[Ardour-Users] My Recent Struggles With the RT kernel and Ardour - With Happy Ending

[John Rigg]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 08:21:23AM -0800, JOHN LYON wrote:
> I'd like to share my recent experiences with the Linux rt kernel,
> Ardour and jack. 
> 
> The short version: my problem was the XFF nForce 680i LT SLI motherbaord.
> When I fianlly swapped in an Asus P5QL Pro motherbaord, I could use the
> Linux rt kernel at very low latencies without any xruns.

John,

Glad to hear you solved the -rt problem. You've got some useful
gear and should be able to make some decent sounding recordings
with it. 

You do realise that with the Delta 1010(LT) you can get
close to zero latency monitoring without using small buffer sizes?
The internal mixer on the 1010LT (controlled using envy24control)
can send its outputs to analogue outputs 1 & 2, and give you a mix
of Ardour's master outs (latency compensated) and whatever inputs
you are recording on (close to zero latency). I've been using -p1024
without latency problems with this setup on my 1010s. 

It seems to be received wisdom in the recording community that small 
buffers are necessary, but a lot of pro and semi-pro interface hardware
allows for direct low latency monitoring (you'll still need small
buffers if you're using MIDI sequencing though).

HTH,
John