An Ardour7 shortcut to load it with Pipewire-ALSA support and be connectable in pwqraph

[edrickblade]

This is my today grain of sand for the Ardour community.
Just put this .desktop file in .local/share/applications folder and it’ll appear in your applications menu, in Ardour’s Windows>Connections menu select ALSA and the connections will be PIPEWIRE-ALSA

I uploaded the compressed ready to use file in 0009427: An Ardour7 shortcut to load it with Pipewire-ALSA support and connectable in pwqraph - MantisBT

It’s a good alternative tool for those users having the distortion on sound problem with Pipewire-Jack.

[Zelv]

That’s super useful thank you, I actually got that problem with pipewire-jack today!

I had to make small changes to the desktop file, here it is in case someone else needs it:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ardour Pipewire-ALSA
GenericName=Ardour Digital Audio Workstation
Icon=Ardour-Ardour_7.5.0
Exec=env ARDOUR_ALSA_DEVICE=pipewire Ardour7 %U
Type=Application
Categories=AudioVideo;Recorder;AudioVideo;AudioVideoEditing;
Comment[en_US.UTF-8]=Ardour with Pipewire-ALSA configuration

Also, Ardour shows 64 hardware inputs and outputs but all the inputs are the same (my mic) and I cannot access the other inputs of my soundcard. It seems that Ardour only sees the pipewire-pulse source (Mic - Helix):

Would you know how to access other ALSA sinks?

[edrickblade]

Hi Zelv! You need to select the outputs in the Ardour’s master track, also the soundcard must be selected in the Sound Preferences>Hardware, remember that is Pipewire-ALSA and not Pipewire-JACK, Pipewire-ALSA behaves like ALSA but with the flexibility of Pipewire.

[Zelv]

Ah I see, that means I would have to use the Pro audio profile of my soundcard (which is not compatible with general desktop use). Also it won’t be possible to use the inputs of multiple soundcard with that method

[edrickblade]

Yes, it is, but however Ardour have a better performance as in ALSA and is connectable via ‘pwqgraph’
I always have problems with Pipewire-Jack in Ardour, if not is audio distortion, is buffer and quantum mismatch or not able to load instruments, Now with this .desktop script I can connect Hydrogen, Guitarix and Carla to Ardour via Pipewire-ALSA.