Monitoring with both hardware and software

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

I’d like to record while playing live. I want to monitor the guitar tracks using software, so I can apply effects to them for the live performance. The other tracks I would like to monitor using hardware, in order to reduce the load on my computer.

I have read up on this a little and I think I need to use the --hwmon option for jackd. (I’m using a Delta 1010LT sound card.) But beyond that I don’t really know what to do.

Does what I’m trying to do make sense? I figure there’s no point in having Ardour do the monitoring on 2 vocal tracks and 3 drum tracks (all done live, with mics), if it’s not going to apply any realtime effects. I want to record the clean guitar tracks so I can play around with the effects later on – this is why I don’t just mic the guitar amps.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Debian Squeeze amd64
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
4GB RAM

#2

Is there a document on monitoring with jack?

All I can find is a couple sentences: “On Linux with certain hardware, JACK is able to route audio inputs directly to audio outputs using the internal internal routing. This results in the low-latency of digital hardware monitoring, but the features of software monitoring.”

#3

I don’t think you should bother with jack monitoring options.

For software monitoring tell ardour: Options -> Monitoring -> Ardour does monitoring

For hardware monitoring, use envy24control or mudita24 to access the internal mixer of your m-audio.

Cheers, Pablo

#4

Thanks for the reply. I’ll continue experimenting. I am using envy24control, by the way.

Could you explain why you don’t think I should bother monitoring with jack? Does it have any drawbacks?

#5
Could you explain why you don't think I should bother monitoring with jack? Does it have any drawbacks?

I think the point about that is simply that Ardour does a better job of controlling the monitoring.