LinuxMusicians

This is a great piece of software as it allows control of firewire interfaces. But is there any list of those supported by the project?
I will add one that I have that does work.

Echo AudioFire 8

I can enable the live monitoring within the device and adjust which inputs are sent to which outputs as well as which outputs have playback audio coming from the DAW.

Are there other interfaces?

777funk wrote:

Are there other <firewire> interfaces?

Firewire is a deprecated standard (manufacturers aren't using it in current products), and FFADO seems to be in maintainence mode (bug fixes, and making sure the source can still be compiled). Anyone who isn't already using it, shouldn't start. And anyone still using it should have an exit strategy, just in case there's a regression in some kernel update, or it doesn't support some useful, new feature, or your hardware fails and you can't get replacement parts to restore your firewire setup.

The official FFADO device list is supposed to be at http://www.ffado.org/info/device_list but that page hasn't been available for awhile. The devs no longer even collate info from endusers about which devices are known to work, so I suspect that page will remain as so.

j_e_f_f_g wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:48 pm

777funk wrote:

Are there other <firewire> interfaces?

Firewire is a deprecated standard (manufacturers aren't using it in current products), and FFADO seems to be in maintainence mode (bug fixes, and making sure the source can still be compiled). Anyone who isn't already using it, shouldn't start. And anyone still using it should have an exit strategy, just in case there's a regression in some kernel update, or it doesn't support some useful, new feature, or your hardware fails and you can't get replacement parts to restore your firewire setup.

The official FFADO device list is supposed to be at http://www.ffado.org/info/device_list but that page hasn't been available for awhile. The devs no longer even collate info from endusers about which devices are known to work, so I suspect that page will remain as so.

One great thing about Linux is that it doesn't restrict the user to continually buying and using brand new hardware by obsoleting devices via software and OS compatibility.

Many firewire devices sound as good as anything on the market and have LOTS of I/O.

So at least for me, I hope to continue using what I'm using. For that matter, I keep old versions of Ubuntu and even clone hard disks so I can be back up and running incase of failures.

I have Neve and some tube outboard gear (mics, compressors, eq) that's as useful today as when it was designed in the 50s and 60s. Why not keep using vintage computer hardware if it works, has the needed i/o and sounds good. Just my perspective. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.

EDIT to add: one other nice advantage to FireWire and Jack is that interfaces can be daisy chained to as many as a person has (and cables to go between them of course) for a HUGE amount of recording channels. This is super nice and it just works. I don't think it works in Windows. I have enough I/O to record a string ensemble if desired. With a few more Echo Audiofire 12s I could record even more if I ever desired. Realistically it's easy and cheap to have 12 to 24 inputs via FireWire hardware.

777funk wrote:

I keep old versions of Ubuntu and even clone hard disks so I can be back up and running incase of failures.

This is absolutely critical when using any deprecated hardware/software. You never know when an OS update is going to break the previously working "no longer actively supported" stuff.

Think twice about updating your OS when you have deprecated gear. The new OS features rarely ever benefit the old gear, and they are especially prone to make the old gear stop working properly. If you update, extensively test the new system to make sure everything is ok. Then make an archived copy of that OS so you can use it as a "restore point" if a future upgrade goes bad.

Too many people update their software when they don't need to (my gig computer hasn't been updated in years, because it already does what I need it to do, so there's no reason to update it). And worse, they do it without having a "restore point" (backup).

FFADO seems to work best on Echo from my trials. But most work to some degree although FFADO mixer does not show up for many interfaces. Others that work, but no live monitoring are: Apogee Duet, M-Audio ProFire 610, Presonux FireBox. The Apogee cannot use Phantom Power without the native Apple software as far as I can see.

Echo works as well in Linux as in Windows and sounds great. All live monitoring is there and all controls from the windows app (by Echo) can be controlled via FFADO mixer.

I guess this makes sense since Echo was open in sharing with the FFADO team. I can't see why any hardware manufacturer would not be since they're selling hardware and not software. More users can use their product if more OSes can run the hardware.

artix_linux_user wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:02 pm

I am optimistic that you can connect firewire interfaces to the USB4 ports of the latest notebooks too.

And how are you going to make it work?

FFADO still performs great, but you can alsa drivers most times, too.
Only firewire devices that are not running well under Linux are the MOTU interfaces - I would never buy MOTU so I am not concerned about that.

What are you basing the claim on that MOTU FW interfaces don't work well in Linux?

artix_linux_user wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:44 pm

Thanks for the info - I did not know that echo helped the FFADO team to support firewire on Linux.
Again, with the libhinawa command line tool, you can switch the impedance and also the phantom power.
I havent tried the phantom power thing but I hope it will work ( even with some adapters between)

I wanted to test to see if there was a way to get live monitoring to work but had no luck getting hinawa to load the device.

Looked like it was having a hard time finding the file so I copied it to where hinawa wanted to look and am still getting errors. I'm thinking it is not finding the unit. I do have it blacklisted from pulse and alsa for use in only Jack. Maybe that could be why.

Thunderbolt is not a USB4 adapter although USB4 / USB devices should work when plugged into a TB3/4 port. That's my limited understanding.

I don't think the TB3 adaptor is going to work in USB4 (or TB4 even) but I'd be happy to be proven wrong, if somebody can figure out how to make it work.

FW MOTUs (at least a number of them) work OK in Linux w. ALSA or FFADO drivers.

Since starting this thread, I have settled on M-Audio ProFire as my main interfaces (FW410, FW610, and FW2626). They are working great. They don't bring up anything in FFADO but they work great. You just have to use live monitoring in the DAW and will not have any direct monitoring from within the analog domain of the interface. With low latency settings, this is better because now you can also listen to the effects as they will sound in the mixdown phase. I've always used live analog monitoring due to slower computers and lots of track. Now I just freeze tracks that eat too much CPU and of course computers are plenty fast today. Even laptops have plenty of speed for 2ms of latency (tiny) with several FX turned on.

Here's how I got M-Audio's interfaces to run.

Firewire doesn't seem to work well on my computer in ALSA mode (causes freezing), but works great in Jack.

This particular M-Audio interface probably others as well however would not load in jack. Jack was saying it could not gain ownership of Dice (the chip manufacturer for this unit). The fix for it was to blacklist dice from Linux' stock audio. This way Firewire audio isn't being owned by the default audio in Linux and can be reserved for QJackCtl.

Some interfaces must have linux' native firewire blacklisted. M-Audio Profire 610 was one of these. To get it to work in QJackCtl I had to do the following via a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and add the line:
blacklist snd_dice

to that file, save, and exit.

Then I ran:
sudo update-initramfs -u

Then I restarted and it worked.

This is because the M-Audio has a Dice brand chip and I believe the ALSA sound server was taking ownership of firewire. Once I did this, it runs from QjackCtl as Firewire

Interface >>> Default

and basically any setting of frames sample rate or period that the computer can handle. For mine it was 128 and default on periods. The live monitoring doesn't seem to work, although FFADO mixer does show the M Audio interface.

For live monitoring, I unfortunately have to just check "monitor input" on the record button in reaper. It has a slight lag (5-10ms) but that'll have to be life. It is nice to monitor via hardware through the interface but that will likely not be an option. Not the end of the world!

Hopefully this helps someone else with an M-audio firewire interface. Note that I have all FFADO packages in synaptic installed. That may or may not make a difference.

Note, I didn't have to do this for the Presonus Firebox.

The ProFire 2626 also works with the same settings as it's little brother the 610.

The Firewire 410 (basically Gen 1 of the 610) also works great in Linux. How I got it to work...

Same as the 610 except the Firewire chipset is different. Blacklist this instead of dice:

blacklist snd-bebob

This keeps the stock Linux Audio from taking ownership of this Firewire interface and reserves it for Jack.

Once this is done, it works just the same. EXCEPT and a big except here which made me think it didn't work...

The inputs/outputs begin at 3 (or 3 and 4 if in stereo). So, since Reaper has the main outs and ins starting at 1 and 2, you will think this thing's not working. It is, you just have to set the outputs and inputs to begin at 3 and 4 (i.e. stereo master channel normally sends out sound on 1 and 2... change it to 3 and 4). Weird... but something to remember. The interface itself works great once you know this.