hints for stable setup for jack + ffado HELP

[lilakmonoke]

thats very possible ... i need fireface 800 and not so many laptops have this built in and compatible. that why i think a macbook pro would be a good idea. do those work for fireface/linux? anybody using a macbook here?

[lilakmonoke]

so i switched to jack1 and it does indeed seem more stable! at one point i was getting the "broken cd player" audio buffer repeat for about a minute but then it miracuously recovered and didnt crash ... very good!

i couldnt figure out how to do this with cadence so i did it with qjackctl ... is there a file somewhere that defines your jack commandline setting in cadence? and again i dont see a jack1d process anywhere in the process list, just the jackdbus ... how is this possible?

i hope you dont mind me thinking out loud but if somebody wants to tune in im fine ,-)

[lilakmonoke]

thanks falk! ... its all run with jack_control messages then as far as i understand? ... im back from jack1d to cadence because jack1 created all sorts of new weird behaviour. its been fine now for a day so im not complaining for now ...

[Snap]

I run a FF800 without issues, but in a desktop. Like some folks said before, I also think your issues might be caused by your PCMCIA card. I run mine from either a Lacie PCI fw800 card or the (Asus) mobo internal fw400 port. The main problematic bit in firewire audio, even in Windows, have been always the firewire hosts/cards themselves.

[lilakmonoke]

thats good news so its not the ff800 then! right so im switching laptops then but i need one thats certified to work with internal firewire 800. any recommendations in this direction would be greatly appreciated.

[Snap]

You don't need a fw800 port. The FF800 has the two options but performs exactly the same running on a (good) 400 port. The presence of the two kind of ports in the FF800 just adds connectivity options. Which is great. Wish they had USB too. That would have made it the perfect external card.

Just make sure the firewire host has a TI chip for better compatibility and stability.

[lilakmonoke]

there is a new fireface 802 out now which has firewire and usb. it also has 12 i/o but i think it lost the drive/limiter on channel 1 which is my favourite sound at the moment for drums. sadly its going to be another 10 years before it is supported in linux because rmes linux support apparently sucks. they used to be all for linux but somehow changed theri policiy. my hoes are now with bitwig studio running native in linux more producers will switch and companies will follow.

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_802.php

im actually now thinking about a Mac Mini 2,3 GHz Core i7, those an be had cheaply used and they have fw800. cant figure out if this is a ti chipset either but probabaly not ... or even an older dual core one. they are small and most importanty very quiet. i have no idea if linux runs on these out of the box?

here is a good thread by somebody having the same problem, he recommends old ibm/lenovo or hp laptops with ti chipset

http://forum.cockos.com/archive/index.php/t-120650.html

.

[lilakmonoke]

ok, these are really good but 1500$ to 3000$ is crazy. there are 10thsds of dj travelling around the world with laptops but there is NO professional audio pc laptop with firewire out there, its all macs. something is wrong here ...

http://adkproaudio.com/laptop3.asp

.

[Snap]

Firewire is almost obsolete and fading away. It makes no sense buying a FW card these days. For new external cards better go USB. But if you have a good one like a FF800 makes sense keeping it running while possible if replacing your PC doesn't imply a small fortune. My 2 cents.

I've been using my FW800 systemwide on my last computers instead of the internal audio cards for a few years now (Mac, Windows and Linux). It's my to go general purpose interface for daily use. That's why I keep it, but surely this current one will be my last Firewire equiped PC. For real audio jobs I use a HDSP 9652. Again about being obsolete. PCI-X is also fading away. PCIe is the way to go, so a Raydat is the one for new builds today.

Once said that, Firewire and PCI-X are still good choices if you want a budget rig with a lot of audio power. Grab a 4-5 years old Workstation loaded with a nice bunch Xeons and plenty of RAM for around 500 bucks (HP is a very good option), add a (currently cheap) 9652 and you'll have a killer machine to run with KXS or AV Linux for years. Only replace the stock HDs and keep the rest. Current drives will make a huge difference in performance. You don't need bleeding edge for audio. Just power, reliability and stability. A relatively old hardware with a relatively old (but solid) software is a sure bet. Both AVL 6 (still on Squeeze) and KXStudio (almost 3 years old Ubuntu) 12.04 are proven to be rock solid and still great platforms. I wouldn't care at all about KXS 14.04 if going this route. Bleeding edge and reliable pro audio never matched so well (Linux, Win or Mac). Stay one or two steps behind the edge and you'll be in the sweet spot for a trusty and capable DAW.

About laptops... sorry. I got rid of my last one eons ago. I'm of no help at all in that department.

[lilakmonoke]

thanks, thats exactly what im thinking!

but i need my whole setup to be movable. i use almost exclusively analog gear for my music and the laptop is the controlling center of it all. so i dont need a lot of processing power just reliable performance, a lot of mixing options and a high end sound. the ff800 does all that and more for as long as im makin music.

it doesnt need to be a laptop btw. something like the mac mini would be perfect. its small and simple and quiet. i checked into if ubuntu installs on it and there seem to be countless problems of course. so now im thinking mybe a small linux box like the cappucino pc would be a solution. its made for linux and has firewire 400 and a dual core cpu ... there are even fanless versions and you can take them outside and run them on 12 volts!

[lilakmonoke]

this looks really promising, it has a pci slot so you can add a ti cipset firewire 400. no fan! i dont know what to with 6 serial ports but actually its really good for controlling all sorts of stuff i think. even midi via rs232 is rock solid. opinions?

http://www.cappuccinopc.com/twister-77-6c.asp

[lilakmonoke]

damn, i think i found the bad apple in my setup!

i do all my sequencing with custom patches that ive written in pure data. i was running pure data with the "callback" option in the audio setup for jack, my ff800 wouldnt work without it a year ago. i switched callbacks off to test something else and it works fine with the new ffado version + NO MORE XRUNS OR CRASHES FOR 3 DAYS!

ill be darned if that fixes all my setup problems. what are "callbacks" anyways?

[Snap]

Wow, so good you found your issue. Tracking issues like those can be endless and frustrating.

No idea what callbacks are whatsoever, sorry.

[lilakmonoke]

Grab a 4-5 years old Workstation loaded with a nice bunch Xeons and plenty of RAM for around 500 bucks (HP is a very good option), add a (currently cheap) 9652 and you'll have a killer machine to run with KXS or AV Linux for years.

thanks for all the good advice! i built a really cheap new machine and its working perfectly now with the fireface 800 ... here are the specs so maybe others dont have to go through this

- Intel Core i5 4440, fast like hell
- asrock z87 pro4, lots of extension options
- 8 gb memory
- 120 gb solid state memory
- be-quiet power supply
- pci firewire card with texas instruments chipset

i replaced the stock cpu heatsink with a low profile "radiator" ( Scythe SCSK-1100 Shuriken), the cpu fan with a case fan from be-quiet and used a high quality heat paste. now this thing is rotating at very low speed and i switched off all other case fans. idle temperature now is 35 deg and under full load of all 4 cpus it goes up to 55 deg.

in other words i cannot hear this computer at all its DEAD QUIET and uses very little power, maybe 50 watts average!