1. A short summary of changes
The JACK slave mode code has been completely rewritten. As a
new feature it is now possible to use libsamplerate for
resampling. Using JACK has been made more user-friendly as ecasound
can now automatically configure the runtime parameters to
match the current server settings. And thanks to build system
and signal handling updates, it's now possible to compile
ecasound for win32 under Cygwin.
---
2. What is ecasound?
Ecasound is a software package designed for multitrack audio
processing. It can be used for simple tasks like audio playback,
recording and format conversions, as well as for multitrack effect
processing, mixing, recording and signal recycling. Ecasound supports
a wide range of audio inputs, outputs and effect algorithms.
Effects and audio objects can be combined in various ways, and their
parameters can be controlled by operator objects like oscillators
and MIDI-CCs. A versatile console mode user-interface is included
in the package.
Ecasound is licensed under the GPL. The Ecasound Control Interface
(ECI) is licenced under the LGPL.
---
3. Changes since last release
* If configured with JACK-support, ecasound will now fetch the
correct buffer size and sampling rate parameters from the
JACK server when connecting a chainsetup with JACK inputs or
outputs. In other words you don't have to manually match
these settings between the JACK server and ecasound.
* Support for Erik de Castro Lopo's libsamplerate
resampling library added. If libsamplerate is not installed,
ecasound will fall back to the old resampling algorithm.
* Rewritten the code that handles JACK slave-mode operation.
Ecasound is now able to more quickly and reliably follow
transport state and position changes, as initiated by the
current JACK timebase master.
* Ecasound for Windows! :) With help of the Cygwin environment,
you can now compile win32 ecasound binaries straight from
the standard source package. As of 1.3.1, Cygwin also
contains basic /dev/dsp emulation, so even audio playback
works.
* Fixed many, more or less serious, bugs. The most annoying
ones were incorrect handling of the '-t' option, excessive
DBC warnings with JACK inputs and outputs and failing to
properly reset the terminal after a CTRL-C while in interactive
mode.
Full list of changes is available at
<http://www.wakkanet.fi/~kaiv/ecasound/history.html>.
---
4. Interface and configuration file changes
None.
---
5. Contributors
Patches
Junichi Uekawa (build system)
Kai Vehmanen (various)
Bug Hunting (items closed)
Janne Halttunen (2)
Eric Amundsen (1)
Antti Boman (1)
William Goldsmith (1)
Andrew Reilly (1)
Oliver Thuns (1)
---
6. Links and files
Web sites:
http://www.eca.cxhttp://www.eca.cx/ecasound
Source packages:
http://ecasound.seul.org/downloadhttp://ecasound.seul.org/download/ecasound-2.2.1.tar.gz
Related sites:
http://jackit.sf.net (JACK)
http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC (libsamplerate)
http://www.cygwin.com
Distributions with maintained ecasound support:
Agnula - http://www.agnula.org
Debian - http://packages.debian.org/stable/sound/ecasound.htmlhttp://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/ecasound2.2.html
DeMuDi - http://www.demudi.org
FreeBSD - http://www.freebsd.org/ports/audio.html
Gentoo Linux - http://www.gentoo.org
PLD Linux - http://www.pld.org.pl
PlanetCCRMA - http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software
SuSE Linux - http://www.suse.de/en
Contrib Packages for Distributions:
Mandrake - http://rpm.nyvalls.se/sound9.0.html
Note! Distributors do not necessarily provide packages for
the very latest ecasound version.
--
http://www.eca.cx
Audio software for Linux!
I want to build a small home studio. I'm planing to record
electrical and acoustical instruments (including voice).
I already do have an external mixer (with mic preamplifiers).
I do need MIDI and (maybe) SPDIF I/O.
While I do think that about 6 analog inputs will do, I know
that some more could become handy some day...
Looking around in the net I have got the impression that both
RME Hammerfall (PCI Interface + Multiface) and the Midiman Delta 1010
would be good (but expensive) choices and about equally supported
in Linux.
Do you think that these cards would be comparable regarding quality
and Linux compatibility? Are there other suggestions to consider?
I have seen some complaints about RME MIDI timing problems, but I
do not think it was the PCI Interface + Multiface combination.
Is that right?
BTW: how long is the cable between PC and Midiman Delta 1010?
How is the collaboration between M-audio/RME and the free software
community? (we should honour this ;-)
I know websites for Linux printer recomandations and such, but did
not find something similar for sound equipment. Pointers welcome.
Thank you for taking your time to share your experience,
Robert Epprecht
Before I go "all out" and build a low-latency kernel, shutdown 90% of my
system, and run jackd and ardour as root.......... I would like to be
able to just familiarize myself with the tools and technology.
So, is it possible, and if so, what are options to give jackd for things
like sample rate and such, that would work for a user in a
non-low-latency environment that would allow me to run some of the
plug-ins, ardour, and other jack enabled tools... kind of "test drive"
if you will... without causing a system crash.
Obviously, I wouldn't attempt to do any serious stuff until updating the
kernel and all the other stuff.
Thanks.
Lonnie Borntreger
> Everyone needs jack, they just dont know it yet ;)
Surely if Audacity is the only audio app running then it would be more
efficient to access the alsa drivers directly?
> If this is your feeling
> then the right thing to do is to fix jack to make it less arcane. Ideas
> welcome.
It would be good if it could start and run as easily as other daemons - I know
there are attempts being made to address this, such as jackstart. I guess it
will be better when jack is fully integrated into distros, with the necessary
kernel patches for capabilities etc.
One of the main things that put me off using jack with audacity is that with
the standalone program I didn't think I had any latency problems. I tried
running jack and it told me I have xruns...
Can jack verbose output be directed to a console so that you could check for
xruns with ctrl-alt-f7 or whatever? I seem to remember trying this and it
made the xruns worse!
Cheers
Daniel
I relased today zynaddsubfx 1.0.8 at sourceforge.
News:
- added mono mode and portamento
- added the EQ effect
- the output of the system effects can
be sent to other system effects
- minor bugfixes and improovements
Get it from http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net
__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com
i got my new Audiophile 2496 installed with Alsa 0.9.0rc5. i have an external A/D
converter and the SPDIF light is lit, meaning that the card is working.
alsamixer shows *lots* of controls. What do they all do?
Can someone post a working /etc/asound.state?
--
Victory to the Divine Mother!! after all,
http://sahajayoga.orghttp://why-compete.org
Kai Vehmanen <kai.vehmanen(a)wakkanet.fi> wrote:
> Try adding -z:db to the ecasound command-line.
That did the trick!!! I simply added -z:db (no numerical perimeter)
and was able to produce 5 tracks of 16,2,44100 (5 minutes long) without a single interruption.
> PS Sorry for not answering sooner to your query. I did read
> your original mail on ecasound-list, but just didn't have
> time to answer it... :(
I've always trusted that you were just busy. Besides, I'm just
greatful that you took the time (and continue to upgrade) ecasound.
Thanks,
Rocco
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Two little things to tell everyone.
First, I finally got my copy of the February issue of Sound on Sound.
The Linux article is there, and I was very impressed with it. Plus,
this issue has a great how-to on micing drums for studio recording.
The surprise was the copy of Home Recording I picked up on a whim
today, because it has an article on DIY surround sound. In the back,
under the Computer Central heading, is an article called "The Other
Operating System," by Thad Brown. I'll give you three guesses which one
he's talking about. :-)
It's a very positive article, saying that he ultimately thinks that
Linux will be a serious competitor to MS and Apple for music
production. The article also mentions a company called Digigram who has
released drivers for their audio hardware under an Open Source license
(does anybody know anything about Digigram?). He does say, though, that
there seems to be no real replacement in the works for the likes of
ProTools and Cubase, so I think somebody needs to point him to Ardour
and Rosegarden.
Just thought you all would like to know. :-)
Regards,
Darren Landrum
>> Mark Knecht <mknecht(a)controlnet.com> Wrote:
>> Rocco,
>> Hi. Why all the focus on the disk drive side only? There's
>> also a good chance that the sound card is not getting serviced
>> and this causes the interruption.
>>
>> Things to think about and look for:
>>
>> 1) Interrupts are not set up well
> Someone on this list mentioned an article that you wrote about
> IRQ priority ordering and Latency using lspci.
<CHOP>
> This time I used the correct keywords and it took me right
> to the HOWTO.
<CHOP>
> I will work with that and see if that has an effect on the situation.
I read the article, and did "cat /proc/interrupts" and got the
following:
CPU0
0: 30093 XT-PIC timer
1: 356 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
11: 21919 XT-PIC EMU10K1
12: 73 XT-PIC usb-ohci, usb-ohci
14: 12651 XT-PIC ide0
15: 15 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
>From what I read from the article, (and the little understanding I have
about this subject) nothing seemed unusual. With the exception of the
non-PCI slot IRQ's, the Sound Card appears to be before all others.
The article talks about some IRQ's being shared. Would that be
reflected in the output of "cat /proc/interrupts"?
Before I switched my Sound Card to another slot, I thought I would
disable USB in the BIOS since it's just being used for the mouse. I'm
now using a ps mouse.
after booting up and doing "cat /proc/interrupts" I got the following:
CPU0
0: 25160 XT-PIC timer
1: 542 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
11: 0 XT-PIC EMU10K1
14: 7620 XT-PIC ide0
15: 15 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
Even though there was no indication that the Interuptions (while
recording) would stop, I still tried recording. I got the usual
interruptions.
Then I switched the sound card to the other PCI slot. There's only 2
PCI slots because the Mother Board came with onboard this and onboard
that (all of which I don't use and have disabled in the BIOS).
The other thing is that there's _nothing_ in the other PCI slot. But I
put it in the other slot anyways. And as you can guess, I got the same
results from "cat /proc/interrupts".
All I can think of is that there may be a reason why my Mother Board
was inexpensive. Maybe it's time to buy a new Mother Board.
Can anyone think of any other solution?'
Thanks,
Rocco
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