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.