Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

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geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

lad wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:20 pm hello, I've got a focusrite i18i20 GEN 3 and running AV-MX Linux LIVE CD with the following Kernel:
Linux avl-mxe-live 5.16.0-18.1-liquorix-amd64 #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT liquorix 5.16-26~mx21+1 (2022-03-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Based on the comment above, I would expect this to be functional in 5.16 but doesn't appear to work for me?

When I run alsamixer the only control I have is for the clock source... Can someone fill me in on what I might need to do to get my focusrite to function?

I have attempted to disable the memory card mode by pressing 48V and powering on for 5 seconds.

I can configure jack to use the focusrite and can start jack, but when I enable record track in ardour I get no signal in the software. The focusrite displays signal from my mic, however. And yes, the input is selected correctly in ardour :D i'm not that much of a newb. And I have tested an alternate audio interface which does work (Zoom H5).

Many thanks for any help and for the work on this!
Hi lad,

If you don't see the MSD control, you haven't enabled the driver. See the instructions at https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-gui especially the USAGE.md Prerequisites section.

Enabling that from a live CD could be interesting! The problem is that you need to specify options to the snd_usb_audio module when it gets loaded. Usually you'd put this into e.g. /etc/modprobe.d/scarlett.conf & reboot. But unless your live CD has persistent /etc (seems unlikely?), that's not going to work.

Two ways to do this I think:
- On the kernel command line, add a parameter "snd_usb_audio.device_setup=1,1,1,1" (I'm guessing this based on the kernel documentation)
or
- Boot with no USB audio devices attached, do "lsmod | grep snd_usb_audio" to make sure it's not loaded, create the modprobe file, then plug in your interface.

Good luck!

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by tseaver »

@geoffrey
Two ways to do this I think:
- On the kernel command line, add a parameter "snd_usb_audio.device_setup=1,1,1,1" (I'm guessing this based on the kernel documentation)
or
- Boot with no USB audio devices attached, do "lsmod | grep snd_usb_audio" to make sure it's not loaded, create the modprobe file, then plug in your interface.
I think you could manage the second one without booting unplugged by using 'rmmod' / 'insmod', i.e.:

Code: Select all

$ sudo rmmod snd_usb_audio
$ sudo insmod snd_usb_audio setup=1,1,1,1
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geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

tseaver wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:05 am @geoffrey
Two ways to do this I think:
- On the kernel command line, add a parameter "snd_usb_audio.device_setup=1,1,1,1" (I'm guessing this based on the kernel documentation)
or
- Boot with no USB audio devices attached, do "lsmod | grep snd_usb_audio" to make sure it's not loaded, create the modprobe file, then plug in your interface.
I think you could manage the second one without booting unplugged by using 'rmmod' / 'insmod', i.e.:

Code: Select all

$ sudo rmmod snd_usb_audio
$ sudo insmod snd_usb_audio setup=1,1,1,1
You can try this, except you likely will get:

Code: Select all

rmmod: ERROR: Module snd_usb_audio is in use
Then good luck trying to kill all the alsa/pulseaudio/pipewire processes that are already using the interface. BTDT; possible, but not fun. Also, you'd likely want to use modprobe not insmod. insmod wants a filename, not a module name.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by lad »

geoffrey wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 3:24 pm
- Boot with no USB audio devices attached, do "lsmod | grep snd_usb_audio" to make sure it's not loaded, create the modprobe file, then plug in your interface.
Hi Geoffrey, thank you for the reply. I went this route and it worked! I was so pleased to see all those settings in alsamixer now :p :) -- and then immediately installed your alsa mixer! Great success. It's so nice to have this running under liquorix with a nice mixer ui too. I sent over a small donation for some extra coffee or beer or whatever. :D Cheers
OS: Debian 11 kernel: Liquorix
...trying out AV Linux
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by nanolebrero »

Hi everybody, I have to use my Scarlett 8i6 in an environment that only runs a 4.x kernel (nvidia jetson Nano).
Do you think it is possible to modify the 5.12 kernel patch to be able to apply it to 4.x??
This is the patch: https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports
Can you recommend me any strategy?

Tanks
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

nanolebrero wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2022 1:08 pm Hi everybody, I have to use my Scarlett 8i6 in an environment that only runs a 4.x kernel (nvidia jetson Nano).
Do you think it is possible to modify the 5.12 kernel patch to be able to apply it to 4.x??
This is the patch: https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports
Can you recommend me any strategy?

Tanks
Hi nanolebrero,

It should be possible, although quite some work I would think. I'd start with Linux kernel commit 9e4d5c1b where I first added the support. See if you can take that commit and apply it to your 4.x kernel. If that builds okay then keep adding subsequent patches from further commits that touch sound/usb/mixer_scarlett_gen2.c. For commits that touch that file as well as other files, then you'll need to figure out what's happening & whether to include those changes or not.

I found https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson-linux and https://docs.nvidia.com/jetson/archives ... ation.html which say that NVIDIA Jetson Linux 34 uses kernel 5.10. I really hope you can use that. Backporting to 5.10 will surely be much easier than backporting to 4.9.

Good luck!

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by escuta »

@geoffrey

2nd EDIT:

I deleted my post from earlier but can report that kernels 5.19.9 and 5.19.12 on Arch Linux (5.19.9-arch1-1 and 5.19.12-arch1-1) with pipewire 0.3.58 break audio input on the Scarlett 18i20 Gen 3. All hardware appears as it should in the PipeWire graph, however the inputs produce no signal.

Downgrading to kernel 5.19.8-arch1-1 solves the problem. As does using the LTS kernel: 5.15.71-1-lts
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

Greetings!

I'm looking into purchasing a new (gen 3) 18i20.

Do these units work well when connected to a USB3 port?

Thanks in advance!
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

escuta wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 7:03 pm @geoffrey

2nd EDIT:

I deleted my post from earlier but can report that kernels 5.19.9 and 5.19.12 on Arch Linux (5.19.9-arch1-1 and 5.19.12-arch1-1) with pipewire 0.3.58 break audio input on the Scarlett 18i20 Gen 3. All hardware appears as it should in the PipeWire graph, however the inputs produce no signal.

Downgrading to kernel 5.19.8-arch1-1 solves the problem. As does using the LTS kernel: 5.15.71-1-lts
Hi escuta,

I found problems with recent kernels too, but 5.19.12 fixed it for me presumably because of:
https://lwn.net/Articles/909678/

Code: Select all

Takashi Iwai (4):
      Revert "ALSA: usb-audio: Split endpoint setups for hw_params and prepare"
Which was introduced in 5.19.9:
https://lwn.net/Articles/908139/

Code: Select all

Takashi Iwai (6):
      ALSA: usb-audio: Split endpoint setups for hw_params and prepare
6.0.0 works as well for me.

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by geoffrey »

SmoothMountain wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:00 am Greetings!

I'm looking into purchasing a new (gen 3) 18i20.

Do these units work well when connected to a USB3 port?

Thanks in advance!
Hi SmoothMountain,

The Gen 3 Scarlett devices are USB 2.0 devices. They don't work any better or worse on a USB 3.0 port: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... t-USB-3-0-

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by Nochmal »

I have recently purchased an 18i20 for audio playback since my M-Audio Delta 1010 has given up the ghost. I am using "brutefir" to do DSP of playback through multiple channels like so:

https://i.imgur.com/RHS7mNf.png

I can see that signal is making it all the way through brutefir but nothing is coming out any of the 18i20 outputs. I have updated to the latest kernel of Ubuntu 20.04

$ uname -r
6.1.11-060111-generic

I also have plugged the 18i20 into Windows to make sure the volumes are up etc, and all seems good there. I've also tried routing the Jack Sink straight to the playback outputs...and nothing.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...I'd love to update my setup from the ancient 1010 which is getting harder to replace. Thanks!

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by Nochmal »

OK! I kept plugging away and trying things from this thread and the key was getting alsa-scarlett-gui and getting the analogue outputs actually moved over to software control and running the direct mapping.

Now I get to try and see if I can get rid of all these xruns and buzzing from brutefir (I never had this issue with the 1010 installed...but I've done a ton of version/kernel upgrades, and may have lost some realtime stuff I had before...I'm hoping it's just a realtime thing, but that's for another thread).

Thanks to everyone for the great content in this thread and to those who worked hard to build the scarlett gui!

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by bluebell »

Nochmal wrote: Tue Feb 14, 2023 4:01 am

Now I get to try and see if I can get rid of all these xruns and buzzing from brutefir (I never had this issue with the 1010 installed...but I've done a ton of version/kernel upgrades, and may have lost some realtime stuff I had before...I'm hoping it's just a realtime thing, but that's for another thread).

A lowlatency kernel does the job. But check if you have a file in /etc/security/limits.d with

Code: Select all

@audio   -  rtprio     95
@audio   -  memlock    unlimited

and make sure that your user is in the group audio.

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by Nochmal »

Thanks! I did have that, but had forgotten that I'd done it...this has been running for over 10 years and I can't remember everything I had set up. Good to have this added to the list. :)

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

OK, I went and got an 18i20, and now I'm trying to compile this control panel.

I'm running Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS. I installed the Ubuntu version of the deps: libasound2-dev and libgtk-4-dev. When I run sudo make install I get this error:
error.c: In function ‘show_error’:
error.c:18:3: error: format not a string literal and no format arguments [-Werror=format-security]
18 | );
| ^

@Nochmal
How did you get the control panel installed?

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