This tutorial aims to describe how you can use Jack-Rack as a effect processor for your electric guitar.
** Before:
- you should have installed and set up right jack by qjackctl
- you should be able to hear 'realtime' and clean guitar sound out of your speakers.
- I think you need a sort of preamp or mixer to get guitar sound. I do use just a simple Boss distortion pedal for it and that works :)
- you should have jack-rack and LASH (linux audio session handler) (optional) installed.
- You have downloaded (and unpacked) some effect for jack-rack:
http://offog.org/stuff/racks/
1) Start jack
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qjackctl
2) Start jack-rack
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jack-rack
Open > browse to and load jack-rack effect (I loaded a file called: guitar_amp.rack)
4) Connect jack-rack
- Click on "Connect" in qjackctl. You'll see "system" and "system" plus 'ams' and 'ams' . Left is hardware, right is software. You should see capture on the left, and playback on the right. playback_1 == left speaker and playback_2 == right speaker, capture_1 == mic port and capture_2 == nothing/built-in laptop mic.
- For example, you'd want to connect capture_1 to playback_1 and 2. Highlight capture_1 and highlight the "system" on the right panel. Drag your cursor from the former to the latter.
*** BE CAREFULL: Always put your sound down when connecting. I had once a awful and very very load beep through my speakers when I first tried to connect something! Remember ears are important for musicians!***
Connect things now like this:
5) You should here a 'effected guitar sound' now :)
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To make things a bit easier and faster for repeating sessions.
6) qjackctl patchbay
You can save the connections setup via 'Patchbay' in qjackctl, so you can load it easier the next time you want to use Jack-rack.
Patchbay > new > 'Create patchbay definition as a snapshot of all actual client connections? >> ok* > save.
The next time you can load this setup in patchbay easily.
* It is recommended to choose no and make a patchbay manually like it is explained in the patchbay howto http://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/76
(! You can also use (the latest) patchage with lash_support: http://wiki.drobilla.net/Patchage )
THE VERY QUICK AND EASY WAY, using LASH
Load the jack-rack setting by LASH
7)When things are running, you can start LASH
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lash_panel
8)Save the project
> save project
The next time you want to use Jack-rack with the same effect:
1) start qjackctl
2) start LASH
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lash_panel
4) open jack-rack
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jack-rack
Using a script
You also can start the describes steps by a little script
1) open a editor like gedit or kate
2) copy paste:
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#!/bin/sh
qjackctl &
sleep 2
lash_panel &
sleep 10
jack-rack &
exit
3) save file as name.sh
4) Now you must make the script executable (I think as root):
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chmod +x name.sh
Enjoy!
feedback!?: did you find this tutorial usefull or have comments on the content. I like to hear it! Further questions or problem solving could be better take place in the other forum parts....
Further readings and reference:
- howo using AMS as effect processor: http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=123
- Jack-rack: http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/
- http://www.rncbc.org/drupal/node/76 (about qjackctl: patchbay and conections)
- LASH (linux audio session handler): http://lash.nongnu.org/
- More guitar processors: www.linux-sound.org >> Effects Processors
- LADSPA (Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADSPA
- CAPS (The CAPS Audio Plugin Suite): http://quitte.de/dsp/caps.html