No audio coming out of Ardour 6

[Klicker]

I have more or less got a clean install of Ardour and I have no audio output. I did have audio coming out until I decided to try setting up JACK - I followed a couple of (fairly old) tutorials on getting things set up:

Prepare Linux for audio production | Tutorials

Install and configure JACK audio server | Tutorials

This basically involved:

1. Install the Linux low latency Kernel
2. Configure real time access (I didnt actually do anything here, this was already done - presumably handled with the Ardour install)
3. Add the KXStudio repository
4. Install pulseaudio-module-jack
5. Install QjackCtl

After following these steps and fiddling around with QjackCtl, I’ve had to audio out of Ardour. I’ve tried to undo these steps, uninstalled and re-installed ardour, and I still have no audio output.

Hardware-wise, I just have my laptop (running Linux Mint 20.1) and a basic USB headset connected, nothing else.

I have tried using the ALSA audio system, specifying HDA Intel PCH as the output device (presumably this is my on-board audio device) and have tried specifying USB Audio Device, and I get no audio (this worked before following the steps above).

I have also tried Jack with similar settings, however I know nothing about how to configure this (from what I understand it’s more complicated and is suitable for more complicated setups, however I dont think it should be necessary for my USB headset

Anyone able to help out with this? I’ve ended up in a state where Ardour is completely unusable and I’ve no idea how to fix it I do have a backup that I can restore as a plan B, but I’d like to try and understand what’s went wrong and fix it if possible.

Thanks!

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

@Klicker

until I decided to try setting up JACK

Is there a reason why you want or need JACK? You’re usually better off without it.

[Klicker]

I was unable to have both my general laptop audio (browser etc) and Ardour audio going through my headphones using ALSA (unless I had it set up wrong). So thought I would try and see if I could do that with Jack.

Switching between ardour and, for example, YouTube (which for me is crucial while learning) was tedious - headphones on for making changes to my track, headphones off to watch some tutorial stuff on YouTube.