Midlife crisis? Probably.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Hi,

I'm Dave, I'm 50 and I'm one of the many people who rediscovered the joys of losing days to making music during lockdown.

After playing in bands and getting into home recording during my twenties (the 90s!) life got in the way but I've never stopped making music. It's a fundamental part of who I am.

I'm not sure when I switched from Windows to Linux - I think it was probably about 15 years ago - but it's mostly served me well. Most things work as they should without any recourse to the terminal and internet searches.

I wish that was true for music production!

I genuinely spend more time trying to get things to work than I spend making music. My landlady can attest to the amount of swearing that Jack/ALSA engender.

[onmyown]

Cheer up man!

[bluebell]

I genuinely spend more time trying to get things to work than I spend making music. My landlady can attest to the amount of swearing that Jack/ALSA engender.

Welcome aboard.

I guess there are many people spending more time with technical stuff than making music – especially in times of little musical inspiration. Me for example.

[Linuxmusician01]

Use the KISS (keep it short and simple) principle with JackAudio:

Code: Select all

 jackd -d alsa --device hw:0

Done.

[tavasti]

I'm not sure when I switched from Windows to Linux - I think it was probably about 15 years ago - but it's mostly served me well. Most things work as they should without any recourse to the terminal and internet searches.

I wish that was true for music production!

I genuinely spend more time trying to get things to work than I spend making music. My landlady can attest to the amount of swearing that Jack/ALSA engender.

Hi, welcome to board!

I am about same age as you. I started with linux much earlier, when it was on its early stages, and sure I am familiar with command line. However, with music I started much later, something like 8 years ago from zero.

Somehow I don't have any problems with jack. I have jack started all the time, and also pulse running, pulse outputting everyhing to jack (with pulseaudio-module-jack )

[Rodney]

Hi,

I'm Dave, I'm 50 and I'm one of the many people who rediscovered the joys of losing days to making music during lockdown.

After playing in bands and getting into home recording during my twenties (the 90s!) life got in the way but I've never stopped making music. It's a fundamental part of who I am.

I'm not sure when I switched from Windows to Linux - I think it was probably about 15 years ago - but it's mostly served me well. Most things work as they should without any recourse to the terminal and internet searches.

I wish that was true for music production!

I genuinely spend more time trying to get things to work than I spend making music. My landlady can attest to the amount of swearing that Jack/ALSA engender.

I think that´s because you are using a distribution that is not ready for that. I highly recommend AVLinux, it´s a distro that right out of the bat, works for both Audio and Video production. And a new version has just been released . So check it out, it´s awesome! For more information, check at "Linux Music News" the topic: "AVL-Linux MX 21 released!" or just go to the website: http://www.bandshed.net/2022/02/14/av-l ... -released/ read the manual and have fun! PS: There´s a sneak peek video on youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg9tiKFsrBo&t=13s by the sole creator and awesome maintainer of AVL: @GMaq . He kicks ass!

[Primeval_Mudd]

I think that´s because you are using a distribution that is not ready for that. I highly recommend AVLinux, it´s a distro that right out of the bat, works for both Audio and Video production. And a new version has just been released . So check it out, it´s awesome! For more information, check at "Linux Music News" the topic: "AVL-Linux MX 21 released!" or just go to the website: http://www.bandshed.net/2022/02/14/av-l ... -released/ read the manual and have fun! PS: There´s a sneak peek video on youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg9tiKFsrBo&t=13s by the sole creator and awesome maintainer of AVL: @GMaq . He kicks ass!

Hi Rodney,

I tried AVLinux last year but we didn't really get on. I'm going to give it another go at some point in the very near future - I need to 'merge' a Mint and an Ubuntu to free up a drive for it first.

[GMaq]

I tried AVLinux last year but we didn't really get on. I'm going to give it another go at some point in the very near future - I need to 'merge' a Mint and an Ubuntu to free up a drive for it first.

Depending on which version you tried that is quite possible... Pre 'MX' versions of AV Linux were indeed a bit trickier to get installed but the most recent release has a lot of improvements in that regard as well as the who's who of applications at your fingertips. It may still not end up being your cup of tea but I develop it and I am here to help as much as I can be (how much is very dependent on my seasonal work).

[Primeval_Mudd]

Depending on which version you tried that is quite possible... Pre 'MX' versions of AV Linux were indeed a bit trickier to get installed but the most recent release has a lot of improvements in that regard as well as the who's who of applications at your fingertips. It may still not end up being your cup of tea but I develop it and I am here to help as much as I can be (how much is very dependent on my seasonal work).

Cheers GMaq,

I'll definitely give it another go.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Depending on which version you tried that is quite possible... Pre 'MX' versions of AV Linux were indeed a bit trickier to get installed but the most recent release has a lot of improvements in that regard as well as the who's who of applications at your fingertips. It may still not end up being your cup of tea but I develop it and I am here to help as much as I can be (how much is very dependent on my seasonal work).

Cheers GMaq,

I'll definitely give it another go.

'Tis now installed on an external SSD.

Now for the fun of copying the Reaper .config etc over.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Somehow I don't have any problems with jack. I have jack started all the time, and also pulse running, pulse outputting everyhing to jack (with pulseaudio-module-jack )

Most of my problems are around MIDI connections reordering themselves, leading to loads of time wasted changing things in Reaper accordingly, though using a2jmidid -ue has helped.

At some point I'm going to add a /etc/modprobe.d/usb_order.conf file, as per this post in the Reaper forums.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Depending on which version you tried that is quite possible... Pre 'MX' versions of AV Linux were indeed a bit trickier to get installed but the most recent release has a lot of improvements in that regard as well as the who's who of applications at your fingertips. It may still not end up being your cup of tea but I develop it and I am here to help as much as I can be (how much is very dependent on my seasonal work).

Cheers GMaq,

I'll definitely give it another go.

'Tis now installed on an external SSD.

Now for the fun of copying the Reaper .config etc over.

I've remembered why we didn't get on - AVLinux gets a tad confused when I'm using two monitors with different resolutions.

Monitor-mayhem.png (165.68 KiB) Viewed 3083 times

I suspect that's covered in the manual, to which I shall shortly return...

[Basslint]

Welcome! As for the ALSA/JACK issues, may I suggest you to switch to Pipewire? I (and others) have been using it for a while, including for musicmaking, and so far I personally had no issues (except occasionally with the session managers, but both pipewire-media-session and wireplumber seem stable)

[GMaq]

@Primeval_Mudd

Install arandr and see if you can get a sane setup with the monitors then you can use arandr to save that setup as a '.sh' script and have that autostart when you login. As far as wallpaper 'Nitrogen' will allow you to set a different wallpaper for each screen if that is an issue.

I DO NOT recommend using Pipewire with AVL at this time, it is not a a mature point in Debian yet, I don't understand why people don't just use Reaper and Ardour with ALSA, JACK is really not required at all for non-modular workflows within DAWs

[Primeval_Mudd]

@Primeval_Mudd

Install arandr and see if you can get a sane setup with the monitors then you can use arandr to save that setup as a '.sh' script and have that autostart when you login. As far as wallpaper 'Nitrogen' will allow you to set a different wallpaper for each screen if that is an issue.

Thanks, I'll give arandr a go when next I'm in AVL - I'm back in Mint at the minute for non-music stuff.

I DO NOT recommend using Pipewire with AVL at this time, it is not a a mature point in Debian yet, I don't understand why people don't just use Reaper and Ardour with ALSA, JACK is really not required at all for non-modular workflows within DAWs

I've tried using ALSA in Reaper but it doesn't find the MIDI devices. I'm absolutely certain that this is user error and I'm just missing something very simple!