It appears that no matter what mixer configuration I try, I get any unmuted other tracks recording on my new input track. There has to be some way to correct this. I see no other blogs or other people asking about this on the internet. I checked the Ardour manual, it appears to not cover in detail about the subject. The soundcard and MoBo didn’t have this issue when I ran XP with N-track (So I know the hardware is not the culprit). I have no external mixers or cabling causing this, I am direct into the soundcard jack. It always records a copy of all the other unmuted tracks on the new track. This issue makes this program useless to me. I need to be able to listen to what is playing, but just add the new track with the new solo instrument or whatever.
Is the intended “Standard” way to use this program and mixer, to route all the output tracks through the master track?
Somewhere else I read about the mute buttons for each track, and the right click check business. I am not sure of advantages/disadvantages of this capability. I still haven’t figured out all the terminology for this mixer, for instance, the difference between stereo, and out 1 and out 2 etc. Is the out 1 and out 2, left and right or what? It appears to me to be the case.
Over all, the program appears like it would be great, assuming I can get through the learning curve.
It appears that no matter what mixer configuration I try, I get any unmuted other tracks recording on my new input track.
Ardour will not do this by default, you had to have done something that is causing this. Are oyu certain it is not just picking up whatever monitoring system you are using?
Is the intended "Standard" way to use this program and mixer, to route all the output tracks through the master track?
Standard, yes. Only way? Absolutely not.
Somewhere else I read about the mute buttons for each track, and the right click check business. I am not sure of advantages/disadvantages of this capability. I still haven't figured out all the terminology for this mixer, for instance, the difference between stereo, and out 1 and out 2 etc. Is the out 1 and out 2, left and right or what? It appears to me to be the case.
Depends on your routing. In general yes, when dealing with stereo, out1 and 2 would be left and right. However Ardour can be used for much more complex scenarios and there is no guarantee that two outputs means stereo, so it will not label them as such.
I appreciate your reply. Sorry to take a while to get back. I Had family issues to deal with.
The Main issue at hand, is still the new track having the other track getting somehow mixed in. If I did something to cause this, I don’t know what it was. I have a sound blaster audigy2 card with my headphones plugged into the output 1/8th inch connector, and a microphone plugged into the 1/8th inch mic input connector on the same sound card. This is the same way I had it set up with XP and N-track.
The microphone is not that sensitive nor is it close enough to the headphones to pick up that much level. I have noticed in the past that the microphone can pick up some sound from the headphones, but it is way lower of a level. When singing, I cut the headphone level to try to not pick up any at all. The level I see on the record VU meter is significant in Ardour with the issue I am trying to solve. I can unplug the microphone and still see the level there. With the playback level on one of the already recorded tracks is -10dB, the recording level is -20dB roughly. This tells me that the mix is occurring inside and not outside the computer box setup.
I opened a new session (Or whatever the terminology for starting fresh, is in Ardour) and tried it again, and get the same results.
I somehow imagine that the answer to this will be one of those, “How obvious it was” moments, but in the mean time, I am stumped because I don’t know the interaction of Ardour and Jack, and Pulse, Gnome, and whatever the audio pathways are in Ubuntu.
Am I supposed to just use the Ardour mixer, and not touch Jack? Is it possible that in messing with Jack at one point while having Ardour running, I goofed something up?
If you have a suggestion for a setup, please include it in a response. Can you email me a zipped file with a setup in it?
Is the audio Jack setup stored with all the other files in the project files? If so can it be analyzed as a text file?
I do not get the audio feed to the record track, if I play a sound file from the Totem player. Therefore the crossmix is somehow happening within Ardour, or that Jack connect thingy. It seems to only be coming from the other channels I am playing back from within Ardour.
The signal appears to make a connection to the new record track the moment I connect any of the playback tracks to the system playback 1 or playback 2 hookups in Jack via the Ardour mixer. Prior to this I can see the VU meters doing their own thing, I mean, the Input only has my microphone input indication, and the playback has output VU indication. This tells me that something in the playback 1/2 system connection is feeding signal back to the system capture 1/2 inputs.
Am I wrong in connecting up this way?
Am I supposed to connect some other way?
I am getting the sinking feeling that XP will soon find its way back on this PC if I can’t get this resolved.
I have been fighting with video and sound problems with this Ubuntu Studio install for about 3 weeks now.
Just trying to get things working. I am about ready to give up. XP worked, though, I didn’t like bogging the system down with spam, adware and antivirus software, and the other issues with windows.
I am afraid that waiting after this is the, “pulseaudio[2340]: ratelimit.c: xx events suppressed” issue I keep getting. I don’t know what that is. My searches on the internet indicate that others don’t know either.
The signal path in Ubuntu (or UbuntuStudio) is as follows:
Hardware
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Alsa - basically the driver for the hardware, and controls for said driver (like a mixer)
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Pulseaudio OR Jack - Pulseaudio helps with routing multiple applications through one card, network sharing of audio resources, etc, and is mainly for average desktop requirements. For pro-audio, however, we use jack to facilitate most of the things that pulseaudio was created for. Jack is more flexible, and lower latency, but is more hands on as far as configuration. Jack will start and run fine while pulseaudio is still running, but non-jack applications will lose their ability to access Alsa while Jack server is running, and will regain this ability when it is shut down.
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Applications
Obviously the opposite signal path is applicable for output of sound.
Seeing as you’ve gotten the same problem with a new session, I’m guessing neither routing in ardour nor qjackctl is the problem. Just to be sure, though, open up the input dialog (click on input ->edit) on the track you’re trying to record to and make sure that your sound card’s input is the only connection. If it is, I suspect you may have a routing issue either in alsa or the hardware itself (could be just a bad driver). To check the settings for alsa, open up gamix (in sound and video menu. If it’s not installed, install it by typing “sudo apt-get install gamix” in a command line terminal). This mixer gives you direct access to alsa’s settings. Specifically check the section to the right of “capture” and make sure that “pcm” is not selected as your capture source (although I imagine it’s not, or you wouldn’t be recording your line in, but I might be wrong).
Thanks for your help. It appears that the PCM sliders were up. When I moved them to the lowest setting, the mix-in from the playback went away. So, I had no idea about this gamix thing. Except that I went through all this would I have learned, however, how is the average Joe supposed to know that this other mixer exists?
I have no idea how the slider got moved up, unless another slider in another mixer somewhere did it.
I suppose that a more, “in depth”, Ardour manual “might” help.
Funny thing though, now the Master mixer slider back in Ardour is greyed out, and it no longer works. It shows no VU level. I am able to hear the tracks if I route them directly to the system out 1/2.
I assume that to use the Master mixer I should set the track1 output to Master in 1/2, and the same for track 2.
Then set the master input to track 1 and track 2?
Then set master output to system out 1/2?
I will keep playing around with the mixer, I guess, if you don’t respond, hoping to figure it out.
@Paul1: an ardour manual would be very unlikely to cover details on the operation and control of a hardware mixer specific to a given audio interface. The hardware mixer on almost every audio interface is different, and some devices don’t have them at all.
gamix is just one alsa mixer available. Others are:
alsamixergui (which usually displays the pulseaudio settings if pulse is installed)
kmix (a kde version of the same idea)
gmix (a very user friendly but not very controllable version of the same)
Basically any of these (and many more, including command line mixers) would help you find that problem, but I use gamix because it gives you access to ALL the controls on your card.
These mixers are just like the little speaker in your system tray on windows, so like Paul said, they’re not a part of Ardour, but should be covered in posts like this one : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=843012
Be sure to always check the ubuntuforums when you have problems with basic OS stuff, there is tons of information there and many people willing to answer your ubuntu specific questions.
As far as the master bus routing, all you need to do is select master bus as the outputs for your individual tracks, and they will automatically show up in the master bus inputs dialog. Then select “out 1-2” as the master bus’ output and you should be good to go!