and recording devices
your kernel recognizes. Look at the items within brackets,

then in qjackctl gui, in the 2-tabbed setup panel,
on the advanced tab, there will be widgets next to

Input Device ^ >
Output Device ^ >

Click the widgets, and you should see an entry matching what
is seen in the brackets, relating to your usb device. Or you can
edit the fields if lexicon items are reported.
Try booting with the device unplugged, plug it in, in various usb ports,
and run the commands again. There should be google hits for

lexicon ubuntu qjackctl and quite a few youtubes of qjackctl
and related audio setup.
Cheers

oops, you also must be in the 'audio group'

create the audio group
$ sudo groupadd audio

issue the groups command
$ groups
output looks a bit like this:

your-username adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

Add yourself the the audio group:
$ sudo gpasswd -a your-username audio

and text file /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf should be
edited to conclude with these 3 lines, that give audio actions
the high priority:

@audio - rtprio 99
@audio - memlock unlimited
@audio - nice -10

Then in qjackctl setup panel, set priority to 89, ten lower than the above 99,
and tick the 'realtime' box.
tnovelli
Established Member
Posts: 277
Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2011 4:52 pm

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by tnovelli »

Also, 'sudo apt-get install linux-lowlatency-lts-vivid' will get you the latest 3.19.x-lowlatency kernel (in Mint or Ubuntu).
Then reboot.
'sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq' too. You can use it through Cadence or on its own. Set it to 'performance'.
Not essential on a fast machine, but both substantially reduce xruns/latency.

I just upgraded to a Focusrite 18i8.. thanks to all here who've recommended their stuff! Nice unit. :D
0.7ms latency at 96khz, 64 frames.
It has a fancy internal mixer so I tried a bunch of ALSA mixer packages, looking for one that fits all controls on one screen, with useful labels ---> QASmixer.
GuntherT
Established Member
Posts: 168
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 2:15 am
Has thanked: 9 times
Been thanked: 28 times

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by GuntherT »

jimjazzdad wrote:OK folks - I'm a Linux newby. Installed Mint a couple of weeks ago on an old laptop (clean install - wiped out Vista) and I'm having fun with it. But trying to get my USB audio interface (Lexicon io42) working is driving me nuts! I plug it in and the USB led lights. I look in Jack and I can see the MIDI through but I can't find the four audio inputs and the two outputs. Maybe ALSA doesn't provide a driver for this unit? AFAIK it should be USB 2 compliant... Help to point me in the right direction, some stuff to type in the terminal to troubleshoot...anything would be appreciated. I have be reading, searching and casting around but I am swimming in circles. Thanks
http://lexiconpro.com/en-US/products/i-o-42

Nowhere on the manufacturer's product page is the unit labeled "class compliant". Drivers are required for it to work on OSX, which suggests it is not class compliant. This unit will probably never function properly on Linux unless a developer writes a special driver for it, which is unlikely to happen. I hate to break bad news, but at least you can save yourself the time searching for a software solution to a hardware problem. You may want to consider returning or selling it for a device that is known to work on Linux, such as a Focusrite Scarlett model.
User avatar
MattKingUSA
Moderation Services Senior Administrator
Posts: 795
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:01 pm
Location: United States
Has thanked: 52 times
Been thanked: 38 times
Contact:

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by MattKingUSA »

Just a note on the scarlett solo. Make sure you are selecting the proper input. There are two inputs that can be used at the same time. The 1/4" and the XLR. Under inputs on your audio track there is an option for stream 1 or 2. :D

-Matt :D

Richard G Gionfriddo
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:35 am

Re: Support of audio interfaces under Linux

Post by Richard G Gionfriddo »

FWIW, most recent devices from Behringer and Zoom are either class compliant or have reverse engineered dkms driver modules made by the community or same that are simply part of the mainline driver stack, and some of Behringer's bits get their kernel support direct from Behringer's support division. The Uphoria and R16/R24 fall under this, with the Uphoria parts getting direct corporate support, and the R8/R16/R24 were promised support by Zoom, but someone reverse engineered them all and submitted their findings to Linus, so Zoom saw this and pretty much said screw it because we already did their work for them, and never bothered, afaik, but I know for sure the R16 works, and have read it even supports slave/piggybacking another R16 onto an existing one like it can on Windows and OS X, if I recall correct. I know for a fact that kernel support for the R series recorders above the R8 has existed since 3.1, and the R8 since 2.9, meaning every version of Ubuntu from 12.04 onward, for example, has supported it, as does any other distro with a newer kernel that that. Technically, if arm64hf has binary compatibility with the driver modules in any capacity, a pine64 SBC's official Ubuntu image has a new enough kernel, despite it being from 2013 (because Ubuntu Precise is from 2012). If bang for your buck on functionality and features is your selling point, take your pick of any of the Behringer Uphoria UMC404HD, and the Zoom R8 and R16 should be enough for most people, and with upper entry level to upper medium budget, are affordable to the majority of people with any sort of tangible budget for new equipment.
Post Reply