Focusrite Clarett/Clarett+ USB Linux support

[eximiousmoto]

After following the instructions from below, I was able to fix my build with ubuntu 23 and the demo is working!

I wanted to share the fix which is posted under github.

https://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa ... /issues/50

As an aside and in case someone has the same issue, i did a fresh install of the alsa gui for the Clarett+ 8 pre and applied antode's suggestion.

Thank you so much.

Good recording!

[eximiousmoto]

I would be curious to see other people's wiring/routing setup for mixing/recording/mastering.

Also does anyone know is there any affect on latency with the routing within the audio interface?

Good recording!

[tseaver]

@eximiousmoto

Also does anyone know is there any affect on latency with the routing within the audio interface?

Zero latency for any signal routed from hardware inputs to hardware outputs (just like the smaller interfaces where you can mix between the raw input and audio from the USB host).

[xavierbaez]

Well with the Clarett+ 4Pre work we are doing I am testing on all the Linux distributions I have

• EndeavourOS
• Ubuntu
• Manjaro
• Garuda
  -openSUSE
• Mint

I am testing with Kernels
-3.1
-3.2
-3.3

[eximiousmoto]

which kernel do u use? rt/low latency?

Longterm release kernels Version Maintainer Released Projected EOL
6.1 Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin 2022-12-11 Dec, 2026
5.15 Greg Kroah-Hartman & Sasha Levin 2021-10-31 Oct, 2026

which distribution is most stable and best thusfar?

[eximiousmoto]

Anybody knows how to enable Air mode with that software?

I have the Focusrite Clarett+ 4 Pre and I can run the alsa-scarlett-gui.

try the alsa mixer from command line for air
or just add a gentle slope from about 200hz to 20k (0 to 3db respectively) in your eq.
air does not appear to add harmonic distortion.

[geoffrey]

Anyone with a Clarett+ 4Pre, please try the kernel at https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scar ... g/v6.5.3c1 — if I get good feedback on that then I will submit upstream and we can have 4Pre support in the mainline kernel.

Anyone with a Clarett 4Pre USB, please get in contact with me (email or direct message) and we should be able to add support for that really easily too.

clarett-4pre-alsa-scarlett-gui.png (136.68 KiB) Viewed 3821 times

[runiq]

Anyone with a Clarett+ 4Pre, please try the kernel at https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scar ... g/v6.5.3c1 — if I get good feedback on that then I will submit upstream and we can have 4Pre support in the mainline kernel.

That's amazing, kudos!

I have a Clarett+ 2Pre—is there anything I can do to help you add support for that as well? I sent an email to the person who wrote the original Clarett+ 8P kernel module a few months ago, but they only requested the PCI IDs and haven't replied since (I pinged them once).

[geoffrey]

Anyone with a Clarett+ 4Pre, please try the kernel at https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scar ... g/v6.5.3c1 — if I get good feedback on that then I will submit upstream and we can have 4Pre support in the mainline kernel.

That's amazing, kudos!

I have a Clarett+ 2Pre—is there anything I can do to help you add support for that as well? I sent an email to the person who wrote the original Clarett+ 8P kernel module a few months ago, but they only requested the PCI IDs and haven't replied since (I pinged them once).

Hi @runiq,

Yes, certainly there is. Please email me & I'll work with you on this.

Thanks,
Geoffrey.

[FlowerEssenZzz]

Hello Geoffrey, can't congratulate you enough for your tremendous work on Focusrite interfaces!

...Hence my question: Is there any hope for Thunderbolt Clarett interfaces? I am the owner of a 4Pre TB2 (connected to a mac mini thanks to the apple tb2/tb3 converter), which is perfectly authorized ("enrolled") on Linux (I've tried many distros, ATM I'm on OpenSuse Tumbleweed and EndeavourOS, but I don't mind changing to whatever distro necessary).

I use the plasma-thunderbolt extension to authorize all my TB devices (including the Clarett 4Pre), and tbtadm to add them to the ACL.

(The only limitation I have right now, is the impossibility to boot a Linux partition installed on an external thunderbolt SSD. For now the only thing that works is to connect my Linux SSDs to USB, which is very far from ideal... Searched everywhere, found no solution )

My goal is to start doing on Linux everything I've done since longtime on macOS and Windows: composing, recording, arranging and mixing music.
But of course it's impossible without a working driver...

Thanks in advance for any info, have a nice day!

[geoffrey]

The Clarett USB/Clarett+ support made it in to Linux 6.7:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/878r7gjlbw ... i@suse.de/

[geoffrey]

Hi @FlowerEssenZzz,

Hello Geoffrey, can't congratulate you enough for your tremendous work on Focusrite interfaces!

Thank you .

...Hence my question: Is there any hope for Thunderbolt Clarett interfaces? I am the owner of a 4Pre TB2 (connected to a mac mini thanks to the apple tb2/tb3 converter), which is perfectly authorized ("enrolled") on Linux (I've tried many distros, ATM I'm on OpenSuse Tumbleweed and EndeavourOS, but I don't mind changing to whatever distro necessary).

I'm sorry, I have no idea about Thunderbolt except what I found from Googling which doesn't look promising at all

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxaudio/com ... nterfaces/
https://sourceforge.net/p/alsa/mailman/ ... sg36598558

"Thunderbolt is like the bad old days of firewire. Everyone is doing their own thing and it's going to take a new generation of brave souls to reverse engineer each one." And I can't find any mention of any Thunderbolt devices supported by ALSA.

Regards,
Geoffrey.

[FlowerEssenZzz]

Hi @FlowerEssenZzz,

I'm sorry, I have no idea about Thunderbolt except what I found from Googling which doesn't look promising at all

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxaudio/com ... nterfaces/
https://sourceforge.net/p/alsa/mailman/ ... sg36598558

"Thunderbolt is like the bad old days of firewire. Everyone is doing their own thing and it's going to take a new generation of brave souls to reverse engineer each one." And I can't find any mention of any Thunderbolt devices supported by ALSA.

Regards,
Geoffrey.

Hi, and thank you for your answer!

It's very difficult to find really useful information - not theoretical - about TB on Linux, for now I know how to authorize a device, and have an vague idea about the security measures concerning especially this interface :

For example, the fact that I cannot boot a Linux partition from an external TB drive is not a bug, but a kernel feature, to circumvent a potential threat (2 different CVE) where one could gain root access to a computer by this way (I know it's vague, but I'm just a noobie without any technical background).

(It's interesting to note that macOS and Windows both ignore this limitation, so with my mac mini I can perfectly boot from an external mac or win partition connected to any of the 4 TB3 ports of the mini)

So a potential Linux driver dev would have to take these security measures into account, which add to the difficulty created by the lack of fine publicly available documentation (specially oriented to developers), but hey, knowing that TB protocol is now integrated in the USB4 standard by default, I have good faith that one day someone with good skills will be interested in creating drivers for that kind of gear.

[erlkönig]

HI @geoffrey

clarett8pre_usb_gui.jpg (40.19 KiB) Viewed 2592 times

looks good with Clarett 8PRE USB

Thank you so much! Your guide was easy to understand and to follow, everything ran without a flaw. This UI looks much clearer to me, than what i remember from the original Focusrite UI.
I didn't check any functionality by now (i'm in a little hurry, but probably this evening), but why shouldn't it work?. I'm curious on how "air" sounds...

I think you really add a big value to Focusrite products with your work.

Thank you again!