From Ottawa/Canada with Arturia Mkii and AVLinux MXE

[David Marceau]

Hello there LinuxMusicians community,

My name is David Marceau. Older gent trying to have fun with a toy I originally bought for my son. I have a few spare drives for my 10 year old computer so I decided to take AVLinux MXE for a spin. First impressions are really good. I got HELM, Yoshimi and Surge(I rtfm'ed) to blow my mind with all the sound selections/patches while playing SCP 173 and Coffin Dance melodies over and over. My wife and son told me to turn it off LOL. I managed to capture alsa sound and desktop video in pristine quality from OBS STUDIO in less than 5 minutes. Endless fun but yet again mommy and son tell me I need to go to bed. LOL

Where I started to experience pain was Arturia Mkii with Ardour/Reaper. I couldn't get either to give me sound while I was plunking keys on the Arturia Mkii Midi controller. I'm in a rut and feeling down as a result.

1)I boot up and grub select "AVLinux MXE with systemd"
2)The default sound for everything is ALSA from what I understand. Ardour/Reaper both recommend Jack. So I found some stuff showing how to setup QJackCTL, add some startup commands(3 commands iirc). After doing so, I started Jack.
3)I started Ardour, and it brought me to some initial ardour dialog asking whether to use alsa or jack, I selected jack and clicked start.
4)I clicked recording session. I noticed the arturia mkii was displayed at the bottom of the screen. I tried plunking keys, no sound. I clicked the plus sign and found list box showing different things to send the mkii signal to so I chose Helm. I tried plunking keys, no sound. I clicked the record button at the top in Ardour's toolbar. I tried plunking keys, no sound. I did notice some midi note data appearing within Ardour's arturia mkii pane, but with some visual audio levels showing what correlates to my key velocities when I struck them I think, but no sound.

BTW I am overwhelmed by the entire selection of sounds/patches available for the Helm, Yoshimi and Surge. I need to say I dreamt of buying a roland/yamaha when I was teenager and come to avlinux and to have all those sound vibrate in my ears along with pluckies and grand pianos really resonates my soul and I want to create something. I know I'm close...I'm almost there.

Please if there are any people out there that have overcome this issue and live in the Ottawa area, I'm more than happy to invite you over for a meal and drink of your choice and help me to fix this thing. Cheers and thank you in advance.

One last thing: To all the software developers of Linux, Liquorix, Helm, Yoshimi, Surge, Ardour, Reaper and the available sounds/patches,
YOU ARE SUPER-HEROES. I wish you health, happiness and prosperity.

[khz]

WB

I'd like a pizza and a beer.

7. Recording options

"In"
https://manual.ardour.org/ardours-inter ... er-strips/

HF

[Michael Willis]

The good news is that Ardour is getting the midi signal for your Arturia device.

Now let's see if we can get some sound. Launch Ardour, New Session, use the Empty Template. Pick ALSA (long story, but right now I'll just say ALSA is more simple[*]). Make sure that you have the correct output device selected. Leave the rest of the default Audio/MIDI Setup. Start the session.

In the "Track" menu, select the first item (Add Track, Bus, or VCA...). In the dialog that pops up, pick "MIDI Tracks". The Instrument defaults to General MIDI Synth, but you can pick Helm, Yoshimi, or Surge if you want. Leave the other defaults. Click "Add and Close".

In the "View" menu, enable "Show Editor Mixer". You'll see a single mixer view oven on the side (as pictured in the above post by @khz). With the new MIDI track selected, you can pick the input to the MIDI track (#3 in the picture). Click it and select your Arturia device. The output routing is at the bottom of the mixer view (#12 in the picture) - this should already be routed to your master bus.

If all of the above is set up, you should be able to hit the keys on your Arturia and get sound.

[*] Slightly longer story, JACK allows you to route signal among multiple apps, but you can use ALSA if you are doing everything in a DAW session with plugins instead of separate applications. For an even longer story, There is a conversation here with @j_e_f_f_g waxing on about how the developer of JACK didn't know jack about where the pro music market was headed.

[Basslint]

Welcome @David Marceau and thank you for your wish for this community, which now includes you too, since you joined

[Linuxmusician01]

First of all, what @Michael Willis said. He appears to have experience with Ardour, I haven't.

But I can help adding my 2 cents to the discussion. It looks to me like your problems have more to do with how audio and DAW's (DAW = digital audio workstation like Ardour or Reaper) work in general, not so much with Linux. Don't feel down: everybody struggles with that, me too if I try something new or haven't done "things audio" for a while and forgot the subtleties. (off topic: that's why I'm still looking for an affordable multi-input DAW-less setup )

[...]
Where I started to experience pain was Arturia Mkii

There are a lot of Arturia keyboards (synths w/ Midi out or Midi only). A link to the one you use might help, but I take it that you have a Midi keyboard that does not need Windows drivers.

with Ardour/Reaper. I couldn't get either to give me sound while I was plunking keys on the Arturia Mkii Midi controller.

I had the same "downer". Chances of a computer knowing what you want to connect with what are nill, unfortunately. Why? Because you can use a Midi keyboard to "record" only the notes that you play to make a Midi file. A Midi file contains NO sound. Only the keys you pressed like C, D# etc. That Midi file can be used a few days later to let the computer play a synthesizer for example. As if the PC was your piano player and you provided the piano to him. But a Midi keyb. can also be used to drive a software synthesizer to produce not Midi but audio. How's the computer/DAW to know which? And which of the 3 Midi keyboards that you've got connected?

However, I have a sneakin' suspicion that you want to press a key on the Midi keyboard and then hear audio. Am I right? That means that you have to connect the Midi kbd. to a (software) synthesizer. Believe it or not: you don't need a DAW for that.

[...]
2)The default sound for everything is ALSA from what I understand.

Nice enough to begin with. But Alsa isn't the best tool to connect hardware and software (which is what you want is my guess). Maybe your DAW of choice can, but I don't use Ardour like you. I prefer Qtractor (Linux only) which requires Jackaudio (at the time on my system).

Ardour/Reaper both recommend Jack. So I found some stuff showing how to setup QJackCTL, add some startup commands(3 commands iirc). After doing so, I started Jack.

This is where the subtleties begin. Are you sure Jack works? I do it like so:

1. First I determine the "number" of my audio device with the command

   Code: Select all

   cat /proc/asound/cards
   

   Sometimes your computer has more than one audio device: HDMI, on-board audio, external USB audio device, etc., etc.

2. Then I start Jackaudio like this (in the example below my audio device of choice has "number" 2):

   Code: Select all

   jackd -d alsa --device hw:2
   

I use Qjackctl to connect audio IN to OUT. And I also use it for something completely different, but related: connecting Midi IN to OUT. It's important to know that there's a big difference between Midi and audio. Most would like to argue that's not the case, but that's how I see it.

If you successfully started Jack, then I'd like to see a screenshot of Qjackctl. In Qjackctl I've made a little change in its settings. In Qjackctl's settings window, in the tab "Misc", there's a checkbox called "Replace connections with graph window". I de-selected that. Then, in the main window, I click on the button "Connect". The version of Qjackctl that I use has three (ambiguous) tabs called: Audio, Midi and Alsa. Forget about the Midi tab: that's Jack's version of Midi, what we use is Alsa's version of Midi, which is under the tab "Alsa". The audio tab has your audio connections.

My DAW of choice is Qtractor which I've started. I created a new track of type "Midi" (not audio). In the Midi track's properties I choose to us the Yoshimi plugin (which is the synth that you use also). Then I connect, in Qjackctl's window "Connections", Qtractor's audio OUT to my systems' audio IN like so:

Then I connect my Midi keyboard's OUT (the Arturia Minilab, which I don't recommend for various reasons) to Qtractors Midi IN like so:

Now, when I press keys on the Midi keyb., I hear the notes that I press. I hear it "via" my DAW (Qtractor) on my computer's soundcard/speakers.

[...] Helm.

Believe it or not, I don't know what Helm is. I suspect it's a sysnth but the only reference on Google that I could find on "Helm Linux" is a package manager.

Good luck with puzzling with audio. I think it just as vague in Windows or Apple how to connect Midi to your softsynth/DAW and then to connct the DAW's Midi/audio to the proper sound device on your computer. But it's always the same: connect IN to OUT (Midi and audio) and don't forget to raise the volume of the created new track in the DAW, the master volume etc. in the various mixers on your computer and in the DAW.

[Michael Willis]

It really depends on your goals. If you just want to use your Arturia to make noise, you don't even need a DAW, you just need to route the midi signal to a software synthesizer.

And yes, if you primarily want to make midi arrangements, you should also try Qtractor... also there is LMMS, Muse, and Rosegarden, but don't let the options overwhelm you. If you can explain more details about your goals, we can make better suggestions.

[Michael Willis]

@Linuxmusician01, here's Helm: https://tytel.org/helm

[Linuxmusician01]

@Linuxmusician01, here's Helm: https://tytel.org/helm

Thanks for the link. And it's a free synth no less!