Which DAW to pick?

Support & discussion regarding DAWs and MIDI sequencers.

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jonetsu
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by jonetsu »

Here are a few routing examples for the passive DI box I sometimes use (although rarely these days)

(scroll down the page) :

https://www.radialeng.com/product/jdi

I wasn't aware at the time I got it that it was one of the best. Built like a tank, 14-gauge steel, baked enamel finish, and top electronics.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by bulevardi »

Didn't know about this DI box yet. Seems interesting.

If you try Guitarix, be aware that it uses jack, (except the LV2 plugin).
Haven't got this working yet, as I'm not a jack fan. However you can do much with jack, like Rakarrack etc...

But soon you'll notice that there are daw's where you can use ALSA instead of jack, which works straight out of the box directly.

A hardware alternative for effects is the Mod Duo:
https://www.moddevices.com/gear-gallery
It's a bit expensive, but there's tons of possibilities to create pedalboards, modify them, store them, share them,... all linux based.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by tavasti »

milo wrote:
Oooooo . . . great idea! Thanks, tavasti! I think I'll get me a DI box.
Just make sure you get DI-box which has direct / thru option. I am not 100% sure all of DI-boxes have it.

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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by bluebell »

I'd like to add my setup if I didn't already. I use a 2nd audio interface instead of a DI box.

- Interface 1 (Scarlett 2i4), own jack instance ("default"), medium to big latency/buffersize for DAW and "main audio"
- Interface 2 (Scarlett Solo), own jack instance ("git"), low latency (bufsize 32) for Guitarix

Interface 2's audio output is connected to interface 1's audio input. Interface 1 is able to do direct monitoring on the headphones. So I have the full Guitarix sound in my headphones and can record it.

In the meantime I bought a cheap Behringer Mixer (Behringer MX882 V2) and set up my audio signal flow like this:

Interface1 -> Behringer MX882 V2 -> Behringer DEQ2496 Ultra-Curve Pro (EQ) -> Active speakers

Interface 2 goes to MX882 (direct monitoring with speakers) and from there to Interface 1's audio input. The MX882 has separate outputs for each input, too.

Result is:
- I have the sound from Guitarix without any audible latency both in headphones and speakers.
- I can record this sound with my DAW

For the 2 interfaces solution it's advisable to have 2 different models so Linux can distinguish between those and you can have a fixed assignment "interface <-> jack instance".
Last edited by bluebell on Thu May 23, 2019 5:11 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by tavasti »

bulevardi wrote: If you try Guitarix, be aware that it uses jack, (except the LV2 plugin).
Haven't got this working yet, as I'm not a jack fan. However you can do much with jack, like Rakarrack etc...
I really recommend getting familiar with jack.

I think in recent ubuntu it was just matter of installing package pulseaudio-module-jack and qjackctl, then start qjackctl and press start-button there. After it, everything works.

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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by tavasti »

Regarding recording guitar, see also viewtopic.php?f=18&t=18335

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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by merlyn »

tavasti wrote:I really recommend getting familiar with jack.
I agree.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by jonetsu »

tavasti wrote:
bulevardi wrote: I think in recent ubuntu it was just matter of installing package pulseaudio-module-jack and qjackctl, then start qjackctl and press start-button there. After it, everything works.
Also please note that with the installation of the jack sink (pulseaudio-module-jack) comes the use of a ~/.jackrd file for starting jackd automatically at boot via the pulseaudio startup. This file makes it handy to reconfigure jackd on the fly if needed.

In my case I need to use jackd with less latency when recording acoustic guitar and monitoring through headphones. In some other times I give more leeway when there are many softsynths with high CPU requirements in use. Switching configuration is then a matter of about 1 minute or so, including DAW restart.

To do so I have made a scripts installed in /usr/local/bin/, which easily modifies jackd configuration and restarts pulseaudio. Note that it could perhaps be optimized since it uses 'magical' timeouts, and then would make for less time in execution, but hey, I find them OK as they are at the moment:

r2 is for low latency:

Code: Select all

killall -9 jackd
sleep 3
/usr/bin/jackd --sync -P80 -ndefault -dalsa -dhw:M1010LT -r44100 -p256 -n4 &
sleep 4
pulseaudio --kill
sleep 2
pulseaudio --start
r5 is for less latency requirements, more buffer space:

Code: Select all

killall -9 jackd
sleep 3
/usr/bin/jackd --sync -P80 -ndefault -dalsa -dhw:M1010LT -r44100 -p512 -n8 &
sleep 4
pulseaudio --kill
sleep 2
pulseaudio --start
As mentioned r5 is used in conjunction with a certain amount of demanding plugin processing, while using Bitwig.

So what happens when both high demanding plugin processing and acoustic guitar are needed ?

I then only record acoustic sketches (mock ups) in Bitwig, finalize all synths and processing at that stage, then exprt all tracks except guitar tracks to Mixbus32C. In any case, in all cases, I do the mix and mastering in Mixbus32C since Bitwig is not very good at that. And then record all final guitar tracks in Mixbus32C, along with a 'r2' setup as shown above.

Even without this latency consideration, I tend to record final guitar tracks in Mixbus32C anyways.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by AlexTheBassist »

tavasti wrote:Connect guitar to DI-box, from di-box to audio interface, there to guitarix and then to daw. And sure, I would record both raw signal and guitarix-made, so that in case there is some fiddling with sounds, there is still raw signal available.
<…>
So you are recording with guitarix but listening some real guitar effect / amp, without latency.
ALL of this is actually pointless since what topic starter wants is basically to record a DI signal and then process it via Guitarix or something else. One does never need to record both signals and build such a “complex” setup for a simple and straightforward action. What is sufficient is a pair of speakers, that Steinberg interface, a guitar, and a cable. This card has a Hi-Z preamp on its second input. Did you ever bother to look up the interface on the web in prior to suggest an excessive (and pointless for that particular case) setup? I did, and I can say the things are significantly simpler than anybody else in this thread thinks. Don't mislead anybody here; that's against common sense. If it's about using a standalone version, then it's not hard either: one can easily route wet signal to another track (oh yeah, without a DI box) and have them both recorded at the same time.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by GuntherT »

AlexTheBassist wrote:
tavasti wrote:Connect guitar to DI-box, from di-box to audio interface, there to guitarix and then to daw. And sure, I would record both raw signal and guitarix-made, so that in case there is some fiddling with sounds, there is still raw signal available.
<…>
So you are recording with guitarix but listening some real guitar effect / amp, without latency.
ALL of this is actually pointless since what topic starter wants is basically to record a DI signal and then process it via Guitarix or something else. One does never need to record both signals and build such a “complex” setup for a simple and straightforward action. What is sufficient is a pair of speakers, that Steinberg interface, a guitar, and a cable. This card has a Hi-Z preamp on its second input. Did you ever bother to look up the interface on the web in prior to suggest an excessive (and pointless for that particular case) setup? I did, and I can say the things are significantly simpler than anybody else in this thread thinks. Don't mislead anybody here; that's against common sense. If it's about using a standalone version, then it's not hard either: one can easily route wet signal to another track (oh yeah, without a DI box) and have them both recorded at the same time.
'Did you ever bother' to understand what was being discussed before posting your rant? One benefit of the DI option that was pointed out is you can route the thru output to an amp to get a decent guitar sound for monitoring while recording the dry and wet signals, which is different than just routing the wet signal to a different track (and a given in this situation). Your setup does nothing to overcome the latency issues the DI suggestion aims to solve.
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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by tavasti »

AlexTheBassist wrote:
tavasti wrote:Connect guitar to DI-box, from di-box to audio interface, there to guitarix and then to daw. And sure, I would record both raw signal and guitarix-made, so that in case there is some fiddling with sounds, there is still raw signal available.
<…>
So you are recording with guitarix but listening some real guitar effect / amp, without latency.
ALL of this is actually pointless since what topic starter wants is basically to record a DI signal and then process it via Guitarix or something else. One does never need to record both signals and build such a “complex” setup for a simple and straightforward action.
This is not help desk or solution center which gives easiest solution which with minimal thinking will solve problem customer is complaining. This is discussion where people present different solutions and ideas, sometimes not even related to original question. And even some other people than thread started might be delighted to get new ideas.

Personally I think this particular discussion has been at top 4% or internet discussions because nobody hasn't been behaving bad or saying that topic started is asking wrong thing, and instead (s)he should be doing something else, or something like that. I would be happy to keep this discussion (and all discussions in this forum) on that small marginal of internet postings.

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Re: Which DAW to pick?

Post by AlexTheBassist »

tavasti wrote:This is not help desk or solution center which gives easiest solution which with minimal thinking will solve problem customer is complaining. This is discussion where people present different solutions and ideas, sometimes not even related to original question. And even some other people than thread started might be delighted to get new ideas.

Personally I think this particular discussion has been at top 4% or internet discussions because nobody hasn't been behaving bad or saying that topic started is asking wrong thing, and instead (s)he should be doing something else, or something like that. I would be happy to keep this discussion (and all discussions in this forum) on that small marginal of internet postings.
Great. This is exactly why there should be another thread, or even a subforum which explains every setup that we come up with in an article-like manner. An ordered knowledge base will be much better than a chaotic thread where the OP wants one thing, but people discuss anything else but the setup which was requested to be explained.

I also think we need to gather all the actual information about Linux audio and collect it somewhere in one place, with easy navigation and stuff, but not exactly like a Wiki. The thing is, there's a lot of outdated guides which people take as fresh, and they mess up their systems really bad. Since Internet citizens today can't read in most cases, the base should be an engine with better image support than Wiki engine.
GuntherT wrote:Your setup does nothing to overcome the latency issues the DI suggestion aims to solve.
Does the OP have those latency issues? I don't have any. Once set up properly, JACK gives an inaudible latency, so it's comfortable to record anything I want. Maybe there are cards and PCs that can't go as low as <10 ms, which is exactly where it becomes inaudible even to (most of) those with a great sense of groove. This can be achieved on almost any computer made past 2010 even today.

My guitar recording setup is fairly simple: Guitar → Hi-Z input of the interface → Ardour → Guitarix LV2/ToneLib GFX VST. This way I always have the dry signal, can alter the tone at any time, can record even at night (with headphones), and nobody who I recorded with did never complain about latency. They did complain about my “too high” technique requirements, calling me a snob and alike, but this happens more often at our rehearsal place where we have those big and zero latency analog amps and cabs.
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