[LAU] PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi :)

all 18 outputs, including SPDIF, playback_9 and playback_10 work at the
same time. Outputs 7 and 8, playback_7 and playback_8 are the same as
phones out and playback_1 and playback_2 are the same as main out.
Playback_1 to playback_8 are analog out and the other are ADAT out. IOW
the PreSonus provides 18 individual outputs. 64 Frames/Period works,
too, but 128 Periods/Frames is absolutely stable, when using the mouse,
open apps etc., there is just one exception, using the USB mouse wheel
in roxterm does cause xruns, anywhere else the USB mouse wheel doesn't
cause issues. I can't say much about the sound quality, since the mixer
isn't already good when not broken, but actually it's broken. I suspect
the outputs aren't the best, but most likely usable. I'll do more tests,
but until now I like the PreSonus. One issue are click noises when
starting the computer or starting Qtractor, while no xruns happen. They
seem to be louder than with other sound cards, resp. usually no click
should be audible at all, when just starting Qtractor, however,
launching e.g. Evolution and Claws doesn't cause issues, when Qtractor
is running, still with 16 * Fluidsynth DSSI and 2 * Hexter DSSI. Note,
I'll do stereo mixing anyway with my RME HDSPe AIO, but since the Linux
driver is crap and I want to connect my iPad by ADAT with my Linux
PC, I'll buy a second PreSonus, assuming it should work with the iPad
and assuming I shouldn't notice issues when doing more tests. However,
I suspect hat it fits to my needs. FWIW I didn't test accuracy between
the PreSonus and the ADA8000, but by just listening, I couldn't notice
an audible issue. As already pointed out, I synced by WC. I'm using an
expensive Sommer cable and terminated with a 75 Ohm resistor and FWIW
everything used is 75 Ohm.

As you can see by [1], I didn't wait for Christmas Eve as wanted by [2].

4.9-rt1 builds without issues on Arch Linux.

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ pacman -Qi linux-rt-presonus | head -4
Name            : linux-rt-presonus
Version         : 4.9_rt1-1
Description     : The Linux-rt-presonus kernel and modules
Architecture    : x86_64

If you don't want to run oldconfig and you should use Arch Linux, too,
I could mail you off-list the 64-bit architecture config I'm using.

Happy holidays!
Ralf

[1]
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ /home/music/presonus_test_2016-Dec/start.sh 18_out 
 AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual Core Processor BE-2350  2100.078 MHz

# free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3.6G        235M        2.5G        3.3M        946M        3.3G
Swap:          4.6G          0B        4.6G

# uname -a
Linux archlinux 4.9.0-rt1-1-rt-presonus #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Sat Dec 24 06:35:41 CET 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# rtirq status

  PID CLS RTPRIO  NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND	
  120 FF      90   - 130  6.2 S    irq/19-ehci_hcd	
  125 FF      90   - 130  0.0 S    irq/16-ohci_hcd	
  156 FF      89   - 129  0.0 S    irq/17-ohci_hcd	
  159 FF      88   - 128  0.0 S    irq/18-ohci_hcd	
  160 FF      88   - 128  0.0 S    irq/17-ohci_hcd	
  161 FF      87   - 127  0.0 S    irq/18-ohci_hcd	
  291 FF      85   - 125  0.0 S    irq/18-snd_hdsp	
   38 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/9-acpi	
   52 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/8-rtc0	
   82 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/26-radeon	
  123 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/1-i8042	
  136 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/22-ahci[000	
  137 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/22-firewire	
  147 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/14-pata_ati	
  149 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/15-pata_ati	
  266 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/7-parport0	
  462 FF      50   -  90  0.0 S    irq/27-enp3s0	
    3 TS       -   0  19  0.0 S    ksoftirqd/0	
   21 TS       -   0  19  0.0 S    ksoftirqd/1	

# zgrep PREE /proc/config.gz

CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT_NOTIFIERS=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT_BASE=y
CONFIG_HAVE_PREEMPT_LAZY=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT_LAZY=y
# CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE is not set
# CONFIG_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY is not set
# CONFIG_PREEMPT__LL is not set
# CONFIG_PREEMPT_RTB is not set
CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT_FULL=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT_COUNT=y
# CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT is not set
# CONFIG_PREEMPT_TRACER is not set

# zgrep HRT  /proc/config.gz

CONFIG_SCHED_HRTICK=y
CONFIG_SND_HRTIMER=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQ_HRTIMER_DEFAULT=y
# CONFIG_IIO_HRTIMER_TRIGGER is not set

# zgrep _HZ  /proc/config.gz

CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON=y
# CONFIG_HZ_PERIODIC is not set
CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y
# CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL is not set
# CONFIG_NO_HZ is not set
# CONFIG_HZ_100 is not set
# CONFIG_HZ_250 is not set
CONFIG_HZ_300=y
# CONFIG_HZ_1000 is not set
CONFIG_HZ=300

jack2 1.9.10.r202.gf2ece24-1
jackd -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -dhw:VSL -r48000 -p128 -n2 >/dev/null 2>&1 &


#!/bin/dash

killall -q -9 qtractor qjackctl jackd

if [ -e /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ ]; then
  echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor >/dev/null
fi

printf "$(grep "model name" /proc/cpuinfo | sort -u | cut -d: -f2) "
printf "$(grep "cpu MHz"    /proc/cpuinfo | sort -u | cut -d: -f2) MHz\n\n"

echo "# free -h"
free -h

echo
echo "# uname -a"
uname -a

echo
echo "# rtirq status"
rtirq status

echo "# zgrep PREE /proc/config.gz"
echo
zgrep PREE /proc/config.gz
echo
echo "# zgrep HRT  /proc/config.gz"
echo
zgrep HRT  /proc/config.gz
echo
echo "# zgrep _HZ  /proc/config.gz"
echo
zgrep _HZ  /proc/config.gz

uname -v | grep " PREEMPT RT " > /dev/null
case $? in
  0)
    p=128
    n=2;;
  *)
    p=256
    n=2;;
esac

echo
pacman -Q jack2
echo "jackd -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -dhw:VSL -r48000 -p$p -n$n >/dev/null 2>&1 &"

sleep 1
jackd -Xalsarawmidi -dalsa -dhw:VSL -r48000 -p$p -n$n >/dev/null 2>&1 &
sleep 2
qjackctl >/dev/null 2>&1 &
sleep 2

if [ ! -f "/home/music/presonus_test_2016-Dec/presonus_test_$1.qtr" ]; then
  f="phones"
else
  f="$1"
fi

qtractor /home/music/presonus_test_2016-Dec/presonus_test_"$f".qtr >/dev/null 2>&1 &
sleep 5

echo
echo
cat $0

exit
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$


[2]
Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 17:32:13 +0100
From: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy at linutronix.de>
To: Thomas Gleixner <tglx at linutronix.de>
Cc: LKML <linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org>,        linux-rt-users
<linux-rt-users at vger.kernel.org>,        Steven Rostedt
<rostedt at goodmis.org>
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] v4.9-rt1


Dear RT folks!

I'm pleased to announce the v4.9-rt1 patch set. 

Please don't download and boot this before Christmas Eve.

Changes since v4.8.15-rt10

  - rebase to v4.9

Known issues
	- CPU hotplug got a little better but can deadlock.

You can get this release via the git tree at:

    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rt/linux-rt-devel.git
    v4.9-rt1

The RT patch against v4.9 can be found here:

    https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/4.9/older/patch-4.9-rt1.patch.xz

The split quilt queue is available at:

    https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/4.9/older/patches-4.9-rt1.tar.xz

Sebastian