[Jack-Devel] How does --hwmix work?

[David Kastrup]

"Chris Caudle" <chris at chriscaudle.org> writes:

> On Wed, May 3, 2017 1:05 am, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Sigh, you are right.  But the question remains:  What applications will
>> support this and what does it mean?

[Large treatise regarding hardware monitoring elided]

> Where this makes a difference is when you are using a recording
> application such as Ardour, if you configure Ardour so that it uses
> software monitoring, Ardour will mix the incoming audio with the
> existing material and send back out to the audio output.  If you
> configure for hardware monitoring, then Ardour will only play back the
> existing material, and the hardware is responsible for mixing the
> incoming audio material with the output of pre-existing material so
> you can hear both.  Note that both method 1 and method 3 would be
> classifired as hardware monitoring, it only differs in whether you
> have an external mixer handling the task or you computer audio
> interface can handle the task.

Uh, the question was not what hardware monitoring is.  The question was
what the --hwmon option to Jackd does and which applications support it.

"the hardware is responsible for mixing the incoming audio material" is
nothing that Jackd would be involved with since Jackd isn't hardware.

So what does this option do?  The manual page reads (as you cited):

	-H, --hwmon
		Enable hardware monitoring of capture ports.  This is a
		method for obtaining "zero latency" monitoring of audio
		input.  It  requires support  in hardware and  from the
		underlying ALSA device driver.

		When enabled, requests to monitor capture ports will be
		satisfied  by creating  a  direct  signal path  between
		audio interface  input and  output connectors,  with no
		processing by  the host  computer at all.   This offers
		the lowest possible latency for the monitored signal.

		Presently (March 2003), only  the RME Hammerfall series
		and cards  based on the ICE1712  chipset (M-Audio Delta
		series, Terratec, and others)  support --hwmon.  In the
		future, some  consumer cards  may also be  supported by
		modifying their mixer settings.

		Without --hwmon, port monitoring  requires JACK to read
		audio into system memory, then  copy it back out to the
		hardware again, imposing the  basic JACK system latency
		determined by the --period and --nperiods parameters.

But what does this mean when I have 26 capture ports and 18 output
ports?  What kind of applications request to "monitor capture ports",
and what ports will get a direct signal path between them?

When I use Ardour, I have settings for "Ardour is responsible for
monitoring" and "Hardware is responsible for monitoring".  For which of
the two settings would the --hwmon option to Jackd be even relevant?

Wait.  Now I see _three_ settings.

Record monitoring handled by:
"via Audio Driver"
"ardour"
"audio hardware"

[Testing out several things]

Ok, the "via Audio Driver" option is not there when Jackd runs on my
default laptop hardware (AC97) but it is there when it runs on the RME
Hammerfall DSP.  But independently of whether or not I specify --hwmon.
So does this option actually make a difference to Jackd?

Either way, what is the effect?  Does Ardour take the gain totals
(disregarding all other plugin effects) from its jackd-controlled
hardware inputs to its record-enabled tracks and from its record-enabled
tracks to its jackd-controlled hardware outputs, convert them to mixer
settings and hand them over?

That would be what I consider "best case".  It is also something about
which I can find nothing whatsoever in the Jack API documentation (as
seen on its web site).  So it's hard to guess at the actual capabilities
being exercised here.

If it accesses the mixer like that, it's actually a bit more than just
monitoring.  Who does the latency accounting in this case?  The
Hammerfall docs state 4 samples delay at 48kHz and its ilk and 8 samples
delay at 96kHz and its ilk for the digital signal paths.  For the analog
signals, A/D has 31 samples delay due to oversampling/filtering and D/A
has 30 samples delay.

So basically Ardour's menu "Editor/Audio/Monitoring/Record monitoring
handled by:" gains an additional option "via Audio Driver" on certain
hardware, independently of whether jackd has been started with --hwmon
or not.

This magic third option is not mentioned in the Ardour manual
<http://manual.ardour.org/preferences-and-session-properties/preferences-dialog/audio/>:

    Record monitoring handled by: determines whether Ardour provides
    monitoring of incoming audio or whether monitoring is provided by
    hardware. See
    Monitoring(http://manual.ardour.org/recording/monitoring/) for more
    information.

And "Monitoring" is actually less rather than more information:

    When recording, it is important that performers hear themselves, and
    to hear any pre-recorded tracks they are performing with. Audio
    recorders typically let you monitor (i.e. listen to) the input
    signal of all tracks that are armed for recording, and playing back
    the unarmed tracks.


So does --hwmon make an actual difference (I should likely mention that
I used Jack2 for this experiment)?  And what actually happens?  And is
there any documentation about any of this and the involved APIs
anywhere?  And if this requires special Jackd support (as the manual
page suggests) rather than being able to work with more generic
ALSA-accessible mixers (like, say, the AC97 mixer), where would one find
out about just which cards are supported in 2017?  The manual page
states "Presently (March 2003)" which is not particularly up to date.

-- 
David Kastrup