Linux-audio-user May 2011

linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org

126 participants
101 discussions

Re: [LAU] Cracking sound via USB (ALSA urb.c:480: frame 5 active: -18)

by Aurélien Leblond

Ouch... Unfortunately I have a laptop, so or I get to work... or I change it altogether (and I just bought it two months ago...especially to play music!). What gives me hope though is that: - I have en XHCI USB3 port on the same laptop... Module snd-usb-audio doesn't work on it yet, but I don't despair. - Most important is that yesterday, I compiled the 2.6.39 kernel with irqthreads, setup the rtirq script, removed every module I wasn't using to free the irqs (xhci for the moment, wifi, other sound cards, etc...) and I was down to only 2/3 crackles (and 3 messages in dmesg) when playing a song with Ardour3 and Hydrogen playing along. I still have to test and turn off KMS as I have read another user who reported the same crackles (but no error in dmesg, because he has to have alsa compiled with debug option to get them) and improved a lot the thing with this option off... Strange that the HP Envy 17, which is apparently designed with music production in mind isn't set up properly hardware wise to support USB sound cards!

13 years, 4 months

[ANN] Qtractor 0.4.9 - The Final Dudette is out!

by Rui Nuno Capela

Yess :) This is one hopeful attempt to be the very last one before officially entering the TYOQA age. Mainly a big fix and optimization release. Yes, you've read that right. Big. Some earthquake-bound changes have sneaked in and all under the hood. Most are bearable visible, if at all. Quite frankly, the most time-critical code paths have been subject to some kind of a deep overhaul, and to say the very least, might get only noticeable while loading hugely complex sessions. Whatever that means. In other words and put simply, there are gentle performance wins and nice resource savings. Anyway, there's no breakage regarding the past. Everything should work smooth as ever. Nevertheless, there's a good chance it might enter beta phase or whatever you wish to call it. I guess most people had ditched any serious assessment on this piece of software just because I've been sticking with an infamous alpha label for so long. Well, inb my own opinion (what else?), if you care, it's just that. All software is always either in that so-called alpha or omega-there's no middle term, all else is marketing gibberish--all software is more or less in a broken state (ie. alpha) or just simply dead and gone (omega). There you have it :) With nothing else to say (and then time being the worst of enemies), Qtractor 0.4.9 (final dudette) is out! Release highlights: * MIDI scale-quantize and snap-to-scale tools (NEW) * Audio recording latency compensation (NEW) * Mute/un-solo tracks shading (NEW) * MIDI controller invert value and connects access (NEW) * Tempo map dialog tap helper (NEW) * Audio peak/waveform generation pipeline (NEW) * Track-view clip invert selection (NEW) * MIDI clip editor range selection (NEW) * Major audio clip buffering/streaming thread optimization (FIX) * Temporary JACK session extract directory (FIX) * Red shade recording display (NEW) and looping (FIX) * Audio clip over-extended ghost-playback (FIX) * MIDI tempo map resolution import (FIX) * Audio/MIDI time drift correction (FIX) * Changed bus connections preservation (FIX) * Simultaneous multi-track recording result extents (FIX) * Track-view selection and redrawing optimization (FIX) * LV2 instrument/synth on audio tracks crash (FIX) Real juice follows, below... Website: http://qtractor.sourceforge.net Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor Downloads: - source tarball: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.4.9.tar.gz - source package (openSUSE 11.4): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.4.9-2.rncbc.suse114.sr… - binary packages (openSUSE 11.4): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.4.9-2.rncbc.suse114.i5… http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.4.9-2.rncbc.suse114.x8… - user manual (for paleontologists): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.3.0-user-manual.pdf Weblog (upstream support): http://www.rncbc.org License: Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later. Change-log: - Session file format saved on JACK session has been reverted to archive/zip bundle one (.qtz) now using temporary extraction directory when loading an existing JACK session. - Main toolbar time and tempo widgets get their visual extents a bit more theme-friendlier ;). - Some current working directory trickery is now in place avoiding JACK session directories to ever be picked as default, as much as possible. - Ghost-playbacks are now avoided on audio clips that are artificially extended beyond their own audio file lengths. - Recording clips now shown in a reddish shade; also, it's all now shown a bit more correctly, regarding the lead and withing looping range. - Custom tempo spin-box widgets now honoring the decimal point cursor positioning for integral up/down tempo value stepping. - Audio recording latency is now compensated via automatic clip offsetting. - Audio peak file generation is now pipelined on a single unique thread, instead of old one per audio clip file basis. - MIDI tempo/time-signature map import problem has been hopefully fixed (bug #329791). - Session and track names are now sanitized from slashes (bug# 625798(a)bugs.debian.org). - Mouse wheel effect to sliders is now reversed. - An appropriate export filename is now suggested as default (Track/export Tracks...). - Follow-playhead automatism is now temporarily suspended while mouse cursor hovering prompts for any editing action (applies to main track-view and MIDI clip editor/piano-roll). - Audio vs. MIDI time drift correction now takes jack_frame_time() as audio time reference. - Audio buffering internal synchronization logic gets it bartered: three bools for a single byte flag. - Connections are now preserved as possible when changing bus properties (View/Buses.../Update). - A rare audio clip looping out-of-sync condition got squared, hopefully the last ;) - Yet again, the audio clip buffer/disk-streaming optimization has been almost completely redrawn: now there's one thread per audio track. - Not replacing a session directory that already exists on loading an archive file (.qtz) is now fixed with an usable brand new untitled session. - The major thread optimization has been slightly improved: the audio clip buffer/disk-streaming thread is now served in a FIFO manner (was LIFO). - Custom time/tempo spin-box widget change fixup. - Audio clip filename change segfault/crash fixed. - Make sure all clips in multiple recording tracks start and end at the very same position whenever recording is already engaged and rolling. - Hopeful fix to a potential audio buffering race condition, which was a probable cause of random muted clips (maybe fixing bug #3290178). - Avoid recursive observer widget value updates. - Almost complete rewrite of the main track-view selection and redrawing logic, taking advantage of the fundamentally static graphical backstore. - Autonomic resizing of mixer bus splitter sizes. - Improved timing for monitored MIDI events being buffered though MIDI instrument plugins, while playback/transport is rolling. - Audio peak/waveform is now slightly tweaked from the early optimization days (master C++ guru has always said that was root of all evil anyway :). - MIDI controller mapping now with "Invert" value option. Also, new "Inputs" and "Outputs" buttons have been added as helpers for MIDI control port connections access. - Main left pane vertical splitter resize hack, avoiding some track list update re-entrancy. - Inserting a LV2 instrument/synth plugin on an audio track or bus were causing immediate crash, now fixed (give or take some event buffer stub). - Plugin Activate All/Deactivate All menu fixing. - Make sure given session directory has all the necessary access permission (read/write) while on session properties dialog. - Dedicated audio outputs setting for instrument plugins inserted on the MIDI track properties dialog were not being honored, now fixed. - Force update/close of all MIDI clips and their respective editors (piano-roll) if open, when changing the global session tempo (BPM). - Removed the misleading "(Any)" special channel value while on MIDI controllers/learn dialog. - Floating tool-tips now being shown also while on mouse rubber-banding (drag-select). - Audio clip pitch-shifting change fixing; also, tooltips now showing semitones units instead of a clueless percentage. - Rendering audio wave-forms while recording is now a little bit smoother than before. - New main track-view clip selection tool: invert current selection (Edit/Select/Invert). The MIDI clip editor (piano-roll) also gets proper range selection tool (Edit/Select/Range). - More eye-candy: muted/non-soloed tracks are now slightly shaded on the main track-view. - A major hidden optimization has been implanted: all audio clip buffer/disk-streaming threads are finally merged into a single multiplexing thread (was one thread per audio clip longer than 3 sec. which was quite wasteful and creepy;). - All plugin list view changes are now properly signaled to track properties and bus manager dialogs and enable their respective acceptance. - Two brand new MIDI tools make their appearance: Scale-Quantize and Snap-to-Scale. The later may be readily accessible from the MIDI clip editor toolbar and menu (check View/Toolbars/Scale and View/Scale). - Mixer track strips are now completely redone whenever a track gets moved or re-ordered on main track list-view. - Transport auto-backward option is now honored whenever a new session gets loaded. - LV2 extension headers update. - Got rid of recent QX11EmbedContainer bloating, while introducing gtk_init() as for LV2 GTK UI support stabilization. - Tempo tap helper button was added to View/Tempo Map... dialog. - Executable DSSI plug-in GUI detection fixed. - Backout default session directory after cleaning up extracted archive/zip bundle session (.qtz). - Files widget item selection feedback/focus fix. - MIDI editor anchor event floating tool-tip fix. - Probable fix for GtkStyle usage detection (might be gentoo specific). Cheers && Enjoy (with lots of fun!) -- rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela rncbc(a)rncbc.org

13 years, 4 months

Re: [LAU] Cracking sound via USB (ALSA urb.c:480: frame 5 active: -18)

by Aurélien Leblond

> Ken Restivo wrote: > > On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 08:55:48AM +0200, Jeremy Jongepier wrote: > > > http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2010-June/070353.html > > That bug in Intel's Rate Matching Hub would corrupt audio data, but > is unlikely to result in error messages from the driver. (Iso packets > have no error correction; corrupted data is just silently ignored.) > > > > So not mixing USB1 and USB2 devices but mixing a device performing > > > Full-Speed isochronous-out transactions with a device performing > > > asynchronous transactions. I've tested my Edirol UA-25 with this chipset > > > too and no matter what I tried, full duplex wouldn't work. > > The Linux high speed support is somewhat buggy; this affects full > speed devices connected to high speed hubs. > > The Rate Matching Hub is internally organized as a high speed hub. > > > Wait, what? > > > > I've been doing way too much reading of USB specs (and the hub.c, > > message.c, and musb driver source code) for work lately, and even though > > I'm definitely suffering from early onset of Alzheimer's, I distinctly > > remember reading that Isochronous and Bulk endpoints were only allowed > > at High Speed (480Mbps). > > > > At Full speed (12Mbps), IIRC, you get Interrupt and Control endpoints, > > and that's pretty much it. > > Iso/bulk are forbidden only at Low speed (1.5Mbps). So in conclusion, would a High Speed audio card plugged onto a EHCI port be susceptible of facing issues? Sorry, I'm getting lost in the technical terms!

13 years, 4 months

Re: [LAU] qjackctl does not reflect state of jackd

by Eric Steinberg

Hi Nick, I can confirm that Rotter stops recording after the jack server receives three or more xruns. The program seems to be running, as does the jack server, but all files are instead about 1k in size and have no audio. Any ideas? Thanks! -Eric Steinberg (415)819-2009 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Eric Steinberg <eric.steinberg(a)gmail.com>wrote: > Hi Nick, > > I'm forwarding this to you in the hopes that you can shed some light on a > problem I've been having with Rotter. I am trying to build a system that is > stable for long-term use, i.e. I want to leave it running. I've observed > that after some time (a few days or so), Rotter will continue to run but > will not record audio, instead creating files of about 1K in size. Can you > tell me how I might troubleshoot this? Thanks! > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Eric Steinberg <eric.steinberg(a)gmail.com> > Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:12 PM > Subject: Re: [LAU] qjackctl does not reflect state of jackd > To: Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> > Cc: linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org > > > Thanks, Paul. If jack had not crashed, shouldn't rotter have continued to > record? Is there any way to establish why recording was interrupted? This > happened about a week after I had started recording on this system. > > > On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com>wrote: > >> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 6:56 PM, Eric Steinberg >> <eric.steinberg(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > Hi folks, >> > I'm trying to build an audio logger, that can record from six different >> > sources to separate files. I've been using the program rotter, and I >> > thought it was working but have discovered that jackd crashed and >> recording >> > was interrupted. Unfortunately this was not reflected by qjackctl, >> which is >> > what I use to launch jackd. The qjackctl display showed that jackd was >> > running, right down to the flashing "RT", but when I tried to launch >> > meterbridge it complained that the jack server was not running. The >> > instances of rotter that I launched were still running, but were making >> > files of just a few bytes, with no audio in them. Is this a bug in >> > qjackctl? I am using Arch, on a Pentium 4, and using a firewire >> interface >> > (Edirol FA-101). >> >> you should use: >> >> ps aux | grep jackd >> >> to establish whether jack has "crashed". >> >> my guess is that had not crashed, but was no longer accepting new >> clients and was otherwise hosed. >> > > >

13 years, 4 months

Re: [LAU] Cracking sound via USB (ALSA urb.c:480: frame 5 active: -18)

by Aurélien Leblond

>>* The USB Controller is the dreaded EHCI USB Controller: Intel*>>* Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller*>>* (rev 05)*>>* But the soundcard I'm usins is USB2, not USB 1.*>Hello Aurélien, >Afaik this doesn't matter, both USB2 and USB1 cards have issues when >used with full duplex on this USB controller or this Rate Matching hub >thing. But maybe this needs some digging in old mails/forum threads, I >could be wrong on this. Damn, as far as my research went, I only thought the problem was only when mixing USB1 and USB2 devices on these ports... I actually did some research... I knew these ports had issue with USB1 but couldn't find anything about USB2...

13 years, 4 months

Linuxsampler doesn't see gigedit

by Goran Mekić

Using jsampler, if I click on "Edit" button on any instrument, I get the "Starting an instrument editor: There is no instrument editor capable to handle this instrument" message. If I start linuxsampler in terminal, i see "Registered instrument editors: 'gigedit'" message. Anyone knows what I'm doing wrong? Thanx! -- FreeB(eer)S(ex)D(rugs) are the real daemons

13 years, 4 months

Ambient DnB: Sun Angels Enjoy

by Harry Van Haaren

Hey All, Here's a little ambient type drum n bass: https://sites.google.com/site/harryhaaren/Home/sunAngelsEnjoy.ogg Sequenced in Qtractor, some audio recorded trough JACK running on an Echo AudioFire, Sound originate from a Roland XV-3080 synth with techno expansion board. FX include Reverb LADSPA, Dyson compressor, Multiband EQ, simple LPF's. Final bit of wave editing in Audacity (slight compression, normalization) Ambisonic version is in progress, will also be made available upon completion :) Opinions etc all welcome! Cheers, -Harry

13 years, 4 months

[OT] Learning some Czech and math/science related event for blinds

by Julien Claassen

Hello! From 29th of July to 3rd of August there's the second Summer University, an event for blind and visually impaired people. It's objective is to acquaint people with ways to access math and scientific formulas on the computer. Main OS is unfortunately win, but I'm demostrating GNU Octave. so if anyone is interested in that: http://www.icchp-su.net This year in the Czech Republic, Tecl. I'm currently learning some Czech and I was wondering, if there's someone here from the Czech Republic or who is fluent in the language. I have some net resources and they are fine, as far as they go, but I have some problems with different letters and accents. So if anyone could and would like to chat with me for a bit, just send me a private mail. I can call the Czech Republic easily so even phoning wouldn't be a problem. Sorry, for hijacking the list for this. Warm regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

13 years, 4 months

ecasound/jack records empty files

by Eric Steinberg

Hi all, I'm trying to build a recorder that makes a 24 hour long audio recording, with multiple channels. So far, I can start jackd: $sudo jackd -d firewire and start ecasound: $sudo ecasound -a:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 -f:s16_le,8,44100 -i jack,system -a:1 -o channelone.mp3 -a:2 -o channeltwo.mp3 -a:3 -o channelthree.mp3 -a:4 -o channelfour.mp3 -a:5 -o channelfive.mp3 -a:6 -o channelsix.mp3 -a:7 -o channelseven.mp3 -a:8 -o channeleight.mp3 ...this starts recording without problems. However, when I stop recording by issuing ctrl-c to ecasound and then start recording again, the files created now have zero bytes. If I stop and restart the jack server, then recording works normally. I would expect ecasound to overwrite the files and record new files; why must I restart jackd for audio to be recorded? Thanks for any info. -Steiny (415)819-2009

13 years, 4 months

Re: [LAU] Cracking sound via USB (ALSA urb.c:480: frame 5 active: -18)

by Aurélien Leblond

> What is the KMS option ? The KMS option is for the graphic card. It stands for KernelModeSetting and enables "cool stuff" on your graphic card. If you have a radeon try adding "radeon.modeset=0" to the end of your kernel line in grub...

13 years, 4 months

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Linux-audio-user May 2011