Wireplumber realtme problem and Realtime tweaks for Pro Audio

[glowrak guy]

I think pipewire crew need to have one minimalist but widely accessible live dvd iso, including dependencies, with
all the pipewire connections gui's
the example config files and documentation
the A/V tools they target, ready to run
choice of seven or more of the most popular desktop environments and graphics libs
All the video needs for intel, AMD and nVidia cards
gui and text-based package managers
typical internet access apps
package-building tools

Absolutely don't make it a 'full featured' distro, no office, no games, no ide, no painting, no social media etc

Why? Because 99% of all win/mac musicians, and most 'low tech' linux musicians like myself, will start
reading these topics, and have a brain-freeze so cold, that The Muse will run off screeching,
trying to find her long woolen underwear...and might not return for ages

I realize there are many 'high-tech' linux musicians, fully undaunted by the status quo and in depth communications.
If pipewire team release a great live testing distro, those same high-tech linux guys and gals are fully capable
of taking minimalist things whatever extra miles suit their many commendable desires. Leaving pipewire team to
focus only on their project. As issues get resolved, and usability becomes e-a-s-y, distro maintainers can add pipewire to
repositories with confidence, that musicians will find it useful, and hopefully superior to what other platforms
offer and demand.

Mi dos centavos.

[runiq]

I think pipewire crew need to have one minimalist but widely accessible live dvd iso

[…]

Absolutely don't make it a 'full featured' distro, no office, no games, no ide, no painting, no social media etc

I don't think that's in the scope of the Pipewire folks. They're 'just' software developers, they don't do distribution.

Why? Because 99% of all win/mac musicians, and most 'low tech' linux musicians like myself, will start
reading these topics, and have a brain-freeze so cold, that The Muse will run off screeching,
trying to find her long woolen underwear...and might not return for ages :wink:

Yeah, I agree that's an issue, but I'm afraid it's just in the nature of the thing. :-/ I still find it incredible that we're getting all this software for free. It comes with the unfortunate necessity, however, that we have to dig in and figure stuff out ourselves sometimes. The money would be in the bells and whistles, and money is hard to come by.

Fortunately there are a lot of very helpful community members here that help each other out with that stuff. I've been here for a few weeks and this already feels like the forum culture of yore. I like it. :)

[runiq]

https://github.com/dimtpap/coppwr

Okay, that one's amazing. Thanks a lot for pointing it out. <3

[Largos]

I think pipewire crew need to have one minimalist but widely accessible live dvd iso,

It's already the default in so many (maybe most) distros, there doesn't need to be some special pipewire distro. Maybe some special distros without it soon and some guides on how to remove it for those having trouble. This thread is about someone getting pipewire from the AUR to get the latest version ASAP, it's not representative of most users.

[magill]

...I just set the Pipewire quantum to 32 with a period of 3...

How did you set the period of 3 in pipewire and how can that be verified?

I've been trying to set it in wireplumper config but it seems to be stuck at 2.

[runiq]

...I just set the Pipewire quantum to 32 with a period of 3...

How did you set the period of 3 in pipewire and how can that be verified?

I've been trying to set it in wireplumper config but it seems to be stuck at 2.

1. In ~/.config/wireplumber/main.lua.d/51-my-alsa.conf:

   Code: Select all

   table.insert(alsa_monitor.rules, {
   	matches = {
   		-- ORed
   		{
   			{ "device.name", "matches", "*.usb-0b0e_Jabra_Link_370_30507521E662015700-00.*" },
   		},
   	},
   	apply_properties = {
   		["api.alsa.period-num"] = 3,
   	},
   })
   

2. Either:

   • select your quantum in the app (preferred),

   • set it via PIPEWIRE=LATENCY="32/48000" environment variable and start your app,

   • Set it in ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/my-quantum.conf:

     Code: Select all

     context.properties = {
        default.clock.quantum = 32
        default.clock.min-quantum = 32
     }
         

3. Restart daemons: systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire

You can check your quantum in pw-top, and your period-num in pw-cli.

[bluebell]

I'm now running the latest Pipewire on my Ham Radio computer and I can run the SDR software which is Pulse as well as Carla which is Jack to add multi band compressor for microphone. Latency is acceptable and qpwgraph makes routing easy. I can not get the latency low enough to play live with guitarix so my guitarix computer remains on Jack with Pipewire and Pulseaudio disabled. Perhaps one day Pipewire will do low enough latency, but it's not there yet.

If you have 2 audio interfaces you can use one exclusive for guitarix. I have a script that scans for Scarlett 2i2, Solo and 2i4, selects the last in list that it finds, starts jackd with a very short latency and then guitarix. Adapt as appropriate.

guitarix.sh.zip

(409 Bytes) Downloaded 58 times

[magill]

...In ~/.config/wireplumber/main.lua.d/51-my-alsa.conf...

I have that set similar way with my corresponding device added and also in 50-alsa-conf.lua but I don't think it actually works. Pw-cli is showing whatever is set in those files, I suspect. I think that because with period buffers at 3 and buffer size at 64 or 128 reported latency should be a whole number without decimals (it then works much better with USB devices and there much, much less xruns).
Not that it matters that as I can set the buffer at 48, 144 etc and it works that way quite well with buffer numbers of 2. I just wonder if I'm missing or misunderstanding something here.

[glowrak guy]

I think pipewire crew need to have one minimalist but widely accessible live dvd iso

[…]

Absolutely don't make it a 'full featured' distro, no office, no games, no ide, no painting, no social media etc

I don't think that's in the scope of the Pipewire folks. They're 'just' software developers, they don't do distribution.

Why? Because 99% of all win/mac musicians, and most 'low tech' linux musicians like myself, will start
reading these topics, and have a brain-freeze so cold, that The Muse will run off screeching,
trying to find her long woolen underwear...and might not return for ages

Yeah, I agree that's an issue, but I'm afraid it's just in the nature of the thing. :-/ I still find it incredible that we're getting all this software for free. It comes with the unfortunate necessity, however, that we have to dig in and figure stuff out ourselves sometimes. The money would be in the bells and whistles, and money is hard to come by.

Fortunately there are a lot of very helpful community members here that help each other out with that stuff. I've been here for a few weeks and this already feels like the forum culture of yore. I like it.

" They're 'just' software developers, they don't do distribution."

There are minimalist distros that could be used without tons of work. Some distros can be stripped
of non-essentials, and re-mastered. Coding is rocket science X100 in comparison I think having
a dozen distros coping with pipewire at this early stage of developement will expose more difficulties
to potential linux users, than it will offer viable alternatives to them.

It's related to the attitude that coders don't need to package their software, because 'anyone can compile it'.
There are reasons why linux is a sliver of the market, instead of being a driver. 'The market' expects finished products
ready to use, but that's not an easy fit in the linux community. For something as important as establishing a new default
audio system for the bulk of the linux OS, a little extra effort outside the comfort zone might make a huge difference
a year or two down the road. Time will tell, and rumour has it that the future will drag on for years
Cheers

[bluzee]

I just added the Pipewire PPA. You can install latest version and try it out easily and also uninstall and go back to Pulse easily. I wouldn't install a whole different distribution so I could test Pipewire. On my regular desktop machine it seems fine and I quite like it actually.

[glowrak guy]

I did specify a live dvd iso, knowing a lot can be learned without needing a hard-disk installation.

For every solid veteran experienced linux user who says a new core componant of the OS can be easily installed, and then uninstalled and replaced, there will be a dozen users of little or no experience, using a dozen different distros, with various packaging systems, some of who will descend into dependency hell, and a morasse of bewildering config files, modifiable scripts, and baffling terminology, which in the end send them back to macwin-world, with negative comments, that help guarantee linux remains a small insiders-only niche in the audio market. Some people actually want that.

Using a beta project for a core portion of a minority OS certainly applies heat to already thin ice. The term 'default', in and of itself, is meaningless, having no bearing on quality, readiness, or superior suitability for a common range of tasks.

I hope pipewire succeeds marvelously. Is there a mission statement from the project controller that defines what it is intended to accomplish?
Is there a showcase of it's superiority using available audio hardware devices and audio software? Looking at the wiki pages, I can see a future
of far more fiddling and guessing, and far less time for creating music, which future I will avoid unless I see proof that is not early-beta in quality. Already too much of that with win and mac setups, and I hope the sometimes low standards of the commercial mainstream are not contagious
(I am exceedingly happy with my current linux setups, and so have not found a need for solutions to other peoples problems.
I do hope others will find and enjoy exactly what they are hoping for ! )
Cheers

[merlyn]

I'm neutral about Pipewire. I may try it, I may not. My system works, so why would I?

I think the problem it addresses, and this is very much for new users/out the box/that sort of thing is the classic "I've got Ardour working, now my browser is bust". OK, so you and I know that that is a simple fix, but that was posted so many times that it obviously was a problem.

If Pipewire eh ... just works, then that would be good for new users.

[Impostor]

Since the thread is drifting off-topic anyway, I'll add my unsolicited opinion:

I'll happily switch to Pipewire when all my audio applications recognize Pipewire as soundserver natively, so I don't have to fuck around with pipewire-jack, pipewire-pulse, pipewire-whatever on the system side of things, and the sound settings in applications are unambiguously meant for the pipewire audio server, not for absent-jack or awol-pulse.

[gabtram]

Hi to all,

how are you? Thanks for all this response in the thread. I picking up the thread after months cause i find the time to reproduce some of the tweaks i need.
I write this 2 threads in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=292846 and this https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=292881
If you want i can repost all text here for the other guys and search inside the forum.
I read reread followed step by step this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Professional_audio

I have a doubt how i have to calculate the roundtrip delay with jack_io_delay?
I see a UNFa video in which he connect the output and input of the focusrite wth one cable patch.
MMhmhmh i really can't understand.

Another thing: someone have some pipewire tweaks to adjust latency.
I have to adjust latency.
Yesterday i was playing guitar with guitarix. I linked the stereo speakers to the monito output.
I used for example a delay and whas impossibile to play live. Only with a couple of stereo headphones.
If i have to record no problem but if i want to preparare a live set it's a problem.

Please let me know.
Bye and thank you all!

[Largos]

I made a script for adjusting the quantum, which will affect latency viewtopic.php?t=26607

If you are using guitarix standalone, then there is a setting for adjusting the latency for that in the Engine menu. Also, note certain guitarix modules will increase latency more than others.

With Jack delay, you run it and it creates an jack application instance you connect the jack delay output > whatever you want to measure the latency of > jack delay input and it measures the round trip. So (without watching it) what unfa was probably doing was connecting jack delay output > interface output > interface input > jack delay input.