TLDR; - as of today, Pipewire can completely replace my existing workflow with the exception of one bug (See BUGS below).
SETUP
My pre-pipewire setup is as follows:
- Arch Linux
- Alsa (1.2.5)
- Pulseaudio (14.2-3)
- Jack2 (1.9.18-1)
- Cadence (0.9.1-4)
- Catia (0.9.0)
- Ardour (6.7)
- Intel motherboard w/integrated Audio
- Nvidia graphics card w/Audio
- Monitor speakers w/HDMI audio ('screen' monitor, not professional audio monitors)
- Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Audio Interface
I use Catia for my Patch bay
I use Cadence to start/stop Jack, bridge Alsa -> Pulse -> Jack
Ultimately, this setup allows me to run Ardour, watch youtube tutorials, and listen to reference tracks, all through my Audio Interface.
I'm hoping Pipewire is able to be a drop-in replacement.
PROCESS
- First I removed all non-default Alsa, Pulse, and Jack configs.
- Next I followed the Arch Wiki for installing Pipewire and installed
Code: Select all
pipewire (1:0.3.30-2)
pipewire-jack (1:0.3.30-2)
pipewire-pulse (1:0.3.30-2)
pipewire-alsa (1:0.3.30-2)
pipewire-jack-dropin (3-1)
- reboot
RESULTS
- All sound cards are recognized
- All sound cards show up in Catia
- Firefox audio works, able to use sound applet to switch between all sound cards (Audio Interface, Intel, Nvidia, HDMI)
- Vital, Helm, and LSP-EQ standalone apps all launch and play sound successfully
- Ardour launches and plays sound
- Bluetooth headset works out of the box
- Playing sound through my Audio Interface from Firefox and Ardour simultaneously will crash Ardour 100% of the time.
- When I started testing last week, any Midi plugins that would use the Ardour "fan-out" feature would crash Ardour and require a restart of Pipewire, but as of the most recent update this is no longer happening.
Given the results and simplicity (all default configs) I'm very happy with Pipewire so far.