Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Talk about your MIDI interfaces, microphones, keyboards...

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geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

Jyves wrote: Thu Mar 17, 2022 6:29 pm Thank's for the job accomplish, Sorry English is not my native languish.
I struggle to understand what you'r trying to achieve?
A "kindof" Fucusrite Control tool for Linux : Okay.
Will it support the Other than the Scarlett?
Will the Clarett be supported one day?
Just a question: do not take it bad!
Hi Jyves,

Yes, exactly right. I have achieved a "kind of" Focusrite Control tool for Linux. Before I did this work, none of the proprietary Scarlett Gen 2 or Gen 3 controls could be configured under Linux. And now, there is more functionality available in Linux using this than in the Focusrite control tool!

The Clarett and Clarett+ USB interfaces should work under Linux as the streaming audio functionality is apparently class-compliant, but the proprietary controls (air, pad, inst, routing, mixing, etc.) would not be available. Based on what I've seen so far, I think I could add the mixer driver (proprietary controls) support for the Clarett and Clarett+ USB interfaces, but I don't have the hardware to develop and test with. Donations are welcome!

Regards,
Geoffrey.
Jyves
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by Jyves »

Thank's for your response,

Probably i would sell you my Clarett 8 Pre for a low price if you where in my country.
I can understand that it is hard to own every devices, just to make tests.
Nowadays recent kernels since 5.15 i think, have hardware mixer into alsamixer and others...
But only for some Scarlett series. I know C langage rather well but
for now i would not know how to achieve this into the kernel.

My linux kernel experience is too poor for programming.

This is boring to boot windows just to fix a card behavior.
I should have to buy another card, i think.
Focusrite will not be my friend anymore.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by RockMaster »

Great stuff. By the way, is there a way to enable/disable direct monitoring?
geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

RockMaster wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 12:15 am Great stuff. By the way, is there a way to enable/disable direct monitoring?
Yes there is. Nearly every feature supported by the Focusrite Control software is also supported under Linux (and there are some features that FC doesn't have). See the documentation at https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-gui for instructions.
ttllc
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by ttllc »

Geoffrey, I just joined LinuxMusicians as a non-musician, but experienced sound engineer/broadcast TV/TV talent/production assistant/scriptwriter experienced (current) aerospace engineer - I recently interacted (even today) with Focusrite on hardware to handle small remote sites for instructional scientific and engineering education projects - and was told about the non-support for Linux.

Is there a way to speak with you/make contact with you? I don't see a way to send messages. I am asking as my team of EE/RF/CS/Audio/TV and other engineers, who are all friends of mine for many years more than professional colleagues looked at the alternative of designing our own Linux based audio pre-amp with digital control and given the number of projects "out there" over the last four decades of high-quality audio with/without chipsets with fully vetted schematics and advanced audio processing chipsets, the reaction was "is that all the requirement is?".

But I'm not saying that we have a solution ready to go, possibly with a few tens of dollars of parts, a prototype in a few months. It would be fun to do an audio project after these many years - I was a team member of Wadia Digital in 1989 - that company was doing 64x oversampling DSP DAC for CD transports for the audiophile market - and I was a freshly minted CS undergrad.

Why? I've been a Unix developer since 1983. Way too many platforms - and the remote control abilities of any *NIX and also certain modern tools such as OBS Studio (Linux version) interest me. But would you be willing to have a discussion on ways to present a command/response instruction set to your current control application, but running with vastly different audio interface hardware?
geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

ttllc wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 10:05 pm[...] Is there a way to speak with you/make contact with you? I don't see a way to send messages. [...]
Hi ttllc, sure! On here you need to have made a few public posts before you can send private messages, but you can contact me by email: g at b4 dot vu. Regards, Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by RockMaster »

Is there some sort of ELI5 what are the Hardware, PCM and Mixer I/Os and how they interact? I think I understand the Hardware part, but what are these other two for?
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

RockMaster wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 10:19 am Is there some sort of ELI5 what are the Hardware, PCM and Mixer I/Os and how they interact? I think I understand the Hardware part, but what are these other two for?
Hi RockMaster,

- Hardware refers the physical analogue and digital inputs and outputs on the interface.
- PCM is the USB audio connection to your computer.
- PCM Inputs are the audio channels you use for recording (Scarlett to PC).
- PCM Outputs are the audio channels you use for playback (PC to Scarlett).
- Mixer is used if you want to more than one audio source going to a single destination.

They don't interact except as you create connections from audio sources to audio destinations.

The usual/normal/boring configuration has the Hardware Inputs connected to PCM Inputs, and PCM Outputs connected to Hardware Outputs; that lets you do the usual playback & recording stuff. But you can connect the sources and destinations together however you want using the Routing window.

I hope this helps. If you have more questions, please ask away.

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by fab2 »

Hello Geoffrey,

First, thank you for this amazing work (driver+gui). I've sent you some bucks via paypal ;)

I have 1 question : on the front of the scarlett gen3 4i4, i can see the midi led and a hole for a jack 6.3 on the right.
However, i cant' see anything relevant in the Control Panel. Did i missed something ?

regards,

f.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by GuntherT »

I don't own one of these devices, but I still wanted to compliment you on the work you've done. The GUI looks fantastic and appears very easy to use and understand. You have done a great service to owners of this line of audio interfaces, and I hope they reward you for your efforts.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by tseaver »

@GuntherT wrote:
I don't own one of these devices, but I still wanted to compliment you on the work you've done. The GUI looks fantastic and appears very easy to use and understand. You have done a great service to owners of this line of audio interfaces, and I hope they reward you for your efforts.
I quite agree: I own a Focusrite 18I20 Gen 1 interface, and so don't need @geoffrey's work, per se, but am enormously grateful for it, for at least two reasons:
  • it gives me a straightforward migration path to upgrade my interface;
  • the new GUI actually makes it possible for me to understand what the actual FSCK the internal routing on my oldish interface actually does!
Bravo, @geoffrey, and put me down for one of many who owe you a $BEVERAGE_OF_CHOICE.


Tres.
Ubuntu, Mixbus32C; acoustic blues / country / jazz
geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

fab2 wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:14 pm Hello Geoffrey,

First, thank you for this amazing work (driver+gui). I've sent you some bucks via paypal ;)

I have 1 question : on the front of the scarlett gen3 4i4, i can see the midi led and a hole for a jack 6.3 on the right.
However, i cant' see anything relevant in the Control Panel. Did i missed something ?

regards,

f.
Hi fab2,

Thank you for your donation! It's greatly appreciated!

The control panel doesn't do anything with MIDI. It's only for audio configuration. The MIDI just works in Linux and AFAIK there's no configuration to be done.

The 6.3mm jack on the bottom-right of the front panel is for stereo headphones. They are wired in parallel with the Line 3/4 outputs on the back (although the headphone volume control on the front only adjusts the headphone volume) and are labelled "Analogue 3" and "Analogue 4" outputs in the control panel.

Regards,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

tseaver wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:35 am @GuntherT wrote:
I don't own one of these devices, but I still wanted to compliment you on the work you've done. The GUI looks fantastic and appears very easy to use and understand. You have done a great service to owners of this line of audio interfaces, and I hope they reward you for your efforts.
I quite agree: I own a Focusrite 18I20 Gen 1 interface, and so don't need @geoffrey's work, per se, but am enormously grateful for it, for at least two reasons:
  • it gives me a straightforward migration path to upgrade my interface;
  • the new GUI actually makes it possible for me to understand what the actual FSCK the internal routing on my oldish interface actually does!
Bravo, @geoffrey, and put me down for one of many who owe you a $BEVERAGE_OF_CHOICE.


Tres.
Thank you Gunther and Tres! :)

@tseaver would you mind running "alsactl -f /tmp/scarlett-gen1-18i20.state store USB" and sending me that file? I'll see if it's possible to make my GUI work with 1st gen devices too.

Thanks,
Geoffrey.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by tseaver »

Code: Select all

@tseaver would you mind running "alsactl -f /tmp/scarlett-gen1-18i20.state store USB" and sending me that file? I'll see if it's possible to make my GUI work with 1st gen devices too.
@geoffrey here is the output from that command (too long to paste here):

https://palladion.com/static/scarlett-i ... config.txt

Muchas gracias!


Tres.
Ubuntu, Mixbus32C; acoustic blues / country / jazz
geoffrey
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 2/3 Control Panel GUI

Post by geoffrey »

tseaver wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 6:51 am

Code: Select all

@tseaver would you mind running "alsactl -f /tmp/scarlett-gen1-18i20.state store USB" and sending me that file? I'll see if it's possible to make my GUI work with 1st gen devices too.
@geoffrey here is the output from that command (too long to paste here):

https://palladion.com/static/scarlett-i ... config.txt

Muchas gracias!


Tres.
Ooh, I think we could make this work. Can you send me a PM please & we can discuss.
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