RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

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houston4444
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RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by houston4444 »

Hi folks.

RaySession (audio session manager) offers now a new release with a JACK patchbay, forked from the Carla patchbay, with some improvements. Thanks to @falkTX for this patchbay.

Note that the patchbay is hidden by default, go to Control -> Show JACK Patchbay to show it.

Image

As you can see the main new feature is portgroups, port are grouped if they seems to form a stereo pair. This allows faster connections, and also a more readable canvas, with less and less useless text. Portgroups can also be done with JACK metadatas. A Pull Request for this feature has been proposed to Carla's source code (https://github.com/falkTX/Carla/pull/1397).

There are also other nice features such as wrap/unwrap groups, application icons or double click for fullscreen. More informations in the link below:
v0.11.0 release : https://github.com/Houston4444/RaySessi ... ag/v0.11.0

This release has been tested by several people on the Librazik 3 distribution https://librazik.tuxfamily.org . Thanks to all of them : Olivier, Erwan, Nico, Arnaud.
This version is already available in Librazik3 !

Few bugs have been detected with Fedora and Wayland, so there will be a bugfix release soon for this.
Cheers.

Mathieu
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by Tapper »

Just tried it. I love it! Thank you, dear developers! It's a first session manager GUI that I liked! Patchbay is pretty cool, better than Carla. (Carla's was the best, but it's only a host)

But there's still some place for improvements. Would it be possible to add auto arrange nodes (or how you call it?) button in Patchbay? Don't know why, but they appear in weird places and far from each other, frequently out of screen, when there is plenty empty space around. And when I wrap nodes, there's even more space appears, but new nodes still appears in unpredictable places. This was in Carla, now RaySession get infected :)

Another request - add an option to remove folder of removed application from session list. I added DAW to session, made something, then removed it from session. Folder stays, it's good, because I could make it by mistake and loose important files. But if I don't care for them, it can be removed. I think RaySession knows better what folders are in use and what folders to remove. It only needs a button "Cleanup"

Tray support. Close to tray. RaySession is a base app, but not needed when all is set, untill I close session. It would be better to close it to tray, safe place.

Question: In my System menu is a whole bunch of audio and midi applications, synth, hosts and effects, but in RaySession has only few of them. You add them to the list when you are sure they work well with RaySession, or is it something with my install? I know, that I can add an executable by typing in, but I just don't know most of their exact names :) Could you add a possibility to add app from system menu?

And question about Pipewire. Right now I'm running it on pipewire with pw-jack command. It works, surprisingly well! It holds buffer size, doesn't let pipewire to increase it. Beautiful. But I want a bit deeper control. I want RaySession aps could act as default sinks to external pipewire apps. For example - I plugged Firefox to my Ardour and I want every new stream of firefox would go thru Ardour. Now I have to manually switch every time. And Firefox is not the only external app I would be gladly use inside session while live playing. Maybe it's a weir request. You diecide :)

Thank you for your hard work.

Oh, and... Is it possible to add groups? To group some effects to save space in Patchbay
Double Oh :) And add Lattency in miliseconds, please. Buffer size doesn't tell much of lattency.
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by houston4444 »

Ahah ! That's not because houston is my nickname that you can ask the moon !

Just tried it. I love it! Thank you, dear developers! It's a first session manager GUI that I liked!
Nice to hear, thanks !
Would it be possible to add auto arrange nodes (or how you call it?) button in Patchbay?
Let's call them boxes ! Auto-arrange is very complex to develop for a probably not pertinent result, there is not only one good way to arrange boxes. RaySession tries to make them appears just a the bottom of the present boxes, then you just have to use the mouse wheel to find them (if the box position has not been saved before). I have experimented this annoyance in Carla (where unknown boxes appears very far from the rest) and tried to resolve it. If it appears as far from others as in Carla, then it's a bug !
Another request - add an option to remove folder of removed application from session list.
It exists. At the top right of the session frame, just at the right of the floppy "Save" button, there is the trash. from the trash you can restore or remove definitely clients.
Tray support. Close to tray. RaySession is a base app, but not needed when all is set, untill I close session. It would be better to close it to tray, safe place.
I am not opposite to this, this could be a future feature. Waiting for this, you can simply close the window and click on "Keep daemon running", then when you restart RaySession, you will see your session as it is, because all the RaySession's GUI is a remote for the ray-daemon. Note that this method has the advantage against systray that the GUI is not hidden, it is not running at all, so it uses less CPU (few, that's true).
Question: In my System menu is a whole bunch of audio and midi applications, synth, hosts and effects, but in RaySession has only few of them.
In the applications dialog you will find only the applications which can save their document from the session manager. Almost do this with the NSM protocol, some old ones with LASH protocol. If an application provides no method to save document from external, then, choice is to not provide a RaySession's template for this, because a lot of users will be lost. The job to do is not for the session managers devs to add some apps, but to app devs to develop NSM support to their app (with our help). I take the opportunity to advise to affect global keyboard shortcut *Ctrl+Meta+S* to the command

Code: Select all

ray_control save
Right now I'm running it on pipewire with pw-jack command. It works, surprisingly well!
Thanks the pipewire devs, not me! I never tested pipewire before last week.
I plugged Firefox to my Ardour and I want every new stream of firefox would go thru Ardour.
If the firefox port and group name are the same, if you save the Jack Connections (or the session of course) when firefox is plugged to ardour, it should remember this ! That said, I suppose Firefox will also auto-connect to hardware, and that is unwanted in this case, probably there is a pipewire solution against that, JACK has an option to prevent auto-connections to hardware.
Oh, and... Is it possible to add groups? To group some effects to save space in Patchbay
I think to that for a long, this is not a little thing to do.
Double Oh :) And add Lattency in miliseconds, please. Buffer size doesn't tell much of lattency.
When mouse pass hover the samplerate and buffersize tools, why not.
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by Tapper »

Houston, we have a problem :(

I tried it again today, and now everything crashes, instantly. Big constant disaster. Oh... Ok, I am running it on Pipewire, maybe part of problems caused by that.

But why lsp-multisampler now fails to import presets while running inside of Carla-patchbay started in RaySession? No messages or warnings, It just doesn't load samples. Or even settings. Why it worked yesterday?

Why yesterday passing midi between alsamidi and jackmidi worked and today no? Weird.
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by houston4444 »

Pfff, I really don't know.
when you says "everything crashes", what is crashing, RaySession ?
If so, could you start it from terminal and say me what it says ?

Because of the way RS works, I suspect more a problem with pipewire or carla. Try to launch carla-patchbay in new-session-manager, I am pretty sure the problem will still be there. RS does not launch JACK or PipeWire, it only connects a little process to only for the patchbay. Even if this process doesn't achieve to connect, it shouldn't cause any problem to other programs.
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by Tapper »

when you says "everything crashes"
Sorry for moaning. I understand how it looks. Sorry.

First Hydrogen crashed, then Carla crashed, then Qtractor has lost ability to send midi (thru bridge) to Hydroben or Carla-patchbay, or LSP-Multisampler (started separately in RaySession executable). Carla crashes. Impossible to load preset in LSP-Multisampler which was running inside Carla-patchbay. No messages in RaySession console. Nothing special. Restarted few times, even reloaded laptop. Created new session and started allover, same crashes and problems.

After some rest I started again to send you crash messages and so on. Everything works!! Smooooth... Audio, midi, preset loading... :shock:

I don't know what to say. Need more testing. Next time when it will break, I'll fill the issue on github.
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by lilith »

houston4444 wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 2:11 pm Hi folks.

RaySession (audio session manager) offers now a new release with a JACK patchbay, forked from the Carla patchbay, with some improvements. Thanks to @falkTX for this patchbay.

Note that the patchbay is hidden by default, go to Control -> Show JACK Patchbay to show it.

Image

As you can see the main new feature is portgroups, port are grouped if they seems to form a stereo pair. This allows faster connections, and also a more readable canvas, with less and less useless text. Portgroups can also be done with JACK metadatas. A Pull Request for this feature has been proposed to Carla's source code (https://github.com/falkTX/Carla/pull/1397).

There are also other nice features such as wrap/unwrap groups, application icons or double click for fullscreen. More informations in the link below:
v0.11.0 release : https://github.com/Houston4444/RaySessi ... ag/v0.11.0

This release has been tested by several people on the Librazik 3 distribution https://librazik.tuxfamily.org . Thanks to all of them : Olivier, Erwan, Nico, Arnaud.
This version is already available in Librazik3 !

Few bugs have been detected with Fedora and Wayland, so there will be a bugfix release soon for this.
Cheers.

Mathieu
Works great on Ubuntustudio! Love the feature to reconnect connections!
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by houston4444 »

Thanks !
remember JACK connections is one of the basis of audio session managers, they all do that (not as well as RaySession, that is true :wink: ).
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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by LAM »

Great release! Thank you @houston4444! :D

Is there a way to change the pacthbay's theme?

in mix, nobody can hear your screen

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Re: RaySession v0.11.0 release with JACK patchbay

Post by houston4444 »

@LAM , thanks for the thanks !

There are 3 themes, you can choose one of them in canvas options. Right click in canvas -> Canvas options.
They are not really themes but color schemes, because maintaining themes and add features is quite a PITA.
However, more color schemes could be easily done in the future.

I forgot to say there is also a bugfix release: https://github.com/Houston4444/RaySession/releases
See also the manual section for patchbay (with videos): http://raysession.tuxfamily.org/en/manual.html#patchbay
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