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003 - 29.06.2006, 01:47 Uhr
Titel: Help setting up JACK

I need a low-latency sound interface with no resampling (ex: no software volume control, no software EQ, etc...), just like ASIO in windows. Somebody told me to look into JACK.

I have an ESI Juli@ sound card, which seems to be supported under Linux. Using ALSA and xmms I can easily hear the sound quality is inferior to that of the sound quality in windows using winamp with an ASIO output plugin (and the official esi drivers). All my music is ripped in FLAC and I am using the Sennheiser HD650 headphones with a WooAudio 3 amp. I have jack installed, qjackctl, jackd and the jack output plugin for xmms. I have gotten basic sound out of jack by entering "jackd -d alsa" into the konsole and selecting the "jack audio connection kit" as the sound system and using the jack output plugin for xmms.

However I have a feeling it is not set up properly for low-latency output with no resampling because it sounds exactly the same as ALSA, and the software volume control in xmms and in the kmix is still working. After doing some searching on google I have found that versions of JACK 0.80 and under supported ASIO, but it was removed in later versions. Do you know how I would need to set it up to get the functionality I am looking for? And are there any newer music players that support FLAC and JACK output?

mzilikazi - 29.06.2006, 04:03 Uhr
Titel: RE: Help setting up JACK

Well this is the first I've ever heard of your particular soundcard. (Not that I'm any sort of expert on anything). Also I have no idea what ASIO is since I am not by nature a windows user Smilie

I do use WIndows for 1 application @ work but that's it. That machine spends the majority of it's time too busy installing patches & hotfixes and running virus scanners to get any real work done anyway. Winken

Jack is dead simple to set up and run under Debian. Use Qjackctl as you already have. You can get near-real time by adjusting options available within the settings of Qjackctl. Basically the goal is to get as few x-runs as possible. Check alsa-project.org and whatever mailing list(s) you have joined.

Most Linux audio players can play flac and many can use jack. Surely some (several? all?) of the KDE solutions do.

My interest in Linux audio is the production of music w/ Linux. For this you need real-time capabilities. For real-time capabilities you need this PAM module. Read here AND a real-time Linux kernel. A real-time kernel does not exist in the stock Debian repo's. You can build your own kernel the Debian way with this patch and the 2.6.17 source from kernel.org.
There are many howto's for building a Debian kernel. I may post a detailed method if I find the time to write it. You'd do well to start with a new kernel from the left-hand column of this very page and read the script contained therein for building the kernel source. It will explain a great deal about the kanotix/slh kernels, which patches are applied and how. Read some Debian kernel howto's and give it a whirl. Let me know and I'd be more than happy to let you look at my .config.

5 start tip 'o the day. Open a shell as user, make it as wide as your screen:

Code:

alsamixer

Not alsamixergui, not Kmix nor any other mixer. alsamixer may very well be the only mixer that truly sees all of the options available for your soundcard. Only you can find that out. Press F1 for help.

You may want to look @ Musix. AFAIK that is the only up to date DAW based on Debian. I have never tried it and now you know as Musix much as I do.

003 - 29.06.2006, 05:13 Uhr
Titel: RE: Help setting up JACK

Here is what ASIO is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_stream_input_output

I would like to stick with Kanotix. I don't really need low-latency operation, but what I need is to make sure the sound is not being re-sampled at all. Do you know how I can do that with JACK? That's what ASIO did. Also, gapless playback would be really nice as well.

mzilikazi - 29.06.2006, 16:37 Uhr
Titel: Re: RE: Help setting up JACK

003 hat folgendes geschrieben::

Gapless playback is achived by giving jackd real-time priority w/ the real-time kernel as described above. Check the messages from Qjackctl for x-runs. The fewer the better. I can even compile a kernel (or anything else extremely CPU intensive) and I do not get any x-runs with a real-time kernel since the kernel makes sure that audio takes priority.

I suggest Musix only as a way to test your soundcard under linux. You may be able to ascertain better the abilities of your soundcard with a real-time kernel. Note that I am only assuming that Musix has a real-time kernel since as mentioned I don't really know anything about Musix and have never even booted their disc. Presumably you can try it in live mode.

003 - 29.06.2006, 18:57 Uhr
Titel: RE: Re: RE: Help setting up JACK

What would I have to do to recompile a realtime kernel? Is it hard? Would you be able to help me with that? And if I were going to do that, it would also be a good idea to recompile it with SMP support for my dual-core cpu, right?

mzilikazi - 29.06.2006, 20:46 Uhr
Titel: Re: RE: Re: RE: Help setting up JACK

003 hat folgendes geschrieben::

Well I basically explained building your own real-time kernel in my first post. You'll have to find a Debian kernel howto (lot's of them out there). I can post my .config so you get the right options enabled for real-time. Yes enable SMP at that time! This weekend I plan on building a new 2.6.17-rt kernel. It may or may not work with your hardware. I usually don't included nearly all of the patches that come w/ a Kanotix kernel but maybe I will this time. We'll see...............

003 - 30.06.2006, 04:22 Uhr
Titel:

I've got some bad news. As of now, my sound card is not officially supported on linux, though esi is susposedly working on getting it fully supported via ALSA. Until then, a generic Envy24 driver is being used, which does not allow for full operation of the card. I can not use linux until there is full support, which I hope is soon. Right now I am back on windows, and this just confirms, for whatever reason, winamp with an ASIO output plugin with gapless playback sounds much better than it did on linux. The sound on linux sounded almost like "tearing paper", if you will.

wegface - 30.06.2006, 10:06 Uhr
Titel:

Ive tried all the audio distros of linux that i could find- and yes they are all terribly out of date except musix......(why oh why has development of demudi stopped dammit) I tried musix- got very excited- then installed to hard drive. My dissapointment began right there- it uses kanotix installer (the old one) but makes it take an extremely long time to install- almost so long as to wish to reboot the pc fearing its crashed. Ok after all that waiting and we boot to musix installed on hdd. All looks (and sounds) good until it suddenly freezes and needs hard reboot. This then happens time and time and time again (at least here on my pc- i cant speak for others). Frustrated with freezes i downloaded and installed an older version of musix. This time the kanotix installer took the right amount of time.... the distro itself however was no more stable than the last.
This is really damned frustrating- as within musix (the first install) i managed to play a soft synth with my midi keyboard- over a hydrogen drum beat- AND record it all within ardour gtk. I just wish i could acheive this in a STABLE linux- because unfortunatly i cannot figure out how no matter what i try.
its a sad thing that in my 1 year ish of linux i have yet to produce any music on my own computer- something i did daily when i used M$ xpoo......

mzilikazi - 30.06.2006, 22:58 Uhr
Titel:

OK so I wrote a quick realtime kenel howto here. Build that, install the PAM module and fire up qjackctl. Make sure to set Realtime in Setup>Parameters

Now you can begin music creation under Linux.

wegface - 01.07.2006, 08:44 Uhr
Titel:

Host/Kernel/OS "WegBox" running Linux 2.6.17-rt5 i686 [ KANOTIX 2006 Easter ]
CPU Info Intel Celeron clocked at [ 2392.399 MHz ]
Videocard ATI RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] X.Org 7.0.0 [ 1024x768 @85hz ]
Network cards Broadcom BCM4401 100Base-T
Processes 98 | Uptime 27min | Memory 291.797/493.121MB | HDD HDS728080PLAT20,Maxtor 6E040L0,ST340016A Size 163GB (51%used) | Client Shell | Infobash v2.50rc12

Cheers for that mzilikazi! Only thing is in kanotix when i start jack control i get error messeges saying cannot initialize midi (so midi patchbay stays empty)... error says something like:
"Could not open ALSA sequencer as client- midi patchbay will not be available"
In jack control messeges i get this:
"08:42:46.658 Patchbay deactivated.
08:42:46.868 Statistics reset.
08:42:46.884 Could not open ALSA sequencer as a client. MIDI patchbay will be not available.
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:457:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory"
Any ideas?

003 - 02.07.2006, 17:45 Uhr
Titel:

Thats not my problem however. My sound card is not supported under linux, and it only outputs via PCM "default". I have found that in windows, it's not just ASIO that sounds better. Even DirectSound is a lot better. I really hope my sound card will get support under linux, because that was the only other thing I had to fix: the sound! Kanotix is the only distro that really made me want to keep linux and feel bad when I had to go back to windows.

mzilikazi - 02.07.2006, 20:11 Uhr
Titel:

wegface hat folgendes geschrieben::

Congrats.

Zitat:

Only thing is in kanotix when i start jack control i get error messeges saying cannot initialize midi (so midi patchbay stays empty)... error says something like:
"Could not open ALSA sequencer as client- midi patchbay will not be available"
In jack control messeges i get this:
"08:42:46.658 Patchbay deactivated.
08:42:46.868 Statistics reset.
08:42:46.884 Could not open ALSA sequencer as a client. MIDI patchbay will be not available.
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:457:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory"
Any ideas?

Code:

modprobe snd_seq_midi

mzilikazi - 02.07.2006, 20:18 Uhr
Titel:

003 hat folgendes geschrieben::

You can always write the manufacturer and ask them to open their driver code or at least request a bit more of an effort toward developing a driver for Linux.

I realize not everyone can just buy a new soundcard everyday but you can get some decent sound cards for not too much $. Check the ALSA sound card matrix.
I'm personally lusting after an Maudio Delta 1010-LT.

wegface - 03.07.2006, 08:16 Uhr
Titel:

Ah yes mzilikazi- thats worked Smilie

Thought id tried that before with no avail- who cares it works now Smilie

)
And yes the m-audio delta 10-10 is a brilliant card- i biult a friend a pc with that card in Smilie

Personally i have a terratec dmx6 fire- same chip as the m-audio. Thanks again mzilikazi.