[ubuntu-studio-devel] One week until xenial final relase "Ardour"

[Len Ovens]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2016, Grant Frank Burton wrote:

> my problem is there are too many mixers I think...... If I open the QasMixer and
> select the input I want to use and make sure the capture is selected. Then open
> ardour and it works most of the time.... most of the time.

QASMixer is for setting up the sound card levels and enabling them. 
pavucontrol (sound settings on the audio drop down) controls only desktop 
audio. Ardour can use either ALSA directly (cuts off all desktop audio 
BTW) or Jack (controlled with qjackctl) which can have desktop audio 
routed through it at the same time as Ardour is running if desired.

> I don't think a normal user would find that......
> 
> there are three cards in my system
> 0 HDA Intel
> VIA VT17085
> 
> 1 HDA ATI HDMI
> ATI R6xx HDMIHDA ATI HDMI
> 
> 2SAA 7134
> SAA7134 MixerHDA ATI HDMI
> 
> often the output is sent to HDA ATI HDMI but there is nothing plugged into there.

Output from what? Desktop? In the case of desktop audio, open pavucontrol 
select the configuration tab and turn the profile for ATI HDMI off. PA 
will then ignore that card.

If you mean in Ardour, select the correct card in either Ardour (if using 
alsa) or in qjackctl (if using jack) both will remember that card for next 
time. My prefer running Ardour with the jack audio back end. (I have only 
run Ardour with alsa selected for a quick trial to see if it works)

Personally, I turn all profiles off in pavucontrol and let the desktop 
audio flow through jack. I start jack at login and run it all the time. Do 
be aware that some desktop applications (skype is known for this) require 
a higher latency in jack to work. I have not been able to get skype to 
work at less than 512/2 in jack. In my opinion this is a bug in pulse 
modules jack_sink/source. I have not had trouble running most other 
desktop applications at lower latencies though (64/2 or 128/2).

Other people run one audio card just for desktop (with it's own 
amp/speakers or to another mixer input) and another card just for Jack 
use. This was quite common before firewire code was added to alsa.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net