No Playback - Presonus Audiobox 1818vsl

Installation & Configuration Linux
#21

No. not at all, lol. regardless of whether Ardour is running or not, the above condition persists, simply from the qjackctl menu.

How do I make sure I"m using jack and not ALSA?

#22

Check Ardour menu: “Window / Audio Midi Setup”. The box named “Audio System” says which engine Ardour is using.

#23

ok, it is set to jack but there is a message in red that says "The Jack audio backend was configured and started externally. This limits your control over it. "

#24

As expected, since that is in fact the case.

You should open a Terminal window and run this command in it:cd /tmp && wget http://jackaudio.org/downloads/adevices.sh && bash ./adevices.sh

This will show you clearly what applications are using which of your audio interfaces.

#25

as requested, and thank you for your help.

This is the output from the above command:

100%[======================================>] 2,249 --.-K/s in 0.007s

2016-01-31 12:29:40 (329 KB/s) - ‘adevices.sh’ saved [2249/2249]

========================================
Part I: ALSA
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k3.19.0-47-lowlatency.

Card 0 (PCH):

  • Playback Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 2964)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 2
      rate: 48000 (48000/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 2048

  • Playback Device 3 (HDMI 0):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,3,0):
      closed

  • Recording Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 2964)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 2
      rate: 48000 (48000/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 2048

Card 1 (VSL):

  • Playback Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      closed

  • Recording Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      closed

========================================
Part II: jack processes
2703 ? Ss 0:14 /usr/bin/jackdbus auto
2964 ? SLsl 8:44 /usr/bin/jackd -T -ndefault -t 200 -p 2048 -R -T -d alsa -n 2 -r 48000 -p 1024 -d hw:PCH,0

Part III: jack-dbus config
— status
stopped

#26

I accidentally left the bottom of the code off sorry

========================================
Part II: jack processes
2703 ? Ss 0:14 /usr/bin/jackdbus auto
2964 ? SLsl 8:44 /usr/bin/jackd -T -ndefault -t 200 -p 2048 -R -T -d alsa -n 2 -r 48000 -p 1024 -d hw:PCH,0

Part III: jack-dbus config
— status
stopped

#27

I’m running Ardour 3.5.403 (it was installed when I installed UbuntuStudio) would upgrading have any effect on this?

#28

I guess Paul is in a timezone where people sleep at this hour so I will try to help now :slight_smile:

I suspect that you have not managed to select the right audio device in QJackCTL, since the script says about 1818VSL that it’s “closed”.

When you’ve open QJackCTL’s “Setup” window, the box labeled “Interface” tells what device you want Jack to use. It should say “hw:VSL”. You change the device not by clicking on the box, but the arrow on the right side of the box. There you can see a list of all audio devices your computer sees at the moment.

Also I suggest that you reboot your machine since it might be that there are more than one Jack instances running on your computer since the scipts output says two of your audio devices are used by Jack. There can be only one instance of Jack running at a time.

Here is a picture that shows you where you select the audio device to use with Jack. You can copy and paste this link to your browsers address bar:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2071830/Presonus_1818VLS/QJackCTL.jpg

Here is the output of Pauls script running on my system when Jack is using 1818VSL, note that every other device says “closed” but only 1818VSL says “user by: jack”.

========================================
Part I: ALSA
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k4.1.16-gentoo.

Card 0 (PCH):

  • Playback Device 0 (VT1802 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      closed

  • Playback Device 1 (VT1802 Digital):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,1,0):
      closed

  • Playback Device 2 (VT1802 Alt Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,2,0):
      closed

  • Recording Device 0 (VT1802 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      closed

Card 1 (NVidia):

  • Playback Device 3 (HDMI 0):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:NVidia,3,0):
      closed

  • Playback Device 7 (HDMI 1):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:NVidia,7,0):
      closed

Card 2 (VSL):

  • Playback Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 760)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 18
      rate: 44100 (44100/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 3072

  • Recording Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 760)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 18
      rate: 44100 (44100/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 3072

========================================

#29

Ardour 3.5 is fine when you try to get things working, but before you do any serious audio work you should upgrade to the latest 4.6 release. Hundreds of bugs have been fixed since 3.5 and there are also many improvements to existing features and lots of new ones. You won’t get the 4.6 version from your Linux distros repository, but from this site by donating some sum to the developers. I guess you already did that because you can write on this forum :slight_smile:

#30

Just a correction, there is probably not two instances of Jack running on your system, I misinterpreted the scripts output. Both Jack references in the scripts output are for the same audio device, one for input (recording) and one for output (playback).

#31

Thank you so much for hanging with me.

This is a screenshot from my computer ==> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-nM4h9pmY_3U3BIMUdQRVdTMkk/view?usp=sharing

I ran the terminal command again and this is the output now:

100%[======================================>] 2,249 --.-K/s in 0.001s

2016-01-31 18:58:39 (2.38 MB/s) - ‘adevices.sh.1’ saved [2249/2249]

========================================
Part I: ALSA
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k3.19.0-47-lowlatency.

Card 0 (PCH):

  • Playback Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 2964)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 2
      rate: 48000 (48000/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 2048

  • Playback Device 3 (HDMI 0):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,3,0):
      closed

  • Recording Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:PCH,0,0):
      used by: jackd (PID 2964)
      access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
      format: S32_LE
      subformat: STD
      channels: 2
      rate: 48000 (48000/1)
      period_size: 1024
      buffer_size: 2048

Card 1 (VSL):

  • Playback Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      closed

  • Recording Device 0 (USB Audio):

    • Subdevice 0 (hw:VSL,0,0):
      closed

========================================
Part II: jack processes
2703 ? Ss 0:19 /usr/bin/jackdbus auto
2964 ? SLsl 12:41 /usr/bin/jackd -T -ndefault -t 200 -p 2048 -R -T -d alsa -n 2 -r 48000 -p 1024 -d hw:PCH,0
15856 ? SLl 0:04 /usr/bin/qjackctl

Part III: jack-dbus config
— status
stopped

If I’m following you, I need to stop:

Playback Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog): and Recording Device 0 (ALC3221 Analog):

If that is correct, can you tell me how?

#32

I do need to add this, When I first tried to adjust the “QJackCTL’s “Setup” window, the box labeled “Interface”” the box was grayed out. to fix this I simply scrolled up to “dummy” then back down, volia the interface box was editable. then I selected the presonus list from the dropdown

#33

I suspect that you are not restarting JACK at all. It continues to run on your other (builtin) audio interface.

I suspect that you have a version of JACK with a bug that stops it from exiting when it should (when run with the -T flag).

In addition, stop specifying the “server name”. The ability to set this has been removed from newer versions of QJackctl - it is an option that has caused a LOT of problems for new users.

#34

Thank you guys for the help. After killing Jack with a terminal command and jacking with some more settings possibly “server prefix”? Everything is up and running as expected. thank you all again for the help.

#35

Yes that is def it. After I close Ardour and re open i get the same trouble unless I stop Jack using “sudo killall -9 jackd” in the terminal. Any ideas?

#36

Are you saying that Jack uses 1818VSL when you start Ardour the first time, and then when you close Ardour and start it again, then Jack uses your internal audio device ? Something else must have happened in between, it is hard to understand it otherwise. What exactly you did and in what order.

I used UbuntuStudio 14.04 for over a year and didn’t have any problems with it. I always did things in this order (which is quite obvious :):

  • Fireup QJackCTL and start Jack with it
  • Wait for a couple of seconds for Jack to start up
  • Start Ardour
  • Do some audio work
  • Shutdown Ardour
  • Stop Jack with QJackCTL
  • Exit QJackCTL

If Jack is not running when Ardour starts up, then Ardour probably offers to start it for you. You may have noticed that Ardour also lets you choose the sound card to use with Jack. These settings don’t have anything to do with QJackCTLs settings, so Ardour probably offers you the first audio device (that is your computers internal audio device). If you just click ok in this window, then Jack uses your internal audio device again. Can this explain what has been happening to you ?

#37

Forgot to say: Always start Jack with QJackCTL BEFORE starting Ardour.

#38

@mwfoshee: you need to get an updated version of JACK on your system (and complain to the JACK packagers on your distro if one is not available). The prblem with the -T flag was fixed at least one year ago in Jack2 (the one you have installed) and it is absurd that users should have to face this issue today.

In addition, you do not need to use JACK in order to use Ardour. You can tell Ardour to use Ardour directly, which will bypass any issues with the version of JACK that you have. Of course, you may have reasons to want to use JACK, in which case you should follow the workflow described by mhartzel, at least until you get a version of Jack2 that obeys the -T flag.

#39

Pretty certain paul meant to say…

“You can tell Ardour to use ALSA directly,…”

   Seablade
#40

Ardour developers: would it make sense to have Ardour use Jack settings from ~/.jackdrc created by QJackCTL if this file is present ? Now it seems there are two sets of Jack settings in the system which can create confusion for new Ardour users. I can not think of a situation where two different settings needs to be saved. It’s easy enough to change the current settings.