[ardour-users] some questions

[Dave Phillips]

Josh Karnes wrote:

> Dave Phillips wrote:
>
>>    Do you run Jack + Ardour as root ? (It seems to fix some 
>> performance problems for me).
>
>
> I do, but it's not normally advised.  A kernel with "capabilities 
> patch" is supposed to alleviate the requirement to run as root in 
> order to gain real-time scheduling priority or whatever it is you gain 
> by running as root.  I am going to begin trying to run Ardour as 
> non-root and see how it goes... 

I've been running Ardour as normal user but recently I thought I'd try 
doing so as root. My system isn't very powerful (800 MHz Duron CPU), and 
JACK kicks Ardour out when things get too active. Running as root 
appears to alleviate (but not totally eradicate) that problem. Btw, I 
always shut down my network connection when I use Ardour as root. It 
seems the safe thing to do...

>
>>    When I start writing an automated fade the fader always resets to 
>> unity before writing. Is there a way to force it to start from the 
>> fader's current position ?
>>
>
> I am eagerly anticipating the answer to this question...  as this is a 
> major irritation for me!!  I mean, you get the "static" mix nearly 
> perfect, need a touch of automation for a fade out or solo or 
> whatever, and suddenly your whole baseline mix is blown. 

Yep, that's the problem. Jesse informed me that the whole issue of the 
gain automation is in development. As it works now I find it too 
difficult to use: adding a gain curve in the track is awkward, and the 
reset to unity definitely blows its suitability in the mixer strip. The 
region editor looks like the best choice for adding volume fades, but 
I'm still figuring out its best use.

>  Ardour won't build on my system with vst support (won't build for 
> source at all and it's way too much trouble for me to spend any more 
> time figuring out why), so I don't use these anymore since switching 
> to Linux. The lack of access to these critical plugins is almost 
> enough for me to switch back to Windows, at least to mix.  It's like 
> making near and dear pieces of audio recording equipment suddenly 
> unusable... 

I know that VST support is very important to the Ardour developers, but 
their success/failure in that area is heavily dependent on development 
tracks for the kernel and for the WINE project. Perhaps some better 
lines of communication are opening up, but at this point I don't think 
the WINE team is following Ardour's needs very closely (I'd like to be 
wrong about that).

>
>>    I'm using a Delta 66 card. If you're using such a card, what are 
>> your JACK settings ?
>
>
> I'm using Delta 1010...  similar enough...  24/44.1, realtime, and 
> whatever combo of buffers & etc. that results in 93ms of latency works 
> for me.  I don't mind more latency but Jack won't start with higher 
> settings.  No point in lower latency with the monitor mixer feature of 
> the Delta cards. 

I'd like to know more about monitoring with a Delta system. What's the 
recommended setup ? I assume I want to go with hardware monitoring, but 
I'm not completely sure I understand the connections.

Many thanks !

Best,

dp