[SOLVED]More on NetJACK

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Frank Carvalho
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[SOLVED]More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

Hi!

AS I reported earlier, I got a good setup running with NetJACK and a master/slave setup, and I can record on my main DAW machine from another room, using a remote NetJACK master and by starting Ardour4 using X-forwarding. Nice. but there is one thing I still can't do, which is to have sound cards active both on the DAW machine and on the remote machine simultaneously. The problem is, that NetJACK requires that you start the master where the sound card is. This means that the remote machine is master, and the DAW machine must be slave.
Now suppose I work with an engineer running the DAW machine, then he will be unable to hear playback, as he is running the DAW as slave, and there is no way to connect the NetJACK slave to the DAW machines sound card. Is there any way a NetJACK slave can communicate with the local sound card, or any other way to have two active sound cards available in a NetJACK setup? I need good suggestions.

/Frank
Last edited by Frank Carvalho on Mon Oct 05, 2015 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
tatch
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by tatch »

maybe you could try running another jack daemon on the daw machine? not sure if that's possible though http://jack-audio.10948.n7.nabble.com/H ... 12772.html
artek
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by artek »

Frank Carvalho wrote: Is there any way a NetJACK slave can communicate with the local sound card, or any other way to have two active sound cards available in a NetJACK setup?
I have used spdif to connect two audio cards. alsa_in and alsa_out should work for you.
tatch
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by tatch »

artek wrote: I have used spdif to connect two audio cards. alsa_in and alsa_out should work for you.
yeah disregard my suggestion, this one actually works
Frank Carvalho
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

artek wrote: I have used spdif to connect two audio cards. alsa_in and alsa_out should work for you.
Yes, but the spdif method is for chaining two sound cards on the same machine, isn't it? What I want to do is to have a sound card on each machine, and communication between the machines with NetJACK. Unless it's possible to communicate SPDIF over ethernet. That might be an option.

/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
j_e_f_f_g
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Frank Carvalho wrote:Unless it's possible to communicate SPDIF over ethernet.
Obviously, your sound cards don't have SPDIF jacks on them. It's a hardware interface.

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Frank Carvalho
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

j_e_f_f_g wrote:
Frank Carvalho wrote:Unless it's possible to communicate SPDIF over ethernet.
Obviously, your sound cards don't have SPDIF jacks on them. It's a hardware interface.
There are threads on the web about converting SPDIF to ethernet and back again. But it requires hardware converters, and seems to be of an experimental nature.
My M-Audio cards have SPDIF connectors, and two M-Audio cards can be synced this way. I have done this for years.

/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
j_e_f_f_g
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Frank Carvalho wrote:I have done this for years.
Then you already know how to sync the 2 computers. The fact that the 2 cards are in separate computers is irrelevant. As long as their SPDIF jacks are connected, and one is set to sync (slave) to its SPDIF, and their sample rates are the same, then the slave will clock to the master.

No ethernet is needed.

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Frank Carvalho
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

Then you already know how to sync the 2 computers. The fact that the 2 cards are in separate computers is irrelevant. As long as their SPDIF jacks are connected, and one is set to sync (slave) to its SPDIF, and their sample rates are the same, then the slave will clock to the master.

No ethernet is needed.
Only if I run an SPDIF cable to the other room. But then, that was the purpose of the ethernet cable and NetJACK. Furthermore, syncing two remote cards, doesn't give me the ability to use both cards in the same DAW setup. It is easy on one computer, with the right .asoundrc, but for remote computers you need NetJACK, and that's where the problem of one being the master, and the other being a soundcardless slave arises. I still need to connect the two cards to some common instance of Jack in order to have any sound in and out of both (and preferrably to sync over net too to avoid the extra SPDIF cable).
Something that would really solve the problem would be if a netjack slave instance of jackd could run concurrently with an ordinary jackd and both instances communicate with the DAW. But I don't think that is possible.

/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
Drumfix
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Drumfix »

I think jacktrip should do the job.
artek
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by artek »

Frank Carvalho wrote:
artek wrote: I have used spdif to connect two audio cards. alsa_in and alsa_out should work for you.
Yes, but the spdif method is for chaining two sound cards on the same machine, isn't it? What I want to do is to have a sound card on each machine, and communication between the machines with NetJACK. Unless it's possible to communicate SPDIF over ethernet. That might be an option.

/Frank
My sentence seems to be kind of cryptic, have you tried alsa_in and alsa_out?
(these are commands for adding alsa device i/o to running jack server)
tatch
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by tatch »

artek wrote:
Frank Carvalho wrote:
artek wrote: I have used spdif to connect two audio cards. alsa_in and alsa_out should work for you.
Yes, but the spdif method is for chaining two sound cards on the same machine, isn't it? What I want to do is to have a sound card on each machine, and communication between the machines with NetJACK. Unless it's possible to communicate SPDIF over ethernet. That might be an option.

/Frank
My sentence seems to be kind of cryptic, have you tried alsa_in and alsa_out?
(these are commands for adding alsa device i/o to running jack server)
to clarify artek's suggestion, run netjack on the slave as usual and then run alsa_in -d <yoursoundcard> and alsa_out -d <yoursoundcard> on your slave to connect your slave to its own soundcard
Frank Carvalho
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

No you are right. I didn't understand the original suggestion. But this sounds really promising.
Are these command line scripts or options to netjack, and how do they become visible to the netjack slave and/or DAW? Will they show up in, for instance, Carla?

I have already made scripts to encapsulate the startup and parameters for netjack, so I could easily add more scripting to take care of an alsa bridge. How does syncing work between netjack slave and local sound card, and will there be issues there to solve to avoid xruns?

/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
artek
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by artek »

Are these command line scripts or options to netjack, and how do they become visible to the netjack slave and/or DAW? Will they show up in, for instance, Carla?

I have already made scripts to encapsulate the startup and parameters for netjack, so I could easily add more scripting to take care of an alsa bridge. How does syncing work between netjack slave and local sound card, and will there be issues there to solve to avoid xruns?
I haven't tested it with netjack, but it should work on any jack server.

Code: Select all

alsa_out -j local -r 44100 -d hw:yourlocalcard
Local card will show on jack server as "writable client" named "local". Local and remote card won't synchronize clocks.
more:

Code: Select all

man alsa_out
Frank Carvalho
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Re: More on NetJACK

Post by Frank Carvalho »

I tried it, and surely the local alsa in and out turn up in Carla, but the moment I connect the alsa_out to netjack in it freezes and spawns a continuous stream of xruns.
It could be the parameters of course. I haven't tried the -j local option, and I didn't specify -r 48000, although both card and netjack defaults to 48000.

But I suspect the problem has to do with the lack of synchronisation between netjack and the local sound card. I'll give it another go with other options though. Is there any way to ensure the sound card syncs to the jack daemon?

/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.
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