[linux-audio-user] Effects Box --- HARDWARE Type

[davidrclark at earthlink.net]

Frank - Mark,

Thanks to both of you for replies.  (Good to hear from you, too Mark!)

Using kaconnect shows only MIDI ports, same as ALSA patch bay.  What
Frank said is correct.  I had some improper mixer settings (duh!), so couldn't
get PCM in's to be hardware in's.  I needed some reassurance that Jack
really could do this; the outputs were working fine, so it was temporarily
confusing me, as in "What????"  Like many of you, I have too many cables
and switches  around here!

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For those who have external devices (synths, mixer):

I should perhaps point out to those who may not have thought about this
that they can use their onboard (probably crappy) sound capability as
an effects box rather than have it sitting idle, especially for effects
that are low-level and doubly especially for distortion, etc.  Just route
your Aux send into the card (I'm using a Y to get it into both channels
in Line in), run the output back to the Aux returns.  Fire up jackd with
-d was_idle_soundcard and jack-rack.  Use jack-patch-bay or whatever to
connect the soundcard inputs to jack-rack and jack-rack outputs to soundcard
outputs.  Be sure to mute line, but use it as a capture port and be sure
to enable PCM.  I think that's it.  Now you have an effects box.

I hope I described that all correctly, but people should get the gist
of it.  It does all actually work.  Apologies to those who already know
all this.  It had never occurred to me before to utilize my idle soundcards
in this way.

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Thanks again and best regards,
Dave.