New to ubuntu studio, need some guidance

[stej]

New to linux audio, not new to audio in general. Using kubuntu 20.04 +ubuntu studio on a general purpose workstation.

My audio setup
Onboard: Realtek ALC1220
USB: Steinberg UR22, Creative G6
and a bunch of HDMI outs

Using ubuntu studio controls, after a bit of testing I settled on a realtek master with the usb interfaces bridged in and it works great for what I need it for.

My problem is rather trivial I believe. Since the master is on Realtek, I only get the option to autoplug that one to pulse. I created additional sources and sinks which persist through reboot, but I can't connect them through ubuntu studio controls.
So I just fire up Carla for the required patching. But I have to do this on every reboot. There has to be a better way to handle this task, right?

Would also be great if I could get my fx rack (which I also do through Carla currently) to autostart. At the moment I just manually run Carla every time I boot and restore a profile I saved which does all the connections and loads the various plugins. Then I have to leave Carla running. If I close carla the connections persist, but the fx don't.

Additionally, I can't get my HDMI outs to work when running jack. Whether I bridge them in or not, makes no difference. I don't see them available in carla, nor pulse. Except once. I did see an HDMI once in pulse. Lost it on next reboot, never to be seen again. No clue how or why.

Finally, I've also set up a52 plugin (for realtime dd encoding) on the realtek optical out that works just fine while not running jack. Pulse sees it and I can select it as an output and it's also available directly through alsa on vlc. When running jack however, pulse can't see it anymore whether it's bridged or not and in Carla I only get the direct out available. It's still available through alsa in vlc at least, but I lose systemwide access to it.

Would be nice if I could have access to it either through pulse by not bridging it in or carla (if I could get the a52 plugin to run there somehow).

Ok, that's all. Appreciate any suggestions.

[Toejam76]

I disabled the onboard device in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. Added "blacklist snd_hda_intel" to prevent loading the driver. Now the USB interface is chosen as the default. The file blacklist.conf exists on Ubuntu, on Solus it had to be created.