[ardour-users] Hardware Monitoring on RME9636

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Sun Apr 17 12:14:12 PDT 2005


On 4/17/05, Martin Buechler <martin.buechler at vrweb.de> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> > On 4/17/05, Martin Buechler <martin.buechler at vrweb.de> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi ardour-users,
> >>
> >
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >>What do I have to do to get HW monitoring working? What change in
> >>asound.state is needed, or even .asoundrc? How must jack be started to
> >>receive monitor events from ardour, i.e. punch-in/out? How must ardour
> >>be configured to send such events, the sessions seem not to memorize the
> >>'Hardware Monitoring' switch, or
> >>
> >>Should I better buy a little external mixer and forget about the card's
> >>hw monitoring feature?
> >
> >
> > Martin,
> >    It ain't pretty but I've done it using hdspmixer and different
> > preset files. My main outs on the HDSP 9652 are A3-1 & A3-2. If I'm
> > recording something from a hardware input, like In 9/10 (A2-1 & A2-2)
> > the I have a preset file that routes that directly to A3-1/A3-2 for
> > zero delay.
> >
> >    I've also messed a bit with routing to an inexpensive extenal
> > reverb unit for recording vocals. It helps.
> >
> >    Anyway, as I said, it ain't pretty, but it does work.
> 
> I actually don't know, what a preset file is, and I also do not have a
> HDSP, so I guess that this won't work with a RME 9636 card anyway, isn't
> it? 

You are so right. It makes no sense on that card. Not enough sleep
last night. Sorry for the confusion.

> Meanwhile I made a kind of proceeding with setting 'Channel thru' to
> true for channel 0 and leaving Passthru 'false'. And: Only if I keep
> qjackctl up and running while restoring that configuration to the card,
> then the sound comes through cleanly on the left side aka AEB-O's jack
> 1. Channel 0 and 1 are also my main outputs on the AEB-0 connector, and
> if I start ardour rolling, I cannot hear the left track anymore.....only
> the monitor signal, urrrggh. But I think, I start to to understand:

You should be able to accomplish most of what you want (without level
setting capabilities and with some latency) by going into QJackCtl and
wiring a specific alsa_pcm:capture input to a specific
alsa_pcm:playback output I would think. Jack itself will mix audio
from two sources so you could receive on a specific capture port and
route it to both Ardour and the playback port. Record in Ardour but do
not enable the track output to go to the Ardour master. I would think
that would work although it would have some latency.

Real hardware monitoring is very dependent on the hardware, obviously.
If the card has the capability is question #1. Then can Linux enable
it.

Whether you can save connection states within QJC I don't know but if
oyu could it would bypass doing this within Ardour until the
developers tell us how to do this correctly.
> 
> 1. Channel thru makes this channels in _and_ output only useable for the
> monitor signal, it doesn't automagically mix with what is coming from
> another source.
> 2. To get a no latency mix of both for monitoring while recording, I
> mean the monitor signal and the tracks, I still need an external analog
> mixer,
> or I have the monitor on the left and everything else on the other
> side...hmm not really exciting.
> 
> Agreed?
> 
> Martin
>



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