What was most confusing to me art first in the 'QJackCtl -> Connections' window was the fact that what Jack calls "ALSA" actually is Midi! What Jack calls "Midi" is Jacks own little version of Midi that no hardware manufacturer uses. That's why you won't see it in Qtractor's 'Connections' window (it's actually called Midi, where 'Jack Connections' confusingly calls it "ALSA"). Great tutorial again, thanks. BTW, I always close PulseAudio when I use Jack. Didn't even know that they can work together now-a-days. Thanks for that tip. :-)
also, the reason why Jack calls midi "alsa" is because it's referring to the "alsa sequencer" which is not a sequencer, but actually is what alsa calls it's midi routing function. The other section called "midi" in qjackctl is jack midi, wich you can use as well, but almost nobody does because the alsa sequencer does a good job with this. There is a way to pass alsa sequencer function to jack midi though, I'll show that in the next one.
Thanks for making this. Tried playing with jack every so often, but the audio was always 'muted' with browsers. Never knew it came down to the simple addition of Jack Sink.
Nice! I've used JACK a little but enough to get the gist of it. Like you said, it's a virtual patchbay. You can connect any audio output to any audio input. It seems particularly useful to anyone who uses multiple audio sources at the same time, like musicians especially.
It used to be finance. But now it's audio in linux. There's always one topic where no matter how much content I consume about it nothing ever sticks. So there's no way around trying stuff myself to really learn something. I'll use your video as a starting point.
This all seems to make sense... Which I must admit was NOT the impression I was harbouring after attempting to set this up and use it. So many thanks for the video clearly explaining it's "intended function", now all that remains is to attempt finding ""why"" this is "totally botched" and not at all working this way on my box...
From what I've read of the Jack1 and Jack2 repos, in Jack2 they've eliminated X-runs entirely. Both use the same API so I don't think it would be too complicated to use the second one in place of the first. Great video by the way man. Helped a lot. After the Rosegarden tutorials I think I'll bet set.
You cleared up quite a few questions I had about Pulse vs Jack vs Alsa. Just starting to look into Jack, as I have actually been kinda happy with the Pulse setup I have using the ladspa equalizer (Qpaeq is horrible). But I think I am interested in getting some more functionality to it, so Jack seems like it'd probably fit that bill. I just gotta learn some of the ropes first. Your vid helped a lot. Thanks!!
LADSPA is the one I use for 3 years now, I believe... the one with simple small grey interface, right? that app is so handy... I still don't understand what the "Keep Settings" button does exactly. Sometimes Pulseaudio doesn't remember the volume levels I assign to each application while using it, but then what I do to fix this is press the "EQ Enabled" button again, that seems to make Pulseaudio remember volume levels as intended again.
it's the Ladspa Equalizer, just google it and you'll see... that thing is a life-saver... one more tool brought by anonymous silent heros in the Linux world, gotta love it (Pulse Effects in the other hand is a bloated CPU-hog last time I tried it)
Fantastic introductory explanation... totally got John Smith's summary as a result - no way this would have made sense beforehand! Like the "user" focus in the video, though I admire folks who make delve deeper into the developer aspects... Subscribed, and just purchased two T's from the sponsors... I appreciate you Demonic Sweaters - thanks for breaking it down!
Jack doesn't make it faster than connecting directly to alsa, but like you said, allows you to patch the programs together. There is always a trade-off between latency and processing. Processing data will always make it slower, but allows you to do more things with it. Jack *is* faster than pulseaudio, but not alsa, because no matter how fast Jack is, alsa will be a bottleneck since it's part of the path. A process can never be faster than it's slowest step
well.... sorta. Jack actually can be faster than Alsa in the sense that it forces the hardware to go into real-time priority and keeps it there. So true the hardware is still being piped through Alsa, but it optimizes it. This is why a lot of the pro audio programs require you to use Jack rather than Alsa alone.
@xievub wg based on my understanding, Jack and pulseaudio function like routers. You can configure what audio goes where, send it through virtualized effects, etc. The speed difference we are talking about between Jack, pulseaudio, and alsa is where the semantics come in. Jack and pulseaudio are abstraction layers, or sort of libraries if you will (yes, I know they don't *function* like libraries but the concept is still the same). Using alsa, a programmer has to worry about audio levels, equalizing, switching devices when a new default is selected, and many more semantics that they honestly don't care about most of the time. Jack and pulseaudio eliminate this, by allowing a program to register as a source or sink, and push or pull audio. All of the semantics like leveling, equalizing, piping to another program, switching devices, etc. all go away. The developer still has the ability to control these factors by sending commands to the sound server, but they aren't required to account for any of that, making the development experience much better, and if it works for people and they don't complain, why wouldn't they use that convenience factor. For embedded environments though, where you need real-time audio, there's typically only one program controlling audio, and your connected devices don't change much, direct alsa access *done properly* is faster, but for most people, the lag time introduced by something like Jack isn't noticable, and for regular users, pulseaudio works fine too, and is easier to use, because most of the time, it runs in the background autonomously and you never have to touch it. Unless you want to do something more advanced than just watching a TV show or listening to music
You sure got that one up in a hurry. Thanks! I thought you had to remove pulse audio in order to use jack, you cleared that up. Did you have to set up all of those connections in qjackctrl or did it set up some defaults on installation? Definitely a part II is in order.
Hey Al, yeah I'll do a part two discussing connections and MIDI. But the pulseaudio-module-jack automatically connects the way it should, at least in Ubuntu 16.04. Like I was saying in the video, this used to be much more of a pain to make work, but 16.04 has a lot of things that just seem to work as soon as you install it, which is great!
Sharing this here because the "official" Pulseaudio documentation is NOT easy to read or understand at all. I was having this super loud game on Wine that didn't have a volume control, and when I switched out of the game it wouldn't appear in Pavucontrol at all. So I created a sink and a monitor for it to control the game's volume separately, using these commands: > pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name="webstream_sink" sink_properties=device.description="web_stream" > pactl list short sinks (you will find your soundcard here, that Alsa Output PCI thing down there...) > pactl load-module module-loopback source=webstream_sink.monitor sink=alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo rate=44100 And there is also this shorter command for when you need to Mute an application: sudo modprobe snd-dummy All credit goes to Mr Leopard here: obsproject.com/forum/threads/capture-single-pulseaudio-stream.35170/
Sound is actually what caused me to stop using Linux. I ran Linux exclusively for around a decade or so. But then devs started requiring me to add pulseaudio just to get sound from web videos and such. Being told what to put on my machine took away the big draw of Linux for me. So I went back to windows. If I can get Jack to do everything I need, I'll be content. Jack is at least built with the spirit of Linux in mind. Pulseaudio was poettering's first attempt to hijack Linux, I don't want any of his malware on my rig.
Can record qsubsynth into time machine, and jack sink is supposed to be making noise in pavucontrol but still getting now sound. Looks like I'm in for a world of main and reading ancient bbs threads. Thanks for the explanation though!
My goal is -10 MSEC (negative). That's right the latency is so good it's actually in the future. So I just discovered this nifty thing called Ubuntu Studio, (I told you I didn't know what I was doing). It runs around 8% instead of 15% and all of the hard work is taken care of for you. Can anyone say 56 frames, hmmm.
Excellent vid Mate, you saved me a staggering amount of work. I'll be Back. I'm setting up a Virtual Organ & already run into Massive latency lags which I hope my guess is right that 10 year old computer hardware (on board sound) is the issue. I'm thinking of getting the Behringer UMC204HD to interface my MIDI Organ & convert it to live sound. I hope it beats the Latency
I have been looking for a way to get my mic "connect" to an equalizer, then "connect" to OBS when I'm recording. Does Jack do this? I have been looking forever for a way to do so. I have tried PulseEffects but this one is not working at all.
@@demonicsweaters I have tried VST but somehow the GUI of none of them didn't work at all. And trying to get it working made me reinstall the whole distro again. I am left with just my headset mic praying it sounds good. 😂 Thanks for taking the time, dude. 😊❤
Really? That's interesting, pulseaudio shouldn't have anything to do with MIDI. I wonder if installing it also installed the alsa-sequencer as a dependent package.
Very clear definitions - thank you. I had a lot of issues with using Pulseaudio and JACK on Linux. When I turn on JACK server, then the sound from my browser and any non-connected applications does not work. Do you know what the best way is get around that?
Hello. Thank you for your video. I am starting a home studio with Linux Mint and I am looking for the "Linux compatible soundcards" and "wich program is the best between Ardour, LMMS, etc.. What is the difference between them? ??" Could you help ? THX
Mmmmyeah OK.... Thanks! Im still a wee puzzled as to when some apps, like Carla, ends up under Jack's Audio and then don't connect to Rosegarden. On that note, would you know of a ubuntu synth that takes SFZ scripts and also connects to Rosegarden, with or (preferably) without Jack?
Thanks! I've actually tried Cadence, but for me I always liked the simplicity of qjackctl better. Cadence does have better ways to save your sessions though.
Installed qjactl and pulseaudio-module-jack successfuly but "Pulseaudio JACK Sink" doesn't appear in the list of qjackctl : I can only see "system", server is running...It also doesn't appear in the Volume control of the system (Debian Buster), any idea ? [RESOLVED] 1) start qjackctl 2) in command line (even if jack server isn't started in qjackctl) : pactl load-module module-jack-sink pactl load-module module-jack-source
Could you give any recommendations on where to start when upon starting jack it comes back with the message "Could not connect to the jack server"? Thanks in advance
Hi ... how to make 2 LENGENDARY M-AUDIO DELTA 1010 ( both has it's respective PCI CARD and BREAKOUTBOX ) ... how to make both work in AV LINUX running COKOS REAPER ?
Combining cards can be quite tricky as the clocks tend to drift. the correct thing to do is link their clocks if they can do that the delta is a pretty capable card and might be able to do this with a wordclock in/out then run jack on the first card and add the second to the jack graph using alsa_in
I love your videos, especially one about the hidden extra audacity tool tab stuff. I produce audio and only use Audacity. I was a windows user, but switched to Ubuntu Studio when I realised how slow my laptop had become. My major concern is I can't seem to get my Zoom Hn4-pro connected as a USB interface. Aparently you could with the H4n but not the pro version. Any ideas?
Will you please help me, I am new to Linux, I just installed Garuda Dragonized gaming edition on my Panasonic toughbook CF-19ZA813DM with 16gb of ram and a 1tb Samsung 850 pro sata ssd. My sound doesn't work at all with the laptop speaker but does when I connect a Bluetooth speaker. Can you please help me
Am havin a problem with Jack, it starts up but keeps saying that it cannot open a PCM device for capture but it can for playback...and I was trying to get some sound from my speaker via vkeybd as a midi player...i did aconnect and connected the ports of vkeybd and midi port but didnt work..Suspect it is because of that pcm device issue...any ideas on this??...By the way I am using Ubuntu 16.04 and I did a pavucontrol and I don't see that Jack Sink..Your video is very useful though in understanding the concepts.Thanks
Okay a few things. First off, a MIDI controller isn't an audio input. How many inputs (if any) does your audio interface have? Make sure the number matches what you have set in your qjackctl settings. Jack sync is only used if you want to play pulseaudio sounds though jack (like youtube/web browsers ect.. ) also if you want to play synth via midi, you need to have the MIDI routed to a keyboard sound source, like qsynth or some other type of midi instrument. Midi routing is done under the 'alsa' tab on qjackctl. Hopefully that all made sense.
@@demonicsweaters Thank you for all that information.Midi Controller isnt an audio input...my first wrong assumption, i thought it is a audio input since clicking on a key on VKeybd would create a sound via speaker. I can see VKeybd in the alsa tab and can route it with MIDI output port 0 on left to vkeybd on right of the display panel. But my main issue right now is JackD is not starting correctly, it is not starting as a capture device only as a playback and although I loaded module-jack-sink and source modules compatible with Pulse, these modules are not being loaded via pactl, it gives a failure on load, initialization error. I assume if these modules are loaded correctly, the pavucontrol should start displaying these source and sinks. Any pointers on this issue?
Can you please help me? my laptop windows crashed,after that windows cannot be installed..every time the installation almost finishes, something happens and it says the installation media has some problem, contact vendor. but it is running ubuntu just fine, only battery hungry. I tried like 8-10 times, failed every single time, same problem.
Well if Ubuntu is draining your batter, Widows will be twice as bad, so your battery may be dying. If windows is saying your installation media is bad, then that's probably what it is. Make a new USB disk, try a different usb drive, make sure your're writing the boot disk the correct way with something like the official windows media creator too (I forget it's actual name), or if you're using something like a Dell, they usually have their own image writer.
@@demonicsweaters tried like 10 times, from torrent to windows media creation tool. nothing.And that 10 times was in a single day, I didn't sleep cause I lost all my files installing Ubuntu. The worked way better with windows. Is it some kind of BIOS problem?
start jack, then open a terminal and type : load-module module-jack-sink & load-module module-jack-source if you get the pulseaudio in/outs in qjackctl, you can make this automatic by entering this command into "execute script after startup"
@@demonicsweaters So I had to switch operating systems a few times since this unfortunately and now this command doesn't work, I get this: [1] 13855 load-module: command not found load-module: command not found [1]+ Exit 127 load-module module-jack-sink
Don't you just hate this guy?!!! How to you get to know so much stuff? Number one fan speaking. I've just pressed subscribe and nothing happened.How to really subscribe..........?
I have the Asus Essence STX ii card and that has a sample rate of 192000 @24 bit. I'm using ubuntu right now just because I'm new to linux, but it looks like it has me as a virtuoso 100 (Xonar Essence STX ii) driver. I use tidal and well I'm from windows of course (never again!!) and they don't have an app for linux so I'm using Strawberry. I'm totally confused I'm getting myself deep in this this. Maybe you can help me.
@@demonicsweaters How do I stream master quality songs from Tidal without that app that just only works on windows. So how can I stream the master quality songs on Linux?
I've got Jack and Alsa all figured out. I might have been able to get the latency down to .2 msec sooner with your help, but o well. Hey to answer my own question. You can't, you can only get "master" quality with Tidal with the app and it's only available with windows and mac. Hey what you can do is check out Qobuz. OK cool thanx for your your help man I'll check it out. No problem, if you need anything else just give me a shout. Thanx a bunch again. Hey sweater boy, whats your latency at with your real time server??
@@demonicsweaters in pavucontrol in input devices it shows microphone(unplugged) ... its catching the sound of my laptop fan (using builtin mic) but still no sound on google classroom and other online apps
@@shivajichalise_ all that can be so annoying. Try some different mixers like pavucontrol, alsamixer and amixergui, they all seem to behave differently and have different options.
OK now I've got it at 192000 sample, 128 frames, 2 periods. Total of 1.33 MSEC latency that's WITH dithering, ZERO X RUNS!. Is that good? Hell I guess I'll try to do better.
@@demonicsweaters My problem is I can't leave well enough alone and screw everything up. This Jack thing is sensitive, it gets it's feelings hurt very easy. One wrong move and it the old proverbial "Broken".
I hate pulseaudio. Works fine with my monitor speaker, but I have usb audioengine hd3s that work sporadically with pulse. I can disable pulse easily in manjaro and some other distros and use alsa alone which works perfectly fine. Can't figure out how to disable pulse in solus which I've been using a couple days. I need to learn more.
@@demonicsweaters I have done that too. Its not recommended since so many things depend on pulse from what I understand. I'll probably end up doing that with solid and see what happens.
my thoughts.. alsa works but is near impossible to configure the way you want. Jack, dont need. Pulse, easy to configure, but everything sounds like shit.
@@demonicsweaters Yes I did. Installing pavucontrol fixed my issues, so thanks. I understand that this is not about troubleshooting, and is more a general overview. I just found it amusing that my lack of audio was preventing me from fixing my audio.
I take it all back! (not really) using ubuntustudio 64bit 20.1. Opened jackcntrl thinking I was going to be king of linux audio. ..Nothing happens.......no matter what. I can get sound out of lmms without touching anything and i can even apply my own soundfont i made in polyphone. No jackcntrl to be seen. Try and get a sound out of rosegarden....forget it. I'll be joine at the hip with demonic sweaters for life.
I need to connect two external interfaces to increase my inputs and be able to record more channels at the same time, can you help me by telling me how? The truth is that I am going crazy with connections, I would appreciate some help
Happy to see u Justin. :D Good explain! haha. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iaPW5v2ztEQ.html charming smile I love the moment that you are explaining jack is a driver and jack is also not a driver
