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From: Richard Corfield on 3 Apr 2008 07:22
I've been looking at the Ardour program for audio work, previously using
Audacity. Initially it was taking a digital copy off a minidisc using a
cheap USB audio interface with digital in, then processing it, but I
wonder about using it for things like multitrack recording and mixing.

The problem I got with the USB interface is that it was hard to avoid
xruns. Even with the CPU at near 0%. This is on standard Ubuntu. If I
ran Jackd and therefore Ardour as root things improved, but not
completely. I wonder how much of the problem is the cheap USB interface
and how much is difficulty doing real time low latency work in standard
Ubuntu - whether I'd have to set up a system optimised for this kind of
work.

There are some nice more expensive audio interfaces out there, USB and
PCI. Ardour also has nice features for using external control devices. I
found editing fades in the editor hard, but the ability to work live and
record your changes on something that feels like a real mixer is
interesting, or even live mix on it and record. I don't know what the
possibilities are. (To get enough channels for some live work would cost
a lot more than a dedicated live desk which I already have only in
analog form. It's been very reliably though, a risk with computers).

- Richard

--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield(a)gmail.com>
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
From: Ian Rawlings on 3 Apr 2008 08:23
On 2008-04-03, Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem I got with the USB interface is that it was hard to avoid
> xruns. Even with the CPU at near 0%. This is on standard Ubuntu. If I
> ran Jackd and therefore Ardour as root things improved, but not
> completely. I wonder how much of the problem is the cheap USB interface
> and how much is difficulty doing real time low latency work in standard
> Ubuntu - whether I'd have to set up a system optimised for this kind of
> work.

IIRC on the ardour webpage there used to be lots of advice on cards
and the advice was that USB cards were no use because of the latency
issue, if you're serious about it then I think one of their
recommended cards wasn't super-expensive, about �100 and that was many
years ago. It had multiple inputs at 24-bit 96KHz in and out. I
don't remember the card name.

--
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From: Richard Corfield on 3 Apr 2008 11:13
On 2008-04-03, Ian Rawlings <news06(a)tarcus.org.uk> wrote:
>
> IIRC on the ardour webpage there used to be lots of advice on cards
> and the advice was that USB cards were no use because of the latency
> issue, if you're serious about it then I think one of their
> recommended cards wasn't super-expensive, about �100 and that was many
> years ago. It had multiple inputs at 24-bit 96KHz in and out. I
> don't remember the card name.

Some interesting reading. The M-Audio PCI cards look useful - pity the
10/10 LightWeight has that unfriendly break-out configuration and you
have to pay so much more for a breakout box for it.

It brings around some interesting prospects for recording live events I
do as a non-critical component running off the direct outs on the back
of the mixing desk.

- Richard

--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield(a)gmail.com>
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
From: Will Kemp on 4 Apr 2008 06:57
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:22:24 +0100, Richard Corfield wrote:

> I've been looking at the Ardour program for audio work, previously using
> Audacity. Initially it was taking a digital copy off a minidisc using a
> cheap USB audio interface with digital in, then processing it, but I
> wonder about using it for things like multitrack recording and mixing.
>
> The problem I got with the USB interface is that it was hard to avoid
> xruns. Even with the CPU at near 0%. This is on standard Ubuntu. If I
> ran Jackd and therefore Ardour as root things improved, but not
> completely. I wonder how much of the problem is the cheap USB interface
> and how much is difficulty doing real time low latency work in standard
> Ubuntu - whether I'd have to set up a system optimised for this kind of
> work.

I'm not sure if it will help with your specific issue, but i'd recommend
reading the stuff about latency and optimisation etc at

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

You might also like to try the dynebolic live CD and see if the way
they've optimised stuff makes things work better: http://dynebolic.org


--
http://WillKemp-Words.com
http://WillKemp-photos.com
From: -G- on 4 Apr 2008 13:27
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:22:24 +0100, Richard Corfield wrote:
>> The problem I got with the USB interface is that it was hard to avoid
>> xruns. Even with the CPU at near 0%. This is on standard Ubuntu.

You need a rt-kernel, not the standard one. You will not get good
performance otherwise.

Have a look at Musix, it is fully dedicated to music production
distribution.

You can then see if the problem is the kernel or the usb interface.


-G-


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