[Solved] Alsa to Jack

[Blindekinder]

Hi!
I have a dedicated system for sound, a Kubuntu/KX repositories, using Cadence to run Jack. I uninstalled PuleAudio, and I'm not going to reinstall it.
All my sound production softwares are running with Jack, and I always use an external sound interface. However sometimes I need to play a sound from a browser or maybe an app with no Jack outputs. For now, I have no sound at all running Firefox/Chromium, VLC in alsa mode etc...

-alsa2jack bridge in Cadence starts and spawn a Jack client, but no sound. How can I get it work?
-another solution would be to have the browser(or whatever) sound going to internal LS or HP even while Jack is running, but no idea how to do that.

any idea?

[tseaver]

@Blindekinder: AFAIK, you are out of luck for the browser case: both Firefox and Chromium on Linux only speak PulseAudio.

As for the other audio-using apps: anything which wants to use "raw" ALSA is going to expect exclusive access to the soundcard, which is impossible given that JACK has already claimed it.

I've tried using the video card's HDMI audio output in the past for "consumer" audio output, but without success: unacceptable glitching / dropouts / XRUNs made listening to anything more than lo-fi speech unacceptable. YMMV, of course.

[d.healey]

You need pulse or better pipe wire

[bluzee]

What I do is use both the external and the built in sound on the motherboard. Using pulse volume control set the external device to off and leave it on for the internal device. This lets you run jack on the external. Web browser needing pulse can use the internal. The analog monitor outputs from both devices go to a mixer and then to your amplifier or powered monitors . You can hear all audio devices at the same time.

If you don't want to have pulse at all you can use the apluse wrapper program to run your web browser and that will trick it into playing to the device. The browser sees it as pulse audio but in fact it is alsa. You can only use one audio application at a time this way though. It will play to your internal card and you can run jack on the external.

Pulse is fine as long as you keep it on one device and give jack exclusive access to your external device. Just get yourself a mixer if you don't already have one.

[Blindekinder]

ok, I thought it was an issue on the system. Not nice from Firefox not to support ALSA anymore... I don't want to install PA. I'll try with Pipewire.

[Blindekinder]

What I do is use both the external and the built in sound on the motherboard. Using pulse volume control set the external device to off and leave it on for the internal device. This lets you run jack on the external. Web browser needing pulse can use the internal. The analog monitor outputs from both devices go to a mixer and then to your amplifier or powered monitors . You can hear all audio devices at the same time.

If you don't want to have pulse at all you can use the apluse wrapper program to run your web browser and that will trick it into playing to the device. The browser sees it as pulse audio but in fact it is alsa. You can only use one audio application at a time this way though. It will play to your internal card and you can run jack on the external.

Pulse is fine as long as you keep it on one device and give jack exclusive access to your external device. Just get yourself a mixer if you don't already have one.

oh, didn't see your post bluzee, this would be the best solution. I don't want to mix entertainment with sound production.

[Blindekinder]

Ok, this config works for me:

Pulse Audio manage internal Intel, and I disabled my interfaces in PA volume control.

Thank you!

[j_e_f_f_g]

I don't want to mix entertainment with sound production.

What kind of music are you mixing that isn't entertaining?

[GMaq]

Hi, @Blindekinder

Unless you use only 2 apps regularly and compile most of your own applications including compiling Firefox with JACK or ALSA support every 14 minutes when it updates... the ship to use a regular system with only JACK and ALSA sailed about 10 years ago and it's never coming back.. I don't love PulseAudio but I learned to live with it and have lived with it and Distributed a working system with it for years. I've only briefly tested PipeWire a few times but KXStudio, UbuntuStudio, LibraZik, and AV Linux have had the whole PulseAudio and JACK thing figured out for years it is WELL documented in many places how to make them work. I've seen you post Audio issues here with at least 3 different Distros (mine included). I think you have either a hardware problem or a fundamental misunderstanding of what to expect this stuff to work like..

[Blindekinder]

Hi, @Blindekinder

Unless you use like 2 apps regularly and compile most of your own applications including compiling Firefox every 14 minutes when it updates the ship to use a regular system with only JACK and ALSA sailed about 10 years ago and it's never coming back.. I don't love PulseAudio but I learned to live with it and have lived with it and Distributed a working system with it for years. I've only briefly tested PipeWire a few times but KXStudio, UbuntuStudio, LibraZik, and AV Linux have had the whole PulseAudio and JACK thing figured out for years it is WELL documented in many places how to make them work. I've seen you post Audio issues here with at least 3 different Distros (mine included). I think you have either a hardware problem or a fundamental misunderstanding of what to expect this stuff to work like..

This is outer topic:
Sure, since last year I posted a lot of issues.
I started long time ago with a Firewire device and Ubuntu Studio. It used to crash often and I never really solved the issue. I had better result on other distribution like CCRMA, but the best period was with a RME Multiface and an expresscard. During almost ten years I had no hardware issue, using mainly KXStudio with it. Then my computer get too old (in term of hardware, unfortunately cause it was powerful enough to make music!). So I bought a very new Lenovo and a RME Fireface UCXII, and I experience these issues I never had.
I guess my computer is too new. For example the internal card wasn't recognized with AVL. Now everything is getting better.
Beside I test a lot of class-compliant devices and usb mixers I find in theaters and concert venues, or devices like usb-headphone amp, usb-preamps, DACs etc. Most are working, some are not.
This of course has nothing to do with listening the sound of my browser through Jack, which never really work even on my last computer. I only expected to just launch A2J bridge and listen to the tutorial I need, or listen to an inspiring track on Bandcamp. Now I can do that with my headphones, it's ok.

[Blindekinder]

I don't want to mix entertainment with sound production.

What kind of music are you mixing that isn't entertaining?

Was it unclear? Sorry: it means I want to keep a seal between the apps that play the sound I produce and the other like browsers, video players, music platform, system sounds, visio etc...
But now you're asking, the first adjective that comes in my mind about for example Alvin Lucier's music (since it was my last performance) is not "entertaining"...

[onefang]

Using apulse here, which redirects pulseaudio using things like firefox to ALSA. No PulseAudio or Pipewire installed here, pure ALSA and JACK.

[Blindekinder]

after some weeks of use, I'm pretty happy with the 'PA for internal sound' solution. I deactivated all other devices in PA mixer.