[LAU] ADAT & MIDI

[Johannes Kroll]

On Fri, 25 Nov 2016 13:14:49 +0100
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:

> [...]
> 
> The device needs to provide ADAT and MIDI. I already read old Linux
> related posts, however, has anybody used one of the following devices
> with Linux?
> 
> Arturia Audiofuse         599 €
> Focusrite Scarlett 18i8   349 €

I use that one. It is USB Audio Class compliant, except for the mixer
part. There was a patch to the ALSA mixer code a while ago introducing
some device-specific "quirks", and it works out of the box on
3.something and newer kernels. 

The ADAT port is input only. I haven't used it yet. It has in&out MIDI
DIN ports which I have tried and they work normally with ALSA.

I have managed to run it with JACK at 64 samples, 2 buffers @ 44100 Hz,
with an RT patched 4.x kernel. That's a bit flaky though, 128 samples
is more reliable. There is a "second gen" version available now which
promises even lower latency, but I don't know whether that is a change
in hardware or just a Windows/Mac driver thing.

The naming scheme is a bit... misleading. Actually it has 8 analog
inputs (4 with mic preamp, 4 line-in, all balanced) and 6 analog
outputs (balanced "Monitor" line-level left&right, and 2 stereo
headphone outs). There's one stereo SPDIF out. You can get 8 more inputs
with ADAT.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.