Adventures in Linux music

Jack MIDI vs. ALSA

2010-12-29T02:43:00.006+01:00

The crackling issue in Zynaddsubfx that I described earlier is supposed to be solved in Yoshimi, a Zynaddsubfx fork/derivative. There is even a package for it in the Ubuntu repositories, so I gave it a try.

However, I could not connect my MIDI controller (the AKAI MPK mini) to it. Why? Because the controller shows up in Qjackctl's ALSA tab, while Yoshimi is in the MIDI tab. Patchage and a2jmidid don't help, either. Apparantly the exact same problem goes for Bristol, simulator of classic organs and synths.

My MIDI controller is connected through USB, my audio interface is connected through Firewire. Thus I use the firewire driver in jack. I wonder if there is any way of making the controller work with Jack MIDI clients. I mean, OK, Jack MIDI is the new thing and ALSA midi may become obsolete. In any case it would be nice to still be able to use my USB MIDI controller, and I figure there has to be a solution.

EDIT: Starting Bristol with the "-midi alsa" option, or Yoshimi with the "-a" option does the trick. The apps will then show up in Qjackctl's ALSA tab.

Follow-up - Midi controllers!

2010-12-28T23:49:00.008+01:00

Of course, I didn't quite do what I planned to do. This is what I have done, though:

I've recorded song ideas using Hydrogen, Ardour and Qsynth. Nothing new or exciting here, except maybe for some LV2 plugins that I've tried. I might get back to them in another blog post.
I've tried Rakarrack a bit. There are some horrid presets on there, but there are also some nice ones and I think this app might come in handy later on.
I have bought an AKAI MPK mini!
I've learned how to map MIDI control signals to seq24, to toggle loops (with the help of this thread and this chart of MIDI status codes). I've also learned how to map midi signals in Sooperlooper, which is considerably easier.
I've learned how to route my "vintage" Nobels MF-2 midi foot controller to seq24 and Sooperlooper using a2jmidid and Patchage (see this page). One step closer to using my PC as a loop station!
I have finally donated some money to the Ardour project. I'll donate to Hydrogen as well.

I might write in more detail later about my midi controllers and how to map them to seq24, Sooperlooper and so on.

I am also trying out Ableton Live again (in Windows, although it reportedly works with Wine). At this point, I need to figure out a workflow that works for me, no matter what platform - and although I think Live is fantastic, perhaps Linux will still be my primary choice. After all effort I've put into it, I feel quite at home with it and I know my preferred applications quite well. Setting things up is happily no longer such an issue. We'll see where it goes...

P.S. One thing I'd like to investigate is how Zynaddsubfx actually works (ie. how to customize instruments in detail) and why it makes noise that sounds like xruns when there are none (it was discussed in this old thread, also here with what looks like a possible solution - OK, so maybe there are still things that need to be tinkered with).

What's next

2010-08-03T12:09:00.004+02:00

You have your ups and downs I guess. Right now I'm on the up side, planning my next steps. I've started using this repository for fresh versions of music apps: https://launchpad.net/~philip5/+archive/extra - which among other things means that Qtractor and Traverso works.

Here is some of the things I'm planning to do as soon as I get more time:

Check out Traverso and Qtractor and see if they would make a good replacement for Ardour, or if I should stick with Ardour when sequencing audio
Compare Sweep, ReZound and Audacity and see which audio editor I prefer
Try to get my MIDI foot controller to work with SooperLooper or Kluppe for live audio looping
Try out the Rakarrack guitar rack
See if the organ/synth emulator Bristol can be made any more stable than last time I tried it

Also, I've ran into an "audio loop slicer" called Smasher. It looks promising!

I'm still very impressed by the number and diversity of music applications for Linux and I would like to contribute more to this community. However, am still frustrated that it's not easier to set it all up than it is...

Complaints and a little hope

2010-07-26T22:15:00.003+02:00

DISCLAIMER: This post is an exaggerated rant fueled by fatigue, disappointment and a little bit of jealousy, not really an objective description of the state of affairs in Linux audio.

Whenever my good friend Rikard comes around with his laptop, I get both inspired and a bit put off. Why? Well, Rikard is an Apple user, and frankly, seeing him operating software like Ableton Live and VDMX almost makes me regret all those hours I've spent setting up JACK and Ardour. There is simply no software to match that stuff for Linux. Not in simplicity, nor stability, nor GUI design - simply put, in all-round awesomeness. For music making in Linux, there are a few decent options depending on what you want to do, but most of it feels quite old fashioned, especially considering all the command line tinkering it (still) takes to make it all work. As for VJing software, I haven't seen anything that looks even remotely up-to-date.

Don't get me wrong. I'm quite proud of what the FLOSS community has done, even though I haven't contributed a lot to it myself. Having witnessed the distros get more user friendly (whithout sacrificing robustness and freedom) and also the evolution of Hydrogen, Ardour et al has been a thrill. I'm very happy with Linux in everyday use (surfing the web, listening to music, editing documents, managing photos and so on) and as a working environment (for web development). I prefer its openness, its community-based development and the philosophy behind it to any proprietary system.

But whereas nowadays most of the system works quite painlessly out of the box, JACK and his friends still need more expertise, or at least a lot of time and patience (as in my case), to set up: sifting through countless forum threads and HOWTO:s, waiting around for answers in chatrooms, learning ever more BASH commands takes time. Yes, the community support is quite remarkable but its reach is still limited. It can't eliminate all the effort needed to get a working music making environment.

Rikard fires up Ableton Live and it just works, even when he uses it with his integrated sound card. After having changed permissions to /dev/raw1394, started the JACK daemon with the appropriate parameters and fired up Ardour, I might demonstrate to him that it doesn't even crash so often nowadays! And my latest finding, the more light-weight audio sequencer Qtractor, can handle an audio sample library, but it habitually crashes upon opening its own project files. I probably couldn't convince him to switch systems.

Yes, I'm aware that I might be doing something wrong. Maybe I could make JACK, Ardour and Hydrogen work like a happy family. But then I haven't yet touched upon issues of functionality, intuitiveness or GUI:s. Ardour and Hydrogen are pretty good in this field, even though they don't fill all my needs, but many other applications are either unfinished, unfit for my purposes or just a pure mess. And the hands-on creativity of Live (or even Sony Acid, which was a favorite of mine when I still used Windows) is nowhere to be found.

So where am I going with this? I would like to support those who work hard on making music and audio apps for Linux better. It just feels like I spend a lot more time setting up the system than actually making music. Maybe in five, ten or fifteen years things will have changed. But what to do until then? I constantly feel I am missing out on actual creativity.

I have decided to give music making with Linux a fair chance - I will try to set aside some time after summer just to tweak JACK and try out more programs. I will try to enlist the help of more Linux savvy friends and really get into it. And if I am still dissatisfied after that, I will consider the options.

Spotify for Linux; huge .xession-errors

2010-01-08T17:31:00.008+01:00

My ~/.xsession-errors is a monster that eats my disk space, and it's Spotify's fault. It grows up to 20 GB with error messages from Spotify. Always the same line:

fixme:ntdll:NtQueryInformationProcess (process=0xffffffff) Unimplemented information class: ProcessDebugFlags

I saw a solution online: symlink .xsession-errors to /dev/null! I might do that. But there's still a bug somewhere that I hope will be fixed.

In other Spotify-related news, I just bought a premium account to get rid of the annoying ads. A happy side-effect is that I could use Despotify or Jotify (which looks better) instead of running Spotify through Wine. Too bad Jotify doesn't even have the most basic documentation, so I have no idea how to run the program.

Intermission 3: Bluetooth remote control

2010-01-04T01:17:00.003+01:00

With the help of this page I can now control Rhythmbox and Gnome with my Sony Ericsson T700 through bluetooth! Nifty. My phone is not listed on the page, but it still works, so yours might too even if it isn't on there.

Intermission 2: Rhythmbox / Gstreamer bug

2010-01-03T12:28:00.008+01:00

Rhythmbox keeps going silent or freezing for no apparent reason, after playing a few songs. After a restart it works again. I've had a similar problem with Spotify (through Wine) for some time, but Rhythmbox has only done this after I installed Ubuntu 9.10.

So I've filed a bug (possibly for the first time!)
Edit: Here's the bug in Bugzilla - filed by someone with the same issue.

Here's the error thrown by Rhythmbox:

(rhythmbox:3886): GStreamer-WARNING **: Element bin2 already has parent

(rhythmbox:3886): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_str_has_prefix: assertion `str != NULL' failed

Maybe it's supposed to be a Gstreamer bug, I hope some friendly developers can help me sort it out.

Edit:

When Spotify goes silent, this is the message in the console (repeated endlessly):

err:wave:wodPlayer_WriteMaxFrags Error in writing wavehdr. Reason: Input/output error

Googling it doesn't give much insight... Maybe another bug to file? The question is what package to file it for.

Intermission: screen resolution

2009-12-26T16:00:00.010+01:00

My laptop has a 13", 1280x800 screen. My main screen at home is a Dell Ultrasharp 2209WA, 22" and 1680x1050. I don't much like to work with dual screens as I always end up clicking outside the screen I'm supposed to be in, windows keep opening in the wrong screen etc. so I just shut of the laptop screen.

Anyway, after the "reform" where xorg.conf was deemed to be user-unfriendly, it is actually harder to manually add a screen resolution. In Gnome's "Display preferences" window, 1680x1050 was not on the list of possible resolutions. After some googling I found this helpful post about how to add a screen resolution manually with xrandr. After step 3, however, I just used the "Display preferences" dialog to choose the newly added resolution, which makes the rest of the steps unnecessary.

The "Display preferences" is apparently a GUI for xrandr. I hope that in the future, it will be able to add modes as well.

By the way, for those who celebrate: merry christmas!

Using a MIDI controller - the Nobels MF-2

2009-12-23T13:34:00.005+01:00

I have recently purchased an old MIDI foot controller, a Nobels MF-2 (pictured here). Part 3 of Dave Phillips' "Brief survey" of Linux MIDI applications (from 2004!) directed me towards kmidimon (for monitoring MIDI events) and QMidiRoute (for routing MIDI commands). I still haven't figured out how to hook things up, but the signals from the pedal show up in kmidimon, which is a good sign.

I have yet to read the MF-2 owner's manual (thankfully downloadable from Nobels) and figure out how the pedal itself works. Then I will make an effort to understand this MIDI routing business.

My intention is to control start/stop/overdub in SooperLooper and start/stop active loops in seq24. Any helpful hints are appreciated.

Success with new Jack settings

2009-12-23T13:25:00.007+01:00

No wonder there are problems when you are stupid! I was using the obsolete "freebob" driver instead of the newer FFADO "firewire" driver in Jack. Once this was corrected, even Bristol seemed relatively stable. (I'm on Ubuntu Studio (Karmic) using an Edirol FA-66, FYI)

Now I can achieve lower latency, too. With a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a buffer size of 64 frames/period (latency according to Qjackctl: 4.35 msec) things seem to work well. With a buffer size of 32 (latency: 2.18 msec) Adour disconnects from Jack, and with an even lower setting, my whole system gets very slow. But I've worked with higher latencies than 4.35 msec without being dissatisfied, so this is a win.

At maximum sample rate (192 kHz) I can get down to 4 msec (with 256 frames/period). I can go even lower but then my system gradually gets a bit slow. Somehow Hydrogen doesn't recognize the higher sample rate, or maybe all the samples in the drum kits are recorded with a lower sample rate, because everything gets more high-pitched when Jack is set to a higher rate.

I guess I could tweak the settings more to achieve optimal performance. I don't know what "No memory lock" or "Unlock memory is", and I know even less what the difference between these two is, so I will need to read up on it. Maybe "Periods/buffer" is something to get acquanted with as well. Checking the memory lock boxes has had no apparent effect, though.

Ardour still throws a segmentation fault once in a while, particularly when normalizing a region or when trying to reconnect to Jack once connection was lost (Ardour always dies when I try that at 192 kHz). This is quite annoying, and I hope I can fix it. Hydrogen has also died once for no apparent reason.

In short: I'm back on track. My goal is to have a stable environment for composing, recording and mixing. There are still some things to work out but I'm getting closer!

A bunch of problems

2009-12-21T22:39:00.003+01:00

Since last time I wrote, I haven't had access to my equipment and I haven't had time for music making. I'm back now and ready to go. Sadly, I've had a fair share of trouble this far:

1. "Ubuntu Studio controls" don't seem to work for me. I need to set the permissions for /dev/raw1394 manually every time I restart.
2. Ardour crashes during normal usage without further explanation.
3. The Bristol version included in Ubuntu Studio isn't compiled with the Jack driver, which is a big mystery to me. After compiling it from source, I can run hook up a midi keyboard to it through Jack. Sadly, it crashes randomly, emitting the most horrendous sound.
4. ZynAddSubFx crashes too.

On top of this, ALSA sound playback fails every half an hour or so - Rhythmbox gives me a weird Gstreamer error ("pad problem") and Spotify (Wine) just stops playing without further notice.

I'm not so enthusiastic about this as I first was... I think I need to find someone who can help me set up a stable audio production environment, this trial-and-error thing is starting to wear me out.

EDIT: After correcting a mistake, everything works better! The enthusiasm is back. See the next post

Installing Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

2009-10-29T21:26:00.005+01:00

I ended up never installing 9.04 (Jaunty). This time around, I even made my way to a release party (at Gnutiken) to install the latest Ubuntu release. I have to say, it was a painless and quick process and everything seems faster (it might also be because I installed the 64 bit version...).

This time, I installed the regular Ubuntu, instead of Ubuntu Studio. The steps to get things going from here:

1. I installed linux-image-rt (the realtime kernel)
2. I installed some audio software (apt-get install ardour hydrogen gave me most of the necessary stuff like jack and qjackctl).
2. I added my user to the 'audio' group and logged out / logged in.
3. To get access to the firewire device, I did modprobe raw1394 and chmod a+rw /dev/raw1394 (I learned this from my own blog)
4. I set up qjackctl to use the FFADO plugin with a buffer size of 512 and it worked!

I haven't been able to test it much yet, but playback from Ardour seems to work fine enough. Hooray for 9.10!

Krater - an album-a-day

2009-07-22T20:12:00.005+02:00

So, that supposedly useful post I promised you will just have to wait. I will post it some time during the next decade or so...

Irony aside, I have recently recorded an album-a-day. It's called Krater and can be downloaded here. Most of it was done within 12 hours, with a minimal amount of mixing done the next day. I don't really know what to tell you about the music itself, there's some pop music with shaky vocals in Swedish and some instrumental tracks of different genres. I still love the sounds of the Roland TR-808 drum machine.

Stuff used:

Hardware
* Edirol FA-66
* Boss ME-50
* ADK A-51
* Fender Telecaster (thanks Caspar!)
* Peavey Cirrus 4

Software
* Ubuntu Studio (Hardy)
* Ardour
* Hydrogen
* seq24
* ZynAddSubFX
* Qsynth (with Fluid R3 sound font)

Jack crashed a couple of times during recording, but otherwise there were no issues from what I can remember.

What's next then? I still haven't installed Jaunty, but I will do it soon. Apparently there are still problems with the realtime kernel, but there is help!

Plans

2009-02-27T21:14:00.008+01:00

Not much has happened since the last time I wrote - I've been busy working, going to shows (most recently the fantastic Anna von Hausswolff and Wildbirds and Peacedrums, both very inspiring) and watching Twin Peaks. I've recorded some bass and vocals for a song, but there is no finished result yet.

I have some plans, though: two solo "albums" or EP:s this spring: one with my "pop" songs, with quite a lot of melodies and guitars, some toy keyboards and some sampling; one with more austere bass-oriented songs that I could perform with only bass and vocals if I wanted. As per usual, the end results will probably differ a lot from what I've planned, but there it is. Also, I will try to establish some routines and schedule time for playing/practicing/recording. Now that I'm not in a band anymore it's hard to find the time to really work with music.

As for my Linux-related plans, I intend to play around some more with the Hydrogen beta, and also make more use of the seq24 sequencer and the Specimen sampler. If I would stumble upon a cheap midi foot controller, I would try putting it to use with SooperLooper or something.

My next post will be a little more subtantial, with a collection of useful links to Linux music related issues.

Full upgrade with Khashayar's PPA

2009-02-07T21:43:00.013+01:00

I've finally learned that PPA means "Personal Package Archive". Khashayar has pointed me to his archive: https://launchpad.net/~khashayar/+archive/ppa where he has built a bunch of packages for more recent versions of alsa, jack, libffado, ardour etc. than those in the official Hardy repository. I figured I don't have much to lose so I followed the steps and did a full upgrade.

Everything seems to be working fine. When I switch between applications, the playback stutters a bit, but let's not jump to conclusions... Playback, recording and editing in Ardour works fine. I love the development build of Hydrogen so far (with an improved GUI and where you can mix the sounds from different drum kits into a custom kit). Even the latency problems when monitoring seem to be gone.

Maybe now I can start thinking more about music than about packages and settings. THANKS a lot, Khashayar!

Here's what I recorded in January - it's a little test piece with some drums from Hydrogen and three guitar tracks. Not really ear candy perhaps, but this is the kind of stuff I do. Sometimes.
Download as MP3
Download as OGG

Here's something I recorded just now. Same instruments, a bit of aimless noodling. Just a test.
Download as MP3
Download as OGG

Hydrogen drum kits, audio latency, jack crashing

2009-01-17T23:29:00.001+01:00

I've been recording a bit in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) using Ardour and Hydrogen, a splendid drum machine / sequencer. The audio interface is, as I have mentioned, an Edirol FA-66.

Hydrogen drum kits
It's been a while since I last checked the list of Hydrogen drum kits, so I was pleased to see that there are more than the few I knew of. You can find them here:

Officially distributed drumkits
A blog post with a bunch of different kits
Asma Davul, a turkish drum

The blog post above actually links to a drum kit I made called Aqoustic. It was a first attempt, using samples of a friend's drums. Not very high quality. The blogger calls it "another homemade jobby". Urban Dictionary tells me "jobby" is scottish for poo. Fair enough!

Audio latency
I have been using jack in real time mode with a buffer size of 512kb.

One thing I've noticed that's different from when I recorded with a mere SoundBlaster Live card on my desktop computer is that the latency between different programs seems to be gone. When syncinc Ardour and Hydrogen for recording drums, I don't have to trim the resulting audio region, which I needed to do before because of the lag.

When recording from an external source - in this case: electric guitar through a Boss ME-50 - the latency varies. Sometimes I seem to get minimal latency, again with no need to trim the recorded audio. Curiously, when I turn up the monitor mix knob on the FA-66 to hear what I play while I record, there is a noticeable latency.

Jack server crashing
After a while of doing takes on several tracks, the jack server crashed. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. Qjackctl froze and Ardour reported that the connection to jack was lost. When trying to restart it, I got an error message (which I will paste here later). This latter error was resolved by resetting the firewire bus using a program called gscanbus and then starting jack. However, it didn't take long before jack crashed again. I will have to find out what causes this problem. I have yet to try different buffer settings, maybe that will give me something.

I hope it's not a hardware issue. I have decided to buy the FA-66, although I haven't been able to test it first as much as I had hoped to. I have done little recording with Ableton Live in Windows, and I didn't notice any anomalies then. This should mean that my problems in Linux are solvable.

Using firewire audio: raw1394 permissions with jackd

2009-01-17T22:49:00.003+01:00

When firing up the Jack Audio Connection Kit (a necessary thing, connecting the audio interface and the software I want to use with each other) using qjackctl, at first I usually get an error (this is in Ubuntu 8.04 - Hardy - with the rt kernel). Sadly, I never copied the error message, but I will reproduce it and paste it here later to give the whole picture.

The error either has to do with a necessary driver (the kernel module raw1394) not being loaded, or with user permissions for the firewire bus, as the non-root user has to get write access. These two issues are easily solved thus:


modprobe raw1394
chmod a+rw /dev/raw1394

The first line loads the kernel module, the second line changes the permissions to the raw1394 device to a+rw (access+read/write, if I am not mistaken). I have tried to make the latter change permanent by making my non-root user the owner of the file with chown [USERNAME] /dev/raw1394, but with no succcess.

Now the jack daemon should have no problems starting.

Miscellaneous stupid problems

2009-01-17T12:54:00.007+01:00

These issues are not related to music making, but to general settings on my laptop (a Sony Vaio VGN-SR29VN).

1. Keyboard layout messed up after having used a USB keyboard
When having used a USB keyboard, the automatic num lock setting (in both Ubuntu and the abominable Vista) is ON. Not being aware of this + not being used to a keyboard without a number pad = frustration. Lucky that the solution was so easy - Ctrl+NumLk to switch off num lock.

2. Keymap misbehaving with USB keyboard
After booting up Ubuntu Hardy with an external keyboard, I can't use accents (like é, which is a character in my name, so it's quite important to me). Typing "setxkbmap se" in the console does the trick. But I was already using the Swedish keymap! Maybe this is not a problem in Intrepid, I haven't checked yet.

3. Wireless networking with the Intel WiFi Link 5100 - in Hardy and in Intrepid
I had almost forgot that I had yet to configure the wireless network interface. In my computer, the interface is an Intel WiFi Link 5100, which, as I've learned after googling around, can be used with the iwl3945 kernel module. For those new to fiddling around with kernel modules, I can definitely recommend modconf, the module manager with graphical menus.

Apparently, the iwl3945 module comes with Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid), but not with 8.04 (Hardy). So when I want to record music (with the realtime capable kernel) I have to use Hardy, but if I want to be able to use dual screens or my wireless connection I need to use Intrepid if I don't want to hack around too much. Hardly ideal, but hey, at least everything works decently somewhere...

Speaking of wireless connections, I've found that wicd is better than network-manager for managing connections. For instructions on how to install it in Ubuntu, read this! (you'll need to scroll down a little bit.

New distro, old kernel - Hardy's 2.6.24-22-rt kernel on Intrepid

2008-12-30T13:34:00.001+01:00

First off, let me get this straight: I am currently reporting about my experiments with two different versions of the Ubuntu Studio distribution: 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). I'm dual booting between these two and trying to figure out which one will work better with my hardware and for my purposes. I realize this can be a bit confusing. When I will finally get this somewhat done, I'll write a summary of the pros and cons of each.

I have updated my first post, Introduction / My goals - I've re-structured the sections and added some basic information about my hardware which I guess is quite relevant to this whole experiment.

Thanks to Andreas Nilsson for putting a link to me in his blog!

What I did today
I did what LDiablo][ suggests in his comment to the Intrepid real time kernel bug.

I downloaded the following four packages to downgrade to the old kernel:
linux-image-2.6.24-22-rt (2.6.24-22.45)
linux-rt (2.6.24.22.24)
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24-22-rt (2.6.24.14-22.53)
linux-restricted-modules-rt (2.6.24.22.24)

...and istalled them with dpkg --force-depends. I'm not exactly sure why I would need the restricted drivers, though.

The system boots up fine, but without ALSA. No sound at all, in other words.

qjackctl says the following:


13:45:02.348 Could not open ALSA sequencer as a client. ALSA MIDI patchbay will be not available.
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:457:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory

Also, when trying to use real time mode:


cannot use real-time scheduling (FIFO at priority 10) [for thread -1210079568, from thread -1210079568] (1: Operation not permitted)
cannot create engine

I have a vague memory of fixing the latter issue before in Hardy - it obviously has something to do with permissions. Googling will probably do the trick. I'm more concerned about ALSA.

lsmod |grep snd gives me nothing, and when trying modprobe snd_seq I get the following message:


FATAL: Module snd_seq not found.
FATAL: Error running install command for snd_seq

I'll take a break now for a day or two. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

I'm quite surprised about acutally having readers/commenters already - thanks for contributing, and have a happy new year!

Preparing the system

2008-12-30T04:13:00.000+01:00

Today I've done the following:

System tweaks and stuff
I've set the noatime mount option for my drives to increase performance.

With Boot-Up Manager (BUM) I disabled some services that I don't think I need running all the time.

My accents (as in é and á) didn't work - I fixed this with "setxkbmap se" (as I'm using a Swedish keymap).

Software updates
Thanks to khashayar, I now have Ardour 2.7.1 and Audacity 1.3.6 as well as recent versions of LMMS and Rosegarden - from www.getdeb.net. I haven't had much time to try them out yet, but Ardour does seem a bit faster than I'm used to.

Dual screen, big desktop
I have literally spent HOURS trying to figure out how to use both of my screens (the laptop's 1280x800 screen and my LCD with 1280x1024) for one, continuous desktop. After screwing around endlessly with aticonfig, I realized that the proprietary fglrx driver does not support such a virtual desktop - both screens would need to have the same resolution. I can, however, switch screens (this is called "clone mode") which is more than nothing, I guess. Apparently I can't install the more recent (and open source) radeon driver, as it depends on the drm module which throws a "Can't allocate memory" error when I try to modprobe it.

I checked in Ubuntu 8.10, and sure enough, the radeon driver is on and configuring the dual monitor desktop is easy as pie. No screwing around in the console (aticonfig) or with some proprietary controller software (amdcccle) - just click, drag and apply. Things do get better, it seems. Too bad the realtime kernel in Intrepid doesn't work with dual core processors. I know, I'm repeating this in each blog post, but it really is annoying. (On a side note: there seems to be a war between two drivers: radeon and radonhd. It is amusing and tragic at the same time).

Further steps
1. One comment to the bug report suggests that it's possible to install an older kernel in Intrepid and be able to use real time capabilities. I might try this. I'm pretty sure I have already but I can't remember what happened.

2. Do I really need real time capabilities? Maybe I can do without it for now?

3. Maybe I should check out the 64 bit version of Ubuntu Studio.

4. I must go to bed much earlier than 5am.

First steps - I've got sound!

2008-12-28T19:50:00.000+01:00

I have now installed Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) on my laptop. Sadly, Hardy's ATI drivers for Xorg don't seem to support my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400, so I have to run proprietary drivers for now.

One possibly good piece of advice for anyone looking into Linux audio (or Linux in general) is "don't buy a laptop model that's too new!" or you will need a load of patience to hack around with it - sure, Ubuntu 8.10 recognizes most of my hardware, but in this case, I need to run 8.04 to get real time capabilities.

After some googling and hacking (among other things, I followed this thread about making Jack work in real time mode) I can now get sound through the Edirol FA-66. FINALLY!

Everything's not fine, though. Jack has crashed a couple of times during the last 20 minutes, Qjackctl seems to be inclined to freeze, and there is some annoying crackling and popping going on during playback in Ardour - although neither Qjackctl nor Ardour registers xruns (Ardour does, however, detect "spikes" in master output).

On one hand, I'm glad that I've gotten this far. There's definitely a sense of accomplishment, and I'm hopeful about this whole project. On the other hand, there are obviously some issues to be dealt with before I've got a stable, working setup.

Ubuntu Studio 8.10 problems

2008-12-28T02:34:00.001+01:00

I have borrowed an Edirol FA-66 audio interface from a friend. The challenge now is to set up a working system with my newly purchased Sony laptop. My current OS is Ubuntu Studio 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) - but, sadly, this has to change.

There are, as I have learned, a couple of serious issues with Ubuntu 8.10 making it quite hard to set up a working environment with a real time kernel and a firewire interface:

The real time kernel no longer works with dual core processors - apparently, this can be fixed by downgrading to an older kernel. No luck for me yet, though.

libfreebob, the firewire driver, drops packets and generates Xruns.

From what I've read on forums, running 8.04 (Hardy Heron) is a better option, so first thing in the morning I'll install that instead.

Losing real time capabilities is quite a blow to the appeal of Ubuntu Studio. Hopefully, with Ubuntu 9.04, both of these issues will be resolved. But until April, I'll go with Hardy.

Introduction / My goals

2008-12-28T02:03:00.000+01:00

Purpose
The purpose of this blog is to document this entire process of learning and of creating music with Linux. I will write reviews of applications that I use and post solutions to problems I've managed to solve. I hope that this blog can become a motivation for me, and perhaps for others, to keep on trying and experimenting with Linux and music.

My goals
My first goal is to set up a working environment with my newly purchased laptop, a firewire audio interface and a Linux distribution with a real time kernel. Hopefully, this won't be too hard.

In time, my goal is to use my computer in a live setting - for beats, processing of instruments and so on, and also in collaboration with other "laptop musicians". For this, I want to learn more about the variety of applications that exist for Linux, both for audio and for MIDI.

Looping and loop-based sequencing is something I want to investigate especially. There is, sadly, nothing akin of Sony Acid or Ableton Live for Linux - yet! There are, however, a number of applications for live looping, as well as for sample based sequencing.

Background
I've been making music using GNU/Linux for a couple of years now. During this time, a lot has changed for the better. 'Mainstream' Linux distributions have gotten more and more user friendly and hardware support has improved dramatically. A number of Linux distributions for the home studio have seen daylight, notably Ubuntu Studio. Among the vast number of audio and MIDI applications available, Ardour, Rosegarden and Hydrogen have all gotten better and better, in my experience.

My goals
My first goal is to set up a working environment with my newly purchased laptop, a firewire audio interface and a Linux distribution with a real time kernel. Hopefully, this won't be too hard.

In time, my goal is to use my computer in a live setting - for beats, processing of instruments and so on, and also in collaboration with other "laptop musicians". For this, I want to learn more about the variety of applications that exist for Linux, both for audio and for MIDI.

Looping and loop-based sequencing is something I want to investigate especially. There is, sadly, nothing akin of Sony Acid or Ableton Live for Linux - yet! There are, however, a number of applications for live looping, as well as for sample based sequencing.

It can, however, still be somewhat of an ordeal to set up a working environment for making music in Linux, at least if you're going to record, edit and sequence audio. It often takes patience, some basic "hacking" skills (in this case, meaning: using the shell, installing and customizing additional packages etc.) and a willingness to experiment and read through forum and mailing list postings in order to solve one's problems. Setting up Linux for music making is still not something I'd recommend to a fellow musician who is also an average PC user with no desire to learn the inner workings of an operating system.

Personally, I find this entire process rewarding, even though I occasionally despair and wish that it would all just WORK already. The advantages of a Linux based system are, in my eyes, overwhelming, and I would rather not compromise for the sake of simplicity.

My experience
I've used Debian, DeMuDi and Ubuntu Studio for music making. The applications I've used the most are Ardour, Hydrogen, Qsynth, ZynAddSubFX, Specimen and Seq24. Earlier, still in Windows, Sony Acid and SoundForge were my primary applications.

My hardware
My computer is a Sony Vaio VGN-SR29VN. Specs in short:
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, 2.4GHz
4GB RAM
320GB SATA
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470

I have borrowed an Edirol FA-66 firewire audio interface from a friend. If it works well with my setup, I will probably buy it.