Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Talk about your MIDI interfaces, microphones, keyboards...

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SmoothMountain
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

Hmmm.

It also says this:
cc1: all warnings being treated as errors
make: *** [Makefile:35: error.o] Error 1

I know how to follow instructions, but I know nothing about compiling.

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

Nevermind...

I just used the .rpm, I unpacked it and manually copied the files...

Time to test!

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

Initial tests, everything works!

I took it out of SDM, and opened the control panel. Good stuff!

I have a problem, I get a high pitched whine when I open Reaper. I put an instance of mda ePiano on a track to find the pitch. It's around B6.

It's a strange thing...

  • It's louder with large projects & lots of tracks, quieter with no tracks
  • the volume on the 18i20 does not affect the volume of the whine: 0%, 100%, no difference
  • I added Airwindows BitShiftGain at the output and cranked the gain up, I got hiss, but no increase in the whine
  • It doesn't change when I change the sample rate: 44100, 48000, no difference
  • goes away when I close Reaper
  • It is not present when listening to music on Youtube

I'll bring this up in the Reaper forum as well. I'm hoping someone will know what this is, and that it's not some rare and bizarre bug in my setup.

I'm running Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, kernal 5.19.0-32-generic x86_64, on a new AMD Ryzen 7950X/64GB (using the Ryzen integrated graphics, no GPU card) setup. Not using Pipewire, just ALSA (no Jack).

Regards

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by palvji »

Hello people,

First of all, thanks for this wonderful forum and info and special props to @geoffrey for the amazing driver.

I'm having issues with my Scarlett 4i4 3rd Gen where it disconnects when playing loud sound (specially through headphones/outputs 3/4?).

I'm currently running

Code: Select all

Linux somehost 5.15.0-60-lowlatency

in Kubuntu 22.04LTS with the Ubuntu Studio installer.

The thing is I started to observe this behaviour using a 13 year old motherboard (that was working perfectly ok) and this post in the Focusrite support page made me think it might have to do with USB 2 power capabilities.

So I upgraded the whole PC, now using a new motherboard with USB 3 interfaces but the problem persist. I tested the soundcard with a Macbook Pro M1 and it found new firmware for the card so I upgraded it. In MacOS seems to work ok, but back to Linux the issue remains.

I have a .wav file that seems to trigger the problem pretty easily, so I've run a bunch of tests and if I mute outputs 3 and 4 (using the ALSA Scarlett Control Panel) the issue seems to go away. I've read online about a lot of users getting the soundcard disconnect/reset on pretty much any OS but the fact that in MacOS seems to work ok makes me think it might be some power management thing in the Linux driver and that the soundcard itself works ok.

Has anyone experience this thing and if so, how did you fix it? Is pretty annoying, to say the least

Thanks for your help

Last edited by palvji on Tue Feb 21, 2023 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by bluebell »

palvji wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:58 am

Hello people,

First of all, thanks for this wonderful forum and info and special props to @geoffrey for the amazing driver.

I'm having issues with my Scarlett 4i4 3rd Gen where it disconnects when playing loud sound (specially through headphones/outputs 3/4?).

Probably the USB port doesn't deliver enough power. Try a USB hub with power supply (powered USB hub).

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

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by palvji »

bluebell wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:57 pm

Probably the USB port doesn't deliver enough power. Try a USB hub with power supply (powered USB hub).

Could that be the cause when it happens with 2 different motherboards and PSUs you think?

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by francoisromain »

Hello

Thank you for the driver and the wonderful GUI app.

With the 18i20 3rd gen, I can only use ADAT 1 inputs (eight inputs), but not the ADAT 2.
Is it normal?
Is it also possible to enable ADAT 2 inputs?

Thank you

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by bluebell »

palvji wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 2:24 pm
bluebell wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:57 pm

Probably the USB port doesn't deliver enough power. Try a USB hub with power supply (powered USB hub).

Could that be the cause when it happens with 2 different motherboards and PSUs you think?

Hmm... probably not. Maybe a USB cable issue?

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by francoisromain »

Whilst the Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen has two ports, you cannot add an extra 16 channels via ADAT.

From support.focusrite.com.

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by palvji »

bluebell wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 1:57 pm

Probably the USB port doesn't deliver enough power. Try a USB hub with power supply (powered USB hub).

Mate, for some reason this worked :lol:

It's new motherboard, CPU, PSU, RAM but the issue persisted. I also tested in a laptop using Kubuntu (no low latency kernel) and it worked flawlessly, but when I tested in a brand new Kubuntu installation in my desktop back to the error again :?:

For now I'll use the powered usb hub, but just out of curiosity I'll take out the graphics card, which is the only thing this new pc build shares with the old one, see if there's some sort of power issue with it.

It's either the graphics card or the pc case...

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by tseaver »

@francoisromain

Whilst the Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen has two ports, you cannot add an extra 16 channels via ADAT.

There are two ADAT ports on the 18i20, one for 8 ADAT inputs, and one for 8 ADAT outputs.

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by francoisromain »

@tseaver

tseaver wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:23 am

There are two ADAT ports on the 18i20, one for 8 ADAT inputs, and one for 8 ADAT outputs

The 18i20 3rd has two ADAT inputs and two ADAT outputs. hence my confusion.

Image

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by bardus72 »

davemiller72 wrote: Sat May 09, 2020 4:35 pm

Ok, so I went for the Scarlett 4i4 (because it was available right now and who wants to wait for new toys :D ) Initial findings as follows:

1. System and use case
OS: Ubuntu Studio 19.10
Kernel: 5.3.0-51-lowlatency
Plugged in to a USB3 port and running Jack

I am basically sticking 2 dynamic mics in the front using XLR and two electro-acoustic guitars in the back using TS cables. So I don’t need to switch between line/instr levels right now, but I'll probably want to use the electric guitar at some stage.
I don’t use MIDI much, other than a USB keyboard, so the in/out ports on the back of the 4i4 are of little interest to me personally.

2. Does it work?

  1. Yes: I can plug it in and get signals to Ardour; Inputs and outputs show up in Carla (6 ins, interestingly, 4 outs)
  2. JACK started using Ubuntu Studio Controls. (I’ve tried it successfully with QjackCtl too, now I have some sort of idea how that works - knowledge increasing hourly!)
  3. QASMixer lists the Scarlett, but if selected nothing shows. Sometimes crashes.
  4. Pressing 48V for 5 seconds didn’t drop it out of MSD for me.
  5. I couldn’t access the built-in drive, even though it showed up in File Manager.
  6. So I went and did the setup on Windows which switched it out of MSD. And I registered the device with Focusrite while I was at it.
  7. The control software is underwhelming. If it was more like the control software that came with my Saffire Pro 24 then I could see why they wouldn’t want to develop it for a third OS, but this looks pretty simple software. Anyway, Focusrite can support what they want I suppose, but Mono and a web-based interface would make it practically 1 build for 3 systems. Almost.
  8. Anyway, taking it out of MSD didn’t break the thing - all 4 inputs were still functioning on Ubuntu.
  9. Signal was a bit low on inputs 3 & 4 on the rear (this was with the electro-acoustic guitars plugged in and yes the batteries were fine in the preamps). The 404HD has physical gain controls for inputs 3&4, but I got Jack Mixer to boost those signals. Seems to work ok. No doubt there is a much better way to do this.
  10. I can’t get any signal to the headphones jack (guessing internal routing?)
  11. I seem to be able to get a signal to an external speaker / monitor from outputs 1 & 2 but not 3 & 4, regardless of any messing about in Carla. This may just be default internal routing setup in the Scarlett.

I am happy to admit that at least some of the issues above are down to my lack of knowledge of JACK, Carla and Linux audio in general (I’m a bit new here)

3. What am I missing?
Obviously, being able to mix the internals for zero/low-latency monitoring would be great, but it’s not a big thing for me at the minute. Later in the year when I’m planning on doing some recording, then yes it would be helpful.
Getting a signal to the headphone output would be really very handy!

Hi, I'm new to the Linux world (coming from Ableton Live) and am having a similar problem regarding the Jack output of the Scarlett Solo 3rd generation :( . The system and QJackCtl recognize the audio interface but a few seconds after recording a track (Ardour), the output signal is completely disabled -- not only for the DAW but also for any other application. However, once the audio interface is disconnected and reconnected, the output signal is back -- again, only for a while before it somehow stops completely.

System: AV LINUX MX EDITION 21.2.1 "Consciousness" (Kernel: 6.0.0-10.1-liquorix-amd64) -- fresh new install

Additional info:

  • The input signal is not affected and it is still possible to hear signals from the Mic when the direct monitor button is activated
  • I had the same issue with Ubuntu Studio 22.04.2 LTS Jammy Jellyfish
  • The issue remains if the Jack is replaced by Alsa on Ardour
  • I disabled the MSD (holding the 48v button for 5 secs) but the issue persists
  • Even with no signal output to the headset, the main track in Ardour still receives input from the recorded audio (it seems that the signal is not going from the applications to the headset).
  • The Alsamixer v.1.2.4 does recognize the Scarlett Solo but no additional controls are available ("This sound device does not have any controls")

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how to solve this problem or have you read about this problem before? Thanks!

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by tseaver »

@francoisromain

The 18i20 3rd has two ADAT inputs and two ADAT outputs. hence my confusion.

OIC. I have a 1st gen device, which has only one input and one output ADAT port.

This doc[1] specified

Applies to: Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen

The Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen has two ADAT input ports so you can connect up to 8 additional channels via optical ADAT connection.

Whilst the Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen has two ports, you cannot add an extra 16 channels via ADAT. The maximum number of ADAT channels you can use is dependant on the sample rate you record at, and is as follows:

Code: Select all

44.1/48kHz - 8 channels
88.2/96kHz - 8 channels (four channels per port)
176.4/192kHz - 0 Channels (Optical inputs are disabled at quadband sample rates)

[1] https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... 0-3rd-Gen-

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Re: Focusrite Scarlett Gen 3 4i4 (and others)

Post by SmoothMountain »

francoisromain wrote: Wed Mar 01, 2023 12:43 pm

@tseaver

tseaver wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:23 am

There are two ADAT ports on the 18i20, one for 8 ADAT inputs, and one for 8 ADAT outputs

The 18i20 3rd has two ADAT inputs and two ADAT outputs. hence my confusion.

Image

From the Focusrite manual:
OPTICAL IN and OUT – four TOSLINK connectors for handling eight channels of digital audio
in ADAT format at either 44.1/48 kHz or 88.2/96 kHz sample rates. At 44.1/48 kHz sample
rate, only the right-hand port of each pair is used; at 88.2/96 kHz sample rate, both ports are
used, with the right-hand port carrying ADAT Channels 1-4 and the left-hand port carrying
ADAT Channels 5-8. (Note that the optical input and output are disabled when sample rates of
176.4/192 kHz are in use.)
:D

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