[linux-audio-user] 2 questions about alsa and ardour

[Aaron Trumm]

Hello again - this may be a better question for the ardour list, but I can't 
get subscribed to that, so...

two questions:
1) 
Does anybody know - does Ardour support assigning tracks to outputs other than 
just 1 and 2 - is this an Alsa issue?

To explain, my goal is to have 24 tracks of audio on Ardour, and not mix in 
ardour, to split the tracks - track 1 goes out on output 1, track 2 on output 
2, 3 on output 3, etc. (and the same with the inputs, if possible), so that I 
can mix on my behringer ddx3216 32 channel digital mixer  - this is one major 
reason why I have an HDSP 9652, because it has 24 channels of ADAT litepipe 
i/o, which I'm taking into the board...

but I don't know if Alsa supports this, and I don't know if Ardour supports 
this.  All I know is I'm configuring the system, and I just got the HDSP to 
make sound for the first time, and when I open up ardour to see how things 
are, I expect to be able to go to the routing screen off the track, and see 
alsa have 24 outputs, but still I only see two...I don't know if I'm not yet 
properly configured, or if my goal isn't even supported...


2)
when I start Jack (right now anyway), I've been using:
jackd -R -d alsa -p 2048

and it starts just fine, and gives me this message:

You appear to be using the ALSA software "plug" layer, probably
a result of using the "default" ALSA device. This is less
efficient than it could be. Consider using a ~/.asoundrc file
to define a hardware audio device rather than using the plug layer

I have a feeling this has something to do with question 1 - am I right?  what 
does it have to do with it?


Thanks in advance for any info! :)


ps:
for those that were following my HDSP 9652 thread:  yep, I got sound.  I 
downgraded the firmware and have applied Thomas's patch.  What's weird, 
though, is that somewhere along the way, I don't remember when, I got the new 
kernel from Planet.  apparently I kept the old one (the one that ends in 
acpi), and was booting with that, and wasn't getting sound, and hadn't yet 
really got a clean rebuild of the alsa drivers.  I was working on that, and 
had emailed the planet list with some questions about that.  then, I rebooted 
and started what I THINK is the new kernel (it ends in .rh90 on my boot 
loader) - it didn't want to deal with the ethernet card, so I couldn't get 
online *laugh* - but I was deleting a command in terminal and all of a sudden 
for the first time heard a "bloop".  so I played back some stuff using 
audacity, hydrogen and ardour, and sure enough, sound.  understandably, 
things were just coming out every channel, and audacity played back some low 
res (22khz) sounds all fuzzy (which is expected, since I don't think the HDSP 
likes low res audio like that), but there was sound.  I guess the patch and 
new alsa drivers were talking with the new kernel but not the old.  now I 
figure I need to just clean out all the kernels (except the original redhat 
one, you know, so I can run), and rebuild all of it.  problem is, I'm afraid 
of doing that with the new kernel, for fear that the ethernet problem isn't 
connected to my dirty messy screwed up builds, and just has to do with the 
new kernel...


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Aaron Trumm
NQuit
www.nquit.com
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