AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

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Zonk
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by Zonk »

Hello Jeffg,

thank you for your help! I'm running on 64-bit Linux. Gui opens but I cannot select a soundcard. Weird ...

Zonk

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 1:42 pm
Zonk wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:52 pm I could not get BackupBand to work.
Are you running it on a 64-bit Linux? The executable in the zip is compiled for 64-bit. Also, did you right-click on the BackupBand icon, and select its Properties menu command, then check the box "allow executing as a program" under Permissions? Also, BackupBandNoGui should not be run before you use BackupBand to first configure the program's use. BackupBandNoGui should be run only from a command prompt window (or be launched by another program).

Except for those 2 operating system problems, BackupBand should display an error message if there's a problem. If you got an error message, tell me what it said, and I'll tell you how to fix it.

Follow the manual as it's like a tutorial to get up and running.
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by scott.thomason »

Zonk wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 1:44 pm I'm glad to hear that you get along with Liquorix at this low latency values. How big are your projects? Do you usually have more than 20 tracks with some power consuming vst plugins too? I cant hardly believe ...
The project I'm working on now only has 8 concurrent tracks, but with that said, it only uses about 1% CPU to process it, occasionally rising to 2-3%. I don't have a ton of plugins in use, but I do use Guitarix on a few tracks. I think my system could easily handle 20 tracks (or even more). If you haven't tried the Liquorix kernel yet, I think it's worth a shot.
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Zonk wrote: Gui opens but I cannot select a soundcard.
So you're trying to setup BackupBand to directly access your soundcard. If this fails, it's almost always Pulse Audio, Pipewire, or especially Jack hogging the soundcard. (I hate user space programs that subvert the role of the operating system's audio management, These programs are the worst shit ever. As intrusive and troublesome as virus programs).

If you can't tame Pulse Audio, Jack, and/or Pipewire to release its death-grip on the audio hardware, then you'll have to set BackupBand to use Jack. Delete the file "Devices" in your home directory's "BackupBand/Prefs" folder. When you run BB, it will ask if you want to use JACK. Answer yes this time.

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by GMaq »

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 8:19 pm
Zonk wrote: Gui opens but I cannot select a soundcard.
So you're trying to setup BackupBand to directly access your soundcard. If this fails, it's almost always Pulse Audio, Pipewire, or especially Jack hogging the soundcard. (I hate user space programs that subvert the role of the operating system's audio management, These programs are the worst shit ever. As intrusive and troublesome as virus programs).

If you can't tame Pulse Audio, Jack, and/or Pipewire to release its death-grip on the audio hardware, then you'll have to set BackupBand to use Jack. Delete the file "Devices" in your home directory's "BackupBand/Prefs" folder. When you run BB, it will ask if you want to use JACK. Answer yes this time.
As with any modern Linux Distro by default AV Linux has the plain old Debian vanilla PulseAudio setup, if you use Qjackctl it will automatically start JACK, the PulseAudio JACK sink/source Bridges and a2jmidid when Qjackctl starts JACK.. in this scenario won't the BuB JACK connectivity allow it to work?

I completely agree with you about going direct to ALSA when possible but there is literally no modern Distro that doesn't have PulseAudio start at login (or some that now have Pipewire by default).. If you want BuB to work across the board you are going to have to deal with either making friends with Pulse/JACK/PW or giving the User a mechanism to connect to ALSA directly and suspend the other servers.
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

GMaq wrote: if you use Qjackctl it will automatically start JACK, the PulseAudio JACK sink/source Bridges and a2jmidid when Qjackctl starts JACK.. in this scenario won't the BuB JACK connectivity allow it to work?
BB works fine with JACK. The problem is that BB also supports outputting via ALSA directly, and pulse audio, jack, and/or pipewire can block that access, even when the latter aren't actually making sound. They just grab ahold of the audio hardware, won't give it up (short of the enduser manually killing these servers), and block direct access to the hardware.

Now, there are supposedly ways to tell these servers to let go of the hardware, and BB employs these methods. But the problem is:

1) Each piece of crap software uses a different method to do the same thing. For example, PA uses a proprietary DBUS interface, whereas jack uses a entirely different command written to a shared pipe. With Windows or MacOS, Microsoft and Apple decide how a certain thing is to be done, and that's that. With linux audio, everyone is constantly reinventing the wheel, with no thought to real-world practice, or standardization. Worse, linux audio devs have the inexplicable need to write invasive, trojan-like software that does bad practices like surreptitiously reroute a program's input/output through a completely different code path... without the program's knowledge/approval. You do that shit on Windows/MacOS, and MS/Apple will yank your software from their app stores, and make sure every antivirus program adds your software to their trojan database.

2) There is so much shit software out there that usurp the operating system's job of managing access to hardware, and starting/stopping services. (ie, Servers that "emulate" other servers, bridges, session managers). So depending upon what a person has added to or setup on his system, a "request to unblock the hardware" may or may not work. It's a total crap shoot. This is what makes linux audio so difficult to use. This fragmentation, combined with lots of bad software design, make it pretty much impossible for a developer to troubleshoot an enduser's system, unless the dev can gain direct access/control of the computer to diagnose which piece of crap software is causing the problem.

3) There is no #3 because #1 and #2 are bad enough.
If you want BuB to work across the board you are going to have to deal with either making friends with Pulse/JACK/PW or giving the User a mechanism to connect to ALSA directly and suspend the other servers.
BB does both. And sometimes it works. It depends upon a given user's system. And when something doesn't work, I just advise the enduser not to bother trying to troubleshoot it (because odds are that it's due to bad software design that can't be fixed unless the guy knows how to write software). For example, zonk tried to setup BB to use alsa directly, and something is preventing BB from accessing the audio hardware via alsa. I didn't bother wasting his and my time chasing after audio ghosts. I just noted my own tests which reveal that, whenever I encounter this problem, I've found that 99% of the time the problem is jack, pulse audio, or pipewire. So I told zonk, "Forget about setting BB to use alsa directly on your system. Just giveup and set it to use jack. That will work, and it's probably the only option that will do so on your system."

Mind you, BB uses alsa directly on my system. But I have made sure that jack, pa, and pipewire can't even startup on my system until I manually allow them. I treat them like trojans, which I consider them to be.

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by Zonk »

Hello Jeffg,

it's a pity that (at least on my PC) BackupBand is difficult to install properly. I'am still interested in BackupBand but can't get it to work. Maybe I'm not the only one having this problem.

There are some good Sound font players in Linux world but not a large selection of really good GM Sound fonts. Have you ever thought about making your high quality Sound font available without connected additional software?

Zonk
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by scott.thomason »

Zonk wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:36 am Have you ever thought about making your high quality Sound font available without connected additional software?
I believe @j_e_f_f_g does have his soundfont available for download, but for the life of me I can't find the link right now...
---scott

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by Zonk »

It would be great if he could make it available to us again.

Thx Scott!
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Zonk wrote: It would be great if he could make it available to us again.
All of the instruments I've made are available in sfz format (playable by sfizz, Linux Sampler, Sforzando, etc). They are hosted at GMaq's site (the AV Linux guy, and Sadie's booking agent):

http://www.bandshed.net/sounds/sfz/

nbo_2.zip is the entire No Budget Orchestra (flute, trumpet, violin, etc). The files starting with nbb_ are collections. For example, nbb_basses contains electric, synth, and fretless basses. The remaining zips are individual instruments (and not all are mine). Of particular interest would be LittleLizardPiano (for grand piano), stereo fender rhodes, and the general midi drum kit (gmkit.zip).

Furthermore, I'm working on turning the entire sfz collection into a group of LV2 instrument plugins. More details when available.

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by Zonk »

Hello Jeffg,

thank you for providing your files to me/us!

Unfortunately I was not able to open your sfz files with a soundfont player (fluidsynth/calf player) but I was able to listen to some wave sounds. Especially the drum sounds are very authentic. I would love to use them in my future projects. Maybe you can give me a tip on how to open your sfz files.

Great work!

Thank you very much in advance!

Zonk
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Try sfizz https://github.com/sfztools/sfizz or Linux Sampler https://www.linuxsampler.org/downloads.html if using a linux daw.

If using a win daw under wine, try sforzando https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by GMaq »

Zonk wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:55 pm Hello Jeffg,

thank you for providing your files to me/us!

Unfortunately I was not able to open your sfz files with a soundfont player (fluidsynth/calf player) but I was able to listen to some wave sounds. Especially the drum sounds are very authentic. I would love to use them in my future projects. Maybe you can give me a tip on how to open your sfz files.

Great work!

Thank you very much in advance!

Zonk
If you are still using AV Linux the SFZero, LiquidSFZ, SFizz and even the also-included 'SFZ' Windows VST Plugin will all load SFZ files. Add any of those Plugins to an Ardour, Mixbus or Reaper session on a MIDI track and using the File search in the Plugin interface load the SFZ file
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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by Zonk »

AV-Linux is back! Big surprise: After the penultimate almost unusable and ugly open box version from 2022, the new version is based again on xfce (now 18) - released January 2023. Everything is very well implemented and good looking. All important programs such as Ardour and Reaper are included in the current editions and work perfectly - it could not be better!

Although the Liquorix-Kernel does not allow such short latencies as the RealTime-Kernel does, it seems to be slightly improved and quite sufficient for occasional recordings. Over and beyond choice for everyday use. Fortunately, you can install the RT-Kernel later if you need very short latencies.

The good SoundFont still has to be recharged (approx 150 MB) but that's not a big job.

I'm back at AV-Linux and certainly not the only one - Big thanks to the makers of AV-Linux! :D

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by thetotalchaos »

Zonk wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:46 am

RT kernel seems to cause some problems to Nvidia card owners

Here is a little known, but very important to know, fact.
The proprietary NVidia drivers are messing up with the realtime scheduling. The driver basically hijacks the CPU resources, leaving bare minimum, for your other needs. I didn't realise how bad it was, until i switched to Intel.

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Re: AV-Linux - Realtime Kernel - XFCE Tweak - SoundFont

Post by sunrat »

thetotalchaos wrote: Wed Feb 15, 2023 7:57 pm
Zonk wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:46 am

RT kernel seems to cause some problems to Nvidia card owners

Here is a little known, but very important to know, fact.
The proprietary NVidia drivers are messing up with the realtime scheduling. The driver basically hijacks the CPU resources, leaving bare minimum, for your other needs. I didn't realise how bad it was, until i switched to Intel.

I believe you, but would like to see results of tests which prove this please.

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