I am running Ubuntustudio on a MacbookPro using freebob to connect to my Focusrite Saffire LE. If anyone is using this or a similar setup, I am very interested in the details of:
Initial steps/settings to get freebob and JACK working well (using Qjackctl)
Initial steps/settings to get freebob MIDI working with things like ZynAddSubFX
Limitations encountered with freebob and Ardour
How to get normal apps (Totem, Flash, VLC) to play through the freebob playback ports
Once you’ve done this you should find that JACK starts no problem. I don’t know about the saffire, but I get 6 audio ins and 6 audio outs showing up in qjackctrl, and an ALSA MIDI port alos opens up which can then be patched through to the input of whatever sequencer you want to use.
I’ve had no issues whatsoever with freebob and ardour.
As far as normal apps are concerned, once JACK is running you need to configure your other apps to use JACK for audio output. Some apps support it, some don’t. I had to install some packages (such as xine-jack to get xine to use Jack). I don’t know about the apps you mention. You may find you simply can’t get some of them to work through Jack, in which case you’ll have to use the PCs internal sound card (if it has one) and ALSA to get sound out of them.
I’m grateful for DrG’s post about freebob, however,… I find those configurations for Freebob on sourceforge.net to be somewhat difficult at first. After reviewing them for the 3rd time or do, I was finally able to follow the instructions on the sourceforge website but still no luck. I’m currently on Xubuntu.
I’ve had many issues with freebob and ardour; I’ve never gotten them to work together in any distro, so far.
Ardour works fine with Alsa; that’s no problem. I’ve configured a LOT of things in Linux and this is really a brain twister.
Thanks for the input folks! I find that the my Saffire LE using freebob does not work well with Hardy Ubuntustudio out-of-the-box, even after setting the firewire permissions. I’m sure it CAN work beautifully after the right tweaking; however, I don’t have the time or energy to chase settings all day. If I do find a working setup I will detail it here. I hope others can do the same. Cheers!
My M-Audio NRV10 works great after the udev settings DrG linked are taken care of. I also had to add something to my /etc/modules file, but I’m not at home and I forget what it was. I’ll post that later.
I’ve downloaded the realtime permissions program from sourceforge but I am having a hard time getting it to install. I’m on Hardy with Ubuntu Studio Audio installed via synaptic.
I’m following the instructions for debian users in the Install file, but no luck as yet.
The most stable combination I have found is using the beta version of FFADO (the successor to FreeBob). It is more stable and you also get access to the hardware mixer of the device. I have a Focusrite Pro 26 and all is very good with 1024 buffer size 3 periods.
Using the device mixer I do not need to record using very low latency setting. Having said that I can go down to 64 buffers if I wanted to.
The most stable combination I have found is using the beta version of FFADO (the successor to FreeBob). It is more stable and you also get access to the hardware mixer of the device. I have a Focusrite Pro 26 and all is very good with 1024 buffer size 3 periods.
Using the device mixer I do not need to record using very low latency setting. Having said that I can go down to 64 buffers if I wanted to.
The most stable combination I have found is using the beta version of FFADO (the successor to FreeBob). It is more stable and you also get access to the hardware mixer of the device. I have a Focusrite Pro 26 and all is very good with 1024 buffer size 3 periods.
Using the device mixer I do not need to record using very low latency setting. Having said that I can go down to 64 buffers if I wanted to.