After the second move this year, I've finally started to set up my home studio
properly again. (Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS, Mixbus, RME ADI-2 Pro for monitoring, Focusrite
Scarlett 18i20 2nd generation for integrating analog hardware)
Since I've also updated Ubuntu, I've switched my workstation to Pipewire, as
I've had quite good experiences with it on my laptop and running several audio
interfaces in parallel is quite problematic.
My first attempt with a smaller project (17 audio tracks) ran without any problems.
My second attempt with a medium-sized project (~30 audio tracks), however, is driving me
to despair. I have a DSP load of 50-60%, no buffer underruns but constant stuttering and
occasional beeping.
The log says the following
Nov 12 22:37:13 muse pipewire[2048]: spa.alsa: hw:4c: snd_pcm_mmap_commit error 1022 514
1022: Data transfer interrupted (broken pipe)
Nov 12 22:37:24 muse pipewire[2048]: spa.alsa: hw:4c: follower delay:873 target:1536
thr:1024 resample:1, resync (2 suppressed)
It is interesting that when I start the safe mode in Mixbus, i.e. all effects are switched
off, I have a DSP load of 10 percent and the stuttering and beeping is just as present. I
don't have any analog hardware connected at this stage, so I read all tracks directly
from disk and send them stereo to the RME interface.
I didn't have these problems under jack2, but then the RME was also connected to the
Scarlett via TOSLink, so there was only one interface visible to the system.
I therefore suspect that it is a problem with the hard disk usage, as I can't think of
any other reason.
Unfortunately I have not found a way to optimize hard disk access and I don't even
know if this is done directly by Pipewire or if one of the usual libraries is used for
this.
Have you seen this phenomenon before or do you have any ideas what else I can try?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Holger
--
Holger Dehnhardt
holger(a)dehnhardt.org
https://www.dehnhardt.org