sevol wrote:
Pieter Palmers wrote:
sevol wrote:
Hi People,
I'm thinking of getting one of the Saffire audio interfaces from
Focusrite. Anyone on the list using these units & happy with the
results? This, a little off-topic & subjective: happy with the pres &
conversion?
The SaffireLE,
http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffire/saffire_le/
, is the one I'm eyeing. As far as I can tell it's very similar to the
Saffire,
http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffire/saffire/
, only with 6 in/8 out compared to 4 in/10 out, & minus the
hardwar-powered plug-ins. I like having 2 more ins, & wont miss 2 less
outs. & I imagined the plug-ins, ahreware-powered or software woulkd
be useless under Linux. But the recent thread on the M-Audio Profire
2626 leads me to believe, maybe the times are changing.
I personally think times
are changing, but change is slow...
I'm curious whether the DSP plugins might
work in linux with FFADO.
Actually, true functionality of any of these models seem to require
software to adjust settings, so, what limitations are people noticing
right now running these in Linux? & will the pending beta release of
FFADO address the Saffire plug-in Suite hardware-powered use &
whatever other issues there are, if there are? Or is this a Wine
solution?
As things stand now, there are no plans to support the saffire's
internal plugins. And if I do support for any (hardware or software)
plugins related to these devices, I'll do whatever I can to make them
native instead of WINE.
I'm not really disappointed - hadn't given the DSP stuff much chance of
use atm. If/When the time comes, native has got to be better.
Somehow the plugins thing hijacked my thoughts. In fact, certain other
issues seem more critical & pressing. Like, the front on the LE has 4
nice knobs: 2 level controls for frontside inputs 1 & 2; 1 for levels of
backside Main outs 1 & 2; & 1 for headphone levels. That seems to leave
a lot of input & output control unaccounted for, except via the Saffire
Control LE software GUI.
& this would be a no-show in Linux, right? I guess the 2 analogue
line/instrument-in levels on back can be controllrd by, if existant,
volume knobs on whatever devices are connecting to them. So, maybe
that's covered. & sample rates will probably be handled by JACK/JACKCTRL.
Then though, the MIDI Through is activated by a software switch. & the
High Gain switches for Instrument level sources is software controlled.
The S/PDIF external sync switch, likewise, & the same situation as the
nonworking S/PDIF input of the Firepod. A lot of the output & mixing
capabilities are based in software too. Is there going to be a way to
manage these? Full details not necessary, but could you reveal the gist
of what'll be lost?
All input/output gain controls and configuration switches that are
provided by the saffire control panel on other OS'es are supported in
the FFADO codebase. We have control panels for all of the Saffire
devices, and they are fully featured (except for the DSP stuff on the
saffire white). There might be some bugs in them, but we have all info
to fix them. The only thing you shouldn't expect is a fancy GUI... it's
all very basic PyQT rapid prototyping stuff, but it works. If someone
wants to tackle the GUI side of things, please do. The current prototype
gui's illustrate how to use the control interface.
Last, is anyone working on a clone of Pieter Palmers?
That'd be pretty
useful...
I am. Still have about 30years of tweaking ahead though :).
Ahh, then the rumors ARE true... had to ask, but 30yrs wait time ;)
Technically I
guess it's not really a clone though... I'm afraid it's
going to be only a 50% genetic match. And as you might know that can
make a huge difference :).
Pieter
Thanks for the info,
sevol
p.s. Just read Andrew's message on the Freebob-devel list & see that
the S/PDIF capabilities are looking better, at least with FFADO testing
on the firepod. Hmmm...
S/PDIF on the firepod should work when using FFADO. You can even install
FFADO only for it's device control capabilities (clock source, mixer
settings) and then run jack with the freebob backend for stable streaming.
Greets,
Pieter