Ardour + Jack + External USB Audio Woes

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equant
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 7:07 pm

Ardour + Jack + External USB Audio Woes

Post by equant »

I would like to record audio through an external USB audio card onto my computer. I am running Arch linux, and using ALSA for my day-to-day sound. When using things like zoom/firefox/discord I can use the USB device just fine for both audio in and out. However, I can't get it to work in jackd or ardour.
The USB device is a Creative Sound Blaster Extigy sound card from many years ago...

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equant@xerxes:~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                      HDA Intel PCH at 0xe1040000 irq 125
 1 [Extigy         ]: USB-Audio - Sound Blaster Extigy
                      Creative Technology Ltd. Sound Blaster Extigy at usb-0000:00:14.0-4.4, full spe
When I run jackd, I get the following...

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equant@xerxes:~ $ jackd -d alsa -d hw:Extigy
jackd 0.125.0
<...>
could not open driver .so '/usr/lib/jack/jack_firewire.so': libffado.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

JACK compiled with System V SHM support.
loading driver ..
creating alsa driver ... hw:Extigy|hw:Extigy|1024|2|48000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
configuring for 48000Hz, period = 1024 frames (21.3 ms), buffer = 2 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 16bit little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 16bit little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for playback

**** alsa_pcm: xrun of at least 0.028 msecs

**** alsa_pcm: xrun of at least 0.028 msecs

**** alsa_pcm: xrun of at least 0.026 msecs
I've tried starting jackd with qjackctl. For the interface I choose hw:Extigy, and I've messed around with the sample rate and frames/period, but not been able to get it to work. Jackd runs and gives similar errors, and when I use ardour, it uses the internal microphone to record audio.

Can anyone give me guidance on this? Is this device too old, or unsupported? I'm not sure what the next step is in trouble shooting. Thank you.
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bluebell
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Re: Ardour + Jack + External USB Audio Woes

Post by bluebell »

Is your userid in the group "audio" and so you have a file /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf with the contents

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# Provided by the jackd package.
#
# Changes to this file will be preserved.
#
# If you want to enable/disable realtime permissions, run
#
#    dpkg-reconfigure -p high jackd

@audio   -  rtprio     95
@audio   -  memlock    unlimited
#@audio   -  nice      -19

Linux – MOTU UltraLite AVB – Qtractor – http://suedwestlicht.saar.de/

equant
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 7:07 pm

Re: Ardour + Jack + External USB Audio Woes

Post by equant »

bluebell wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:56 pm Is your userid in the group "audio" and so you have a file /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf with the contents

Code: Select all

# Provided by the jackd package.
#
# Changes to this file will be preserved.
#
# If you want to enable/disable realtime permissions, run
#
#    dpkg-reconfigure -p high jackd

@audio   -  rtprio     95
@audio   -  memlock    unlimited
#@audio   -  nice      -19
I'm on Arch linux, and I think I've set this up correctly. I am in the groups audio and realtime, and here is I think the relevant file.

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equant@xerxes:~ $ cat /etc/security/limits.d/99-realtime-privileges.conf 
@realtime - rtprio 98
@realtime - memlock unlimited
I can use Jack and Ardour with the computer's internal mic input, so I assume that these permissions/groups are set up correctly?

I'm starting to think I should throw avlinux on an older laptop and see if I can get the usb soundcard to work that way.
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