How to route audio ouput from Ardour to x18?

[mel-g]

Iv have found and fixed the problem. As Keith suggested, it is the usb port.
The irony is, I bought a separate pci usb3 card to make sure my audio device was on its own buss and it has caused the trouble!
All working lovely now
Thank you Keith and everyone else who chipped in

[ccaudle (Chris)]

@mel-g

The irony is, I bought a separate pci usb3 card to make sure my audio device was on its own buss and it has caused the trouble!

Which controller is on the card? Someone posted a message to the linux audio users mailing list recently pointing out something similar, that different USB controllers behave differently, and you have to dig down into low level information about the buffering requirements to pick the optimum settings.

[AaronD]

@Majik

So, you could remap USB input 1 and 2 to (say) channels 11 & 12 like this:

And carry on using USB channels 1&2, but set channels 11& 12 to USB and use those faders to control the input level.

A better choice would actually be to map them to “Aux L/R” which, effectively, are channels 17 and 18, as these are hard linked as a stereo pair inside the XR18, which appear on the Aux fader:

Sorry this is a bit long but, as I said, the XR18 is a complex beast, and trying to get the routing right on it can be tricky.

Cheers,

Keith

If you think that’s complex, wait 'til you get an X/M32! The X-Air series strikes me as one of those, with features deleted to fit in a smaller DSP chip. Then the X/M32 got a massive upgrade in the control app, to match the X/M-Air that actually requires one. So now you can actually run the X/M32 from the app.

Anyway, I came here to point out that the FX returns can also be fed from USB, and they’re otherwise useless when you use that slot as an insert. So I always use the FX1 slot as an insert, and bring in my USB 1&2 through the FX1 return (named accordingly), which leaves all of the analog inputs available.
(and then I have an unused bus (FX1 send) to figure out what to do with…)

[mel-g]

A quick update
I just looked at the most recent boot log:
There are (separate) red errors for usb power mgt and also alsa
So Trixie may have problems which need ironing out to make it great for audio work
Im keeping a record of the red errors and I will forward them to the Debian developers if they persist for long, maybe that will help.
I have found that the built in usb is less clicky than the pci card I bought
I have put AVL23.2 back on my other drive to use if the Trixie drive proves unusable. I will see how long that goes until the graphics start jumping around again.
Thank you for your interest

[mel-g]

Thanks AaronD.
Using the aux on the X18 for usb is a good plan for me, as its analog ports run at -10dB and have rca connectors.
I have been switching to usb 1&2 for listening outside ardour, but after reading your last post I might try and reconfigure it to FX1 return, if I can get it together