rme fireface 802 with pipewire

[francoisromain]

Hello,

I try to set up a RME fireface 802 on Fedora 37.
The interface is plugged in USB. It works but…
In Qpwgraph and Bitwig, the interface shows only 12 inputs and 2 outputs.

How can I enable all the i/o of the interface?

Thank you

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distro: Fedora 37
Kernel: 6.1.11-200.fc37.x86_64
PipeWire: 0.3.65
Rme fireface 802 firmware : 19

[francoisromain]

May be related : https://forum.manjaro.org/t/pulseaudio- ... 02/64823/8
but specific to pulse audio.
Is it possible to do something similar with pipewire / pw-jack?

[francoisromain]

I had to activate the profile from Pavu control / configuration. No I see 22 i/o (12 analog, 2 AES, 8 ADAT1. (Too bad: ADAT2 i/o are not available in usb class compliant mode)

[francoisromain]

The RME fireface 802 can be used in usb class compliant mode or in firewire either with an alsa driver or with ffado.

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Fireface in USB class compliant mode

• activate cc mode from total mix on a mac or pc from the TotalMix software options.
• to use with pipewire, activate all the i/o from pavu control / configuration / profile

limitations:

• only 22 i/o instead of 30 (ADTA2 is not available in CC mode)
• headphone 1 output mirrors output 1/2
• headphone 2 output does not work
• impossible to switch between mic / line / instr and activate phantom power on the front mic preamps
• impossible to switch analog i/o between +4dbu /-10dbV / Hi-z
• no routing
• no fx

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Fireface in firewire with Alsa driver

There is an Alsa driver for this interface. Nothing to install. Plug it in firewire and all the i/o are visible (even ADAT2).

On the top of this driver, a service exposes and routes all the i/o from alsa (à la TotalMix).
Here is how to install it on Fedora 37.

limitations:

• with pipewire: huge latency, I guess this is an issue for every firewire interfaces using alsa drivers (here, here and here).
• with pipewire: impossible to use with another audio device.
• using Alsamixer to route and switch options is not user friendly. There is also qashctl in quastools but it not maintained, full of warnings during installation and not very friendly either.

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Fireface in firewire with ffado driver (I didn't try)

Ffado could replace the alsa driver. Also faddo-mixer exposes the i/o, options and routing.
It does not work with pipewire and probably never will (here and here)

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Conclusion

For now, I'll stick with pipewire for convenience and support for multiple audio devices.
So I can only use the fireface in usb cc mode.

I dream of

• a specific alsa driver working with pipewire
• a neat gui for setting options and routing (like this one for focusrite's)

I could help to work on that.

[j_e_f_f_g]

Just a heads up. I have a PCI card that adds a firewire port to a computer. I bought it years ago in case I ever needed one. But I'm never gonna use it, so if someone wants it, they can have it. It has a texas instruments chip, which I'm told is the most reliable for use with firewire audio interfaces.