Ardour 6.5 no sound

bucovaina89 · December 28, 2022, 8:31pm

Hi,

I’m running Ardour 6.5.0 and for the life of me, I don’t get any sound out of it.

My setup:

Macbook pro with Debian 11 installed on it
Ardour 6.5.0
Yamaha THR30a as an input (seems to work, UV meters go up and down when I strum the guitar)
HDA Intel PCH as the output (to monitor)

So when I start a new recording session en let Ardour arm both tracks from the THR30II, I see the UV meters respond as expected. When I click “Master > input/output” and connect everything I think needs connecting (without causing feedback). I see the master output UV meter also responding but still no sound in the headphones.

I wanted to add more screen shots but as a new user I’m not allowed to add more than one screen shot. Luckily I’m not too afraid of the CLI so here’s alsamixer in ASCII

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.2.4 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Card: HDA Intel PCH                                                                                                                                                         F1:  Help               │
│ Chip: Cirrus Logic CS4208                                                                                                                                                   F2:  System information │
│ View: F3: Playback  F4: Capture  F5:[All]                                                                                                                                   F6:  Select sound card  │
│ Item: Mic Boost [dB gain: -20.00, -20.00]                                                                                                                                   Esc: Exit               │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
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│      ┌──┐           ┌──┐           ┌──┐           ┌──┐           ┌──┐           ┌──┐           ┌──┐                                         ┌──┐                          ┌──┐           ┌──┐       │
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│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
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│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
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│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
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│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
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│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      │▒▒│           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │           │▒▒│           │  │           │  │                                         │▒▒│                          │  │           │  │       │
│      ├──┤           ├──┤           ├──┤           ├──┤           └──┘           └──┘           └──┘           ┌──┐           ┌──┐           └──┘         Enabled          └──┘           └──┘       │
│      │OO│           │OO│           │OO│           │OO│                                                        │OO│           │OO│                                                                   │
│      └──┘           └──┘           └──┘           └──┘                                                        └──┘           └──┘          L    R                                                   │
│                                                                                                                                           CAPTURE                                                   │
│      100          100<>100         0<>0           0<>0         100<>100         0<>0           0<>0                                       100<>100                        0<>0           0<>0       │
│     Master       Headphone       Speaker      Bass Speaker       PCM         Mic Boost   <  Mic Boost   >    S/PDIF     S/PDIF Default    Capture     Auto-Mute Mode Internal Mic B Internal Mic B  │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
│                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

and the output of adevices.sh:

user@macbook:~$ cd /tmp && wget https://community.ardour.org/files/adevices.sh && bash ./adevices.sh
--2022-12-28 21:27:06--  https://community.ardour.org/files/adevices.sh
Resolving community.ardour.org (community.ardour.org)... 54.235.123.47
Connecting to community.ardour.org (community.ardour.org)|54.235.123.47|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2249 (2.2K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘adevices.sh’

adevices.sh                         100%[===================================================================>]   2.20K  --.-KB/s    in 0s      

2022-12-28 21:27:06 (68.3 MB/s) - ‘adevices.sh’ saved [2249/2249]

========================================
Part I: ALSA
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k5.10.0-20-amd64.

Card 0 (HDMI):
  * Playback Device 3 (HDMI 0):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:HDMI,3,0):
      closed

  * Playback Device 7 (HDMI 1):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:HDMI,7,0):
      closed

  * Playback Device 8 (HDMI 2):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:HDMI,8,0):
      closed

  * Playback Device 9 (HDMI 3):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:HDMI,9,0):
      closed

  * Playback Device 10 (HDMI 4):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:HDMI,10,0):
      closed

Card 1 (WIRELESS):
  * Playback Device 0 (USB Audio):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:WIRELESS,0,0):
      closed

  * Recording Device 0 (USB Audio):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:WIRELESS,0,0):
      used by: ArdourGUI (PID 3032)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S16_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 2
      rate: 44100 (44100/1)
      period_size: 128
      buffer_size: 256

Card 2 (PCH):
  * Playback Device 0 (CS4208 Analog):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      used by: ArdourGUI (PID 3032)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 4
      rate: 44100 (44100/1)
      period_size: 128
      buffer_size: 256

  * Playback Device 1 (CS4208 Digital):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,1,0):
      closed

  * Recording Device 0 (CS4208 Analog):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      closed

Card 3 (R8):
  * Playback Device 0 (USB Audio):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:R8,0,0):
      closed

  * Recording Device 0 (USB Audio):
    - Subdevice 0 (hw:R8,0,0):
      closed

========================================
Part II: jack processes
user@macbook:/tmp$

When I quit Ardour and want to watch a youtube movie, works perfectly fine, both with headphones and the laptop speakers, so the hardware is OK.

Anyone with some more tips?

ccaudle · December 29, 2022, 10:17pm

Need more detail. From your description this sounds like a routing problem.
Some PCH devices have a separate output for line level and headphone output.
Notice this line in the output of adevices.sh:

channels: 4

Perhaps the output of Ardour is connected to the line level outputs rather than the headphone outputs.

bucovaina89 · December 30, 2022, 10:37am

Hi @ccaudle ,

Thanks for taking time to respond.

I’d happily provide you more info, but I’m not sure what you would like to know see. Can I provide you some log information or screenshots? If so let me know what where I need to look.

Thanks again!

bucovaina89 · January 1, 2023, 6:36pm

OK I’m one step further now. I can actually record my guitar and play back tracks at the same time now. But I have to select the Yamaha THR30II as an input and output device, then connect my headphones to the Yamaha THR30ii amplifier. If I select my HDA Intel PCH, I never get sound out of the headphones.

Can ayone help me out? I don’t understand why this happens. Is the problem likely going to be found in the mixer section?

GuntherT · January 1, 2023, 6:51pm

I don’t think you can have different input and output devices if using the ALSA backend. I believe there are workarounds with JACK, but they are a bit complicated and not within my expertise.

bucovaina89 · January 1, 2023, 6:54pm

If I both select HDA Intel PCH as input and output, I also get no sound to monitor (output)

GuntherT · January 1, 2023, 7:11pm

If you select the Yamaha guitar amp for the input and output all works as expected, but if you select the Intel soundcard for both, it doesn’t? Did you initially select ‘Hardware Monitoring’ when you were first setting this up? Perhaps that setting works for the amp but not the built-in sound card? You could try changing that setting by going to Edit → Preferences → Monitoring and change “Record monitoring handled by” and select “ardour” instead of “Audio Hardware”. Does that make the Intel card work as expected?

bucovaina89 · January 1, 2023, 7:39pm

I tried your suggestion to change “Audio Hardware” to “Ardour” for monitoring but that did not change anything that I noticed. Yamaha THR30II still works, but the HDA Intel PCH does not produce any sound that I can hear. In both cases, I can see the UV meter on the top right react. Correct me if I’m wrong but I beleive that’s master out? So there’s sound signals going somewhere but they stop before my headset/laptop speakers.

GuntherT · January 2, 2023, 10:54am

Check the audio connections and see if the master track outputs are properly connected to the hardware outs. Right-click on the master track in the editor and select “Outputs”. This is what mine looks like if connected to the internal sound card (Hardware tab):

ccaudle · January 3, 2023, 6:40pm

Is it the case that neither headphone nor speakers work? My earlier suggestion:

was making the assumption that your hardware had separate speaker and headphone output connections, and that perhaps the default connection was to the speaker or line output, not to the headphone output.

When Ardour was connected directly it showed that the internal audio interface was opened as a four-channel device, so presumably in the Audio Connections window, the hardware tab will show four ports, rather than just Out Left and Out Right shown in the screen capture from GuntherT.
The ALSA Mixer screen capture you showed indicated that the headphone outputs are at maximum (100), but the speaker outputs are at minimum (0), which I assume is fully off.
Using ALSA Mixer to set the speaker output setting to 100, and see if the Ardour output is coming through the speakers rather than headphones. If that is the case then change the connections from the Ardour master bus to the other two ports in the audio connections window when you want to use headphones.

bucovaina89 · January 4, 2023, 4:56am

I think I’m overlooking something …

These are my settings now as per your recommendations. Still no sound. If I connect my guitar amp with USB and select its audio interface it presents to ALSA, it works just fine (recording and monitoring)

Alsamixer settings:

Master output mixer:

bucovaina89 · January 4, 2023, 4:57am

I also see HDA intel PCH and another card HDA intel PCH(1). If I select the one with (1), I only have 2 outputs instead of 4. (But still no sound for monitoring).

This is all while I have no troubles at all with audio outside of Ardour. Like playing audio with a “default” media player. Not with the laptop speakers, not with headphones.

ccaudle · January 4, 2023, 4:25pm

Try running the adevices.sh script while playing audio with another application, that may indicate any differences in settings.

bucovaina89 · January 27, 2023, 3:21pm

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave up on the internal sound card. I bought an UMC1820 and it works well, without issues.

system · February 24, 2023, 3:21pm

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