Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

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Whirr
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:49 pm

Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by Whirr »

Hello! I'm just starting with Linux (and, really, with home recording in general) and I'm delighted to find this board--it seems like folks are quite knowledgable and helpful here.

I'm running xUnbuntu, and I have a Delta M1010LT. Many things that I thought would be a huge pain to get working worked out of the box, and many other things I've managed to wrestle into shape through pure Googling. However.

I've got midi working, (through JACK, even!) so I know that my soundcard is talking to my computer. I'm trying to capture my guitar, however, and I can't get anything. The guitar is plugged into the external jack "in 7". On the software side of things, for example in Patchage, I see "System", with twelve blue outputs, "Capture 1" through "Capture 12". What's the missing piece, here? I recently went into alsamixer and turned up all of the capture settings, but that didn't seem to have any effect, and I'm more or less shooting in the dark.

Thanks,
Benjamin
studio32

Re: Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by studio32 »

Whirr wrote:Hello! I'm just starting with Linux (and, really, with home recording in general) and I'm delighted to find this board--it seems like folks are quite knowledgable and helpful here.

I'm running xUnbuntu, and I have a Delta M1010LT. Many things that I thought would be a huge pain to get working worked out of the box, and many other things I've managed to wrestle into shape through pure Googling. However.

I've got midi working, (through JACK, even!) so I know that my soundcard is talking to my computer. I'm trying to capture my guitar, however, and I can't get anything. The guitar is plugged into the external jack "in 7". On the software side of things, for example in Patchage, I see "System", with twelve blue outputs, "Capture 1" through "Capture 12". What's the missing piece, here? I recently went into alsamixer and turned up all of the capture settings, but that didn't seem to have any effect, and I'm more or less shooting in the dark.

Thanks,
Benjamin
I think you should install alsa-tools and alsa-tools-gui and use envy24control as mixer...
And I think you need a preamp for your guitar before pluggin in... but not sure about that...

Then normally connect capture 1 with playback 1 and/or 2 or a software application like rakarrack or guitarix...

And check our WIKI, especially the newbie part!

and maybe this is usefull too.. dunno

http://www.sound-man.co.uk/linuxaudio/ice1712multi.html
telehack
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Re: Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by telehack »

Hi Benjamin,

There are a couple things that could be going on. First of all, do I understand that you are plugging the guitar directly into the soundcard? I may be misunderstanding what you are doing, but the soundcard wants to see a line-level signal. To get you guitar up to this level you can:

1. Take a line out from your guitar amp if it has one.
2. Use a direct box or some kind of recording preamp. I've used an Award-Session JD-10 before, but a lot of people use SansAmp stuff.
3. Mic your guitar amp.

Also, you don't mention what recording software you are using to "capture" the guitar. I use Ardour. Things to check are that the correct input on your soundcard is routed to the input of that track in Ardour, and that it's not muted, etc.

Not sure if any of that helps. It can be a steep learning curve, but it's worth it.

-telehack
Whirr
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:49 pm

Re: Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by Whirr »

Thanks for the quick responses!

This is fantastic! envy24control was definitely a good tip--I had been messing about with it previously, but I had no idea what I was doing. Sadly, I still don't.

For future reference (I know I saw plenty of threads just like this one in my previous googling!) I plugged the guitar into a distortion pedal (per telehack's suggestion) and was able to notice a tiny trickly of noise, barely enough to set off vu bridge. I then plugged it in directly, and could still see noise if I strummed hard enough. (:

Finally, I started messing around with envy24. The whole patchbay--I don't understand, it doesn't seem to make the _slightest_ bit of difference what HW Out is hooked to what HW In. However, I found that when I maxed out ADC 6, I almost blew out my ear drums! Mind you, the guitar is plugged into HW In 7, and I can't find the slightest connection between ADC 6 and HW In 7, but that sets the volume just fine, it's plenty loud.

This is still total black magic to me, but it's working.

Thanks again for your help!

-=Benjamin
dchurch24
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Posts: 189
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Re: Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by dchurch24 »

On the Envy24 control, click on the Analogue Volumes tab (not at my computer so not sure if that's it exactly), and move ALL the sliders to the top.

Not sure why, but I had the exact same problem - although I was going through my amp and out to the soundcard from the line-out - and for some reason the input volume was number 7. If I strummed hard I could see a little spike on the VU, once I moved those volumes up (one must have been the right one), then it all fell into place.

EDIT: sorry didn't read to the last line, I see you had the exact same thing I did.
PS Wait until you start using Ardour - it blows Cubase et al out of the water!
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philip888
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Re: Newbie: Audio Capture with Delta M1010LT / JACK

Post by philip888 »

Benjamin, here is a nice get you started tutorial for Envy24 Controller.

http://alsa.opensrc.org/Envy24Control

This helped me connect the dots.

Philip
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