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20662 discussions

Sound quality of the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 2nd Gen

by Ralf Mardorf

Hi, first of all, with a non-rt kernel 4.8.13-1-ARCH threadirqs the Presonus worked with 256 frames/period, in this regard the Focusrite is better, it's possible to use it with 128 frames/period. I used the same Qtractor song with fluid-dssi and hexter, as I used for the Presonus. I didn't test S/PDIF. I returned the Presonus, so I can't compare the Presonus and Focusrite directly. The headphone outputs of the Focusrite are the most worse I ever heard. I made a test with 44.1 KHz. I ripped "weather with you" from a Crowded House CD. Ardour played the ripped WAV and a CD player played the original CD. A comparison with the RME HDSPe AIO's headphone output makes no sense. I hoped that just the headphone amps of the Focusrite are weak, so I compared the sound quality of the Focusrite's analog outputs with a Behringer ADA8000 connected by ADAT with the Focusrite, using the same cables and mixer channel and then by listening to the mixing console's headphone amp. After that I used the same cables to connect the Focusrite and the ADA8000 to a hifi amp, without a mixer involved. The ADA8000's sound quality always is more or less equal to a hifi CD player, the sound of the Focusrite was always vastly worse. Not only nuances are missing in the audio signal, but I have the impression that the bass is purposely boosted. Since I need a device that provides ADAT and works with my iPad, I'll continue testing, but for Linux usage only, without an ADAT device, I suspect the Presonus is the better choice. I suspect the Focusrite's headphone and analog outputs are completely unusable for home recording. At least I would send back the Focusrite, if I wouldn't need DAT for the iPad. The sound is close to a cheap no-name Walkman with a bass boost feature. Using studio headphones there anyway is some 80s Walkman headphone alike sound impression. It doesn't require blind tests to compare a telephone with a hifi amp. The Focusrite's sound is better than a telephone, but I want to make clear, that there's an audible difference compared with other gear, that doesn't require blind tests. FWIW the front is made of plastic and a countersunk bolt isn't completely countersunk, but the cross recess of the screw is damaged. It's a brand new device, not a b-stock. Regards, Ralf

8 years, 10 months

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 2nd Gen

by Ralf Mardorf

Hi, Linux tests and more iPad tests coming soon. Today I got the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 2nd Gen. The iPad shows 20 output channels. Connecting to my iPad works without an active hub. Channel 7 and 8 are for headphone output 1, channels 9 and 10 are for headphone output 2. Both work when connected to the iPad. Until now I didn't check more, but I had time to repair and clean some of my equipment, so it might be possible, to comment the audio quality, too. I can't take a look at the Windows mixer, since for testing purpose only Windows XP is available, but Windows 7 or a more recent Windows is required. To be continued... Regards, Ralf

8 years, 10 months

Calf ladspa status?

by Lorenzo Sutton

Hi list, It seems that the latest (packaged see below) ladspa version of the Calf plugins is not working with the main applications I use which still use ladspa: Rosegarden, jack-rack and Ardour. The former two provide some clues about errors happening when trying to load calf.so (which is a symbolic link in /usr/lib64/ladspa/calf.so pointing to /usr/lib64/calf/calf.so). Ardour seems to silently "ignore" all of the ladspa versions of Calf (but I may be missing error messages/clues...). I am on Fedora 24 and the distribution does provide a ladspa-calf-plugins package to which I already filed a bug report. Interestingly if I use the calf.so file compiled with the latest git version of LMMS [1] (where the provided version of Calf seems to date back at least 8 month, but even 2 or 3 years for most source files) the plug ins are visible and usable. Any info would be interesting, and *maybe* someone is also using ladspa (for me this especially relevant for existing versions of files I have using these plugins) Side note... Plugin "binary-dependency" in the light of longer term archiving is probably an unsolvable problem whichever the format :) Lorenzo. [1] https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/tree/master/plugins/LadspaEffect/calf

8 years, 10 months

Linux audio Berlin meeting

by Daniel Swärd

Hi . I hope to see some of you at the meeting at c-base tomorrow from 20:00. Cheers! /Daniel

8 years, 10 months

Fwd: Default (instrument plugins) tuning frequency

by Robert Edge

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 6:02 AM, Jeanette C. <julien(a)mail.upb.de> wrote: > Jan 2 2017, Yassin Philip has written: > ... > >> Is there such thing as a default tuning "norm" or (most probably) does >> every plugin do what it wants to do? >> > The default or standard tuning for typical western musical instruments > is at 440Hz. There are variations, when it comes to concert pitch. I > believe that the Americans sometimes choose 441 or 442Hz. But every > hardware synth - that I know of - is tuned to 440Hz with a well-tempered > scale. > Equal tempered. I've never seen a software synth or modern tuner that uses one of the well tempered systems. 12 equal tones to the octave with the A above middle C tuned to 440Hz is the standard. MIDI pitch to Hz can be calculated with the formula: 440 ^ (2 * ( (x - 69) / 12))

8 years, 10 months

Default (instrument plugins) tuning frequency

by Yassin Philip

When I install, say ZASFX, and press the A2 key, is it a 441Hz A, or a 440..? Is there such thing as a default tuning "norm" or (most probably) does every plugin do what it wants to do? How can I know the real tuning of a given instrument plugin, apart from playing it through a tuner, which is very hard to do on some patches..? Is there a general rule (like tune your acoustic instruments to 441 and you'll be fine)? Happy new year? :) yPhil -- Yassin Philip - New album out NOW http://yassinphilip.bitbucket.org

8 years, 10 months

Music: first (long) track of the year: jiji

by jonetsu

Best wishes to everyone ! The first track of the year is a long, 12-minutes trance-type travel that could perhaps be best enjoyed as a background music while doing something else. Basses should be plentiful on systems that can support them, while some care was also taken to have them represented in a higher audio range. I 'discovered' this 'old' track recently. Its original name was jam8 while the current jam number is at 85. I guess that qualifies as 'old'. I renamed it 'Jiji' for the playful sounds of the name as well as for the meaning of the yi jing hexagram 既济 of, say, 'feeling good having achieved coming to shore while knowing that there will be other things to face on the land itself'. Or something like that. Which can also represent in a way having finished a year and starting another one. Jiji. It's a strange track in the sense that it can be listened-to easily I find. While not being muzak. https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/jiji As always, comments are welcomed. Cheers.

8 years, 10 months

Music: Freetidbit and 1 year of Soundcloud

by jonetsu

Hello, I started the Soundcloud page a year ago. I thought I should share the music I make. This was an opportunity for me to learn about mixing music, about putting a bit more 'seriousness' in the process, more technical aspects, paying attention to more details, in short, polishing up a bit and structuring pieces. At that time I bought a book on mixing, started to read articles. A year later while I'm still learning I can see that there was a bit of a road that was made and I can see that if I go one, it will become easier to bridge emotions to sounds. A year later there are 33 pieces that I uploaded. There were 4453 plays, 85 likes, 134 downloads and 27 followers. While these numbers are certainly extermely average if not sub par, I find it very nice in their own way. So I'd like to thank everyone !! During this week I will try to upload 5 pieces, some kind of a marathon of composing, arranging and mixing. So here's the first one... Freetidbit' is using only synthesizers available for free and more specifically, u-he synthsizers that are available for free. The Triplecheese synth for instance provides bass, Podolski provides a melody, TyrellN6 some chords, Zebralette and Beatzille provides sounds and additional support. All these synths are available for free and runs natively in Linux. The drums OTOH are not free. https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/freetidbit As always comments are welcomed. Cheers.

8 years, 10 months

Best wishes for the new year and some music

by Dennis Schulmeister-Zimolong

Hi all, Here's wishing you all a happy new year. Recently I've recording a little piano playing with Ardour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiW9SbDuOVA My sincere thanks to all the developers who give is the great Linux audio applications. Dennis

8 years, 10 months

Music: Sunyi

by jonetsu

Hello, This one is based on acoustic guitar. The idea was to try to blend in the transitions so that it feels a bit more like flowing. https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/sunyi Cheers.

8 years, 10 months

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