I’m having trouble monitoring from the Behringer U-Phoria UM2 USB Audio Interface or other usb interfaces in Ubuntu 24.04. The monitoring of my own voice is very slight or nonexistent while recording at the same time while hearing other tracks.
Other strange things happen. The main audio on my laptop is still working in the main computer and I can mute that. However, when recording, I cannot hear myself well.
I can monitor myself while not recording.
I’m sure there is some setting that I’m missing.
If I just use a headset plugged into the computer, all works as expected. So it is specific to using another usb input device. I’m not splitting the input and output.
That interface does not have a blend control to adjust the mix between the playback audio and the input audio. I think the only way to control the blend is to set the gain appropriately for the input signal, adjust the headphone level control to be comfortable hearing the input, then adjust the level of the signal sent from Ardour to the interface to get the blend you want.
I have used before under earlier versions of ubuntu or mint with a slightly better usb audio interface by behringer. But I’m quite sure that it is the os. Is there anyone using 24.04 ? There is a monitor button. I’ve tried all different settings. I can hear myself fine without recording and it is going through the plugins (reverb)… but when I record while hearing the other stuff together, the monitor of my own sound is weak or not existing.
Okay… I think the issue was to change Handled to: “Ardour” instead of “Audio Hardware” The selection pictured below seemed to help. Please know that it is not default for Ardour to handle this.
The problem with FOSS is you often need to consult a manual.
I would like to ask, why it cannot auto detect and give a message?
If one is selecting a USB device, is there a way that the default of audio Hardware would be useful and usable in the majority of cases?
Can you explain the function and decisions for this?
As I once blamed the Ubuntu release, I now see it is the newer release that has a newer repo for Ardour. So this new thing “breaks” previous “working” and “intuitive” setup in most cases.
Yep, in fact often more typically what people want in fact(EDIT: When a DSP mixer or hardware monitoring option exists in the hardware of course). Hardware monitoring allows for near zero latency monitoring, whereas with Ardour doing monitoring you potentially have round trip latency into and out of the DAW.
That being said, I do not believe it is a ‘default’ as much as IIRC it is remembered from previous settings. If it is in fact a ‘default’ then I would ask if this might be a change in that repo version, and does it happen with Ardour if downloaded from this site?
I have not done anything so I assume it is a default.
This is a fresh install of ubuntu and not an upgrade. It is always best to do that.
You can also see that avlinux does this too. I tried that as a solution.
You can transfer your existing home directory, or just the .config/ardour* directories to keep your existing preference selections.
Possibly more to the point, it is not possible to read a user’s mind and know what they desire. You have to use Ardour for monitoring for example if you want to hear the output of Guitarix processing your guitar input through the audio interface, or if you want to hear a signal after it is processed by a vocoder.
There is no one obvious selection which would work for every situation, but 90% of the time I use hardware monitoring because of the lower latency, so with my bias that seems a reasonable default.
Okay… All I know is something changed from Ardour 5 to the one now.
I know the difference between the settings now. I do have a real time monitoring switch on the usb device, but I like to hear my own voice with the same levels as processed through ardour… perhaps putting it as a radio buttons will help. Then the user can see there is a choice for this and maybe intuitively figure it out. There is definitely screen real estate on the setup dialog.
I definitely went to that screen to see if there was something needed to be set since the default is not a usb device.
Radio Buttons show all choices with a single selection. So “no” not something like is already present. I would not suggest a change for something that was already there.
To be honest, I really don’t think you understand the scale and scope of the problem under discussion.
As was mentioned above, the audio interface (even just USB audio interfaces) can vary in the following ways
hardware monitoring possible
no hardware monitoring
24+ channels, with no particular “special” channels for headphones or speakers
2 channels only
4 channels with 2 of them being a special headphone output
8 channels with 2 of them being a special headphone output, possibly channels 1+2 or possibly 7+8
There is no possible way for a DAW to (a) correctly identify which of these situations is in use or (b) how to handle most of them with any sensible default.
This is a screenshot of the hardware routing matrix for my MOTU Ultralite AVB
Finally, radio buttons are one way to represent a set of mutually exclusive options. Drop-down menus are another. Please don’t try to make the claim that there is only one way to things in a GUI, because that is rarely the case.
Lots of things has changed from Ardour 5 to Ardour 8; that’s why it’s 8 and not 5.03
The default monitoring system is “Audio Hardware” because that’s the best way to monitor, since it doesn’t involve any extra and unnecessary latency.
I have a fairly cheap NI Komplete Audio 6 interface and even that has its own monitoring volume knob. It’s not Ardour’s fault if yours doesn’t.
The workaround for hardware monitoring in your case is what Chris posted as the second reply to your initial comment :
Lower Ardour’s master volume until you get a nice blend between the backing track and what you’re currently recording and then crank the interface volume until it’s loud enough.
One quick modification to this, I would use the monitor bus for this level control in Ardour rather than the Master volume. But the basic concept isn’t bad.
