For what it's worth, I've been using a BabyFace Pro on Mac for years, ADAT-connected to an RME rack ADC/DAC to enable all available audio channels, and it's been as rock-solid as any hardware I've ever owned.
Note that, while the BabyFace Pro doesn't have native Linux or BSD drivers, it does have a USB class-compliant mode that, while feature-limited compared to the proprietary drivers, may be sufficient for DAW use — AFAIK, the primary limitation is limited control over the hardware mixer, so problematic if you need low-latency monitoring of multiple input channels simultaneously, but possibly irrelevant otherwise.
There's also a full-featured iPad mixer app that works in class-compliant mode, so full control is at least theoretically possible, lack of published details notwithstanding, and there appears to be at least some support for this in the Linux kernel,
I prefer the Universal Audio Volt series over the Scarlett. Plus, if you ever think of upgrading you'll have some familiarity with Universal Audio, who is a pretty big player in this area. This is coming from a guitarist perspective, in case it matters. I really like my Volt.
A couple other thoughts for people who are looking around.
- I had a consumer M-Audio interface that was always a bit weird. One day well outside the warranty period I popped the lid off and discovered a tombstoned resistor and two bodge wires on the PCB. I reached out to M-Audio on Twitter and the best they could do was offer me a $20 discount on another interface. Very unimpressed.
- I replaced it with a Behringer UMC404HD and the very first thing I did when it arrived was pop the cover off. I'm an EE by trade and I was very impressed by the design. The board layout etc was nice, but the part that really surprised me was the pre-amps for the mic inputs. Maybe I'm weird for feeling this way, but the folks who designed it have taste. The pre-amps are designed around some NJR op-amps; NJR parts are notorious for being slew-rate-limited for a lot of applications, but to my ears they sound absolutely buttery smooth. The fact that the designers used those parts instead of some jelly-bean "flat" op-amps really made me appreciate the consideration that went into the design.
Edit: and yes, I know Behringer has a bit of a reputation for being "kinda cheap and kinda crappy" but I have zero complaints and I've had this unit for a few years now.
IIRC the UMC404 was designed just after they bought Midas, and those engineers had a lot of input.
Behringer has gotten a lot better, their early days (20 year ago) they made cheap junk clones. Now they have some good gear as well.
Though the company itself has other operating practices people don't like. You should for sure do your research on them. I have some of their gear, but I'm not sure I'll buy more.
What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces?
Universal Audio recently released some really nice made-in-taiwan desktop interfaces in the same price range as the Scarletts. I have scarletts on my rackmount setup, UA Volt on my desk.
UA's software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on.
Scarlett's software is relatively good by comparison, although you have to start their server by hand from the terminal if you don't want it running all the time.
> What would you say are the distinguishing features between home/semi-pro/pro interfaces?
Without going into tons of nitty-gritty details, the major ones are the number of inputs/channels, size, and price.
Scarlett 2i2 is more than enough for most people, with its 2 channels (both with independently controllable headphone and monitor outputs).
Motu 828, the one listed as semi-pro tier, has 20 input channels.
I suggest reading reviews of each of them, but basically the rule of thumb is that if the review is listing bajillion things that you have no understanding of at all, you don't need that tier and can safely move to the tier below.
No shame in that at all. Even the home/hobby level of audio equipment today is functionally crazy, and priced insanely cheap compared to just a couple decades ago.
I meant more between e.g. a Scarlett 18i20 and a Motu 828.
I went with the Scarlett because A) it was relatively cheap and B) it had quite good reviews, but I'm curious what I'm losing on a technical basis by going for the $500 option over the $1000 option.
I am not a musician, but I am a live events operator, and since almost everybody has a Zoom setup now I want to asterisk something for folks who are reading: the interfaces recommended in other comments are great interfaces if you are a musician, but for spoken word they're all overkill. If you're in the market for that, start slow.
I recommend a good USB-powered dynamic microphone, such as the Samson Q2U or Samson Q9U. If you're going to buy an interface (maybe to drive some monitors as well as a microphone) and an XLR microphone for exclusively spoken-word stuff, the "buy a dynamic" advice still applies--I like the sE Dynacaster but I'm also the type to spend $300 on a microphone, you don't need to be--but you really don't need more than something like a Behringer UMC22 for an interface. Not a UM22, that's different and a bit below-the-bar, but you don't need to spend more than $60-$70 for an interface that will do everything you need.
I wrote this near the start of COVID when at a previous company and my advice still holds.
Can you explain why you posted this link-and-run? Because this is not a responsive criticism to what I wrote. And, if one reads the document you linked, the authors of that document expressly do not intend it to be responsive.
> If you plan to use your USB mic with its own headphone jack, then most of what is written here does not apply to you, and you can regard the microphone as a small, not particularly good, simple audio interface just like one of the boxes you might otherwise connect to you computer.
Yup. This is true. I recommended the Samson Q2U or Q9U in no small part because of this. It is a single-purpose audio interface and it's fine for people who want a good-sounding Zoom presence. They are also both microphones that provide some nontrivial improvement when they are used over XLR, which can rationalize later buying an interface once you've decided that you want to do so.
> If you're making a podcast, or working with some audio where the highest possible fidelity to the original sound isn't particularly important, you're probably going to be just fine with this resampling taking place. You can use your USB mic, the operating system will resample one or both audio streams, things will seem to just work, and you'll probably be happy with the results.
As it happens, I agree with the general thrust of what they're saying--for music. This is a reason why I have a very large and moderately expensive digital mixer. But they themselves are not intending to cover general-purpose, spoken-word uses, like podcasts (which I think one can reasonably expand to "teleconferences"), with their criticism.
I think the document speaks for itself. USB mics are a mistake, in general. If they do duplex (record & playback), they are sufficiently less of a mistake to maybe warrant no concern. Manufacturer's took the easy path ("easy! just plug it in!") when they should have been encouraging people to stick to the existing path ("not that easy, but not hard either!")
They might be a mistake for you. Your needs are different from somebody needing to sound clear and pleasant in a Zoom call. So are mine. I understand that mine are different, though, and that's where we diverge.
You're better off running Snow Leopard on an old mac mini for pro audio, unless you really just want to play with FreeBSD (you'll spend more time configuring your system rather than making music)
That's often also the problem with Linux and audio.
The easiest way is to connect Ardour directly through ALSA to an audio interface . The second easiest way is IMHO jackd and if you want to get in some trouble it's Pipewire (at least within the development state mar 2023).
What's the current problem with Pipewire? Pulse (for simple audio stuff) and Jack (for low latency stuff) integrations both work fine for me, so I'm wondering what problems you've run into recently are.
In my recent experience the problem isn't pipewire per se but rather how it interacts with rtkit (it's particularly bad with the FocusRite interface recommended above for home users). You can set it up to request realtime capabilities directly but you're going against the workflow and at that point you might as well use jack since you're going to be fiddling around anyways.
Though honestly, on Linux I just use ALSA for everything and don't think about it after that. By definition neither Jack nor Pipewire can be faster than the ALSA they are talking to.
You're not wrong, and I suspect it has something to do with hardware. My Behringer U-Phoria worked fine on Linux, then my Scarlett shit itself, then I replaced it with a MOTU M2 which does just fine. If you interface isn't USB-class-compliant, don't expect it to work on Linux.
> By definition neither Jack nor Pipewire can be faster than the ALSA they are talking to.
Sure, but that's like saying that you don't need an operating system when you can compile to baremetal. Both Jack and Pipewire are slower, but offer pretty substantial routing options on top of that. Furthermore, I believe both protocols support ALSA connections too.
I use Bitwig on NixOS and it's not too bad with PipeWire. Latency and routability generally rivals CoreAudio, which is good enough for me.
IME Bitwig is heavyweight enough it doesn't really matter what you're connecting with, plus it "wants" Pipewire (IIRC that's the only thing CLAP will work with?)
And I don't want to sound like I'm dumping on Pipewire; I think the work Wim has been doing is absolutely awesome and (unlike a lot of what FDo puts out) actually solves existing problems rather than hypothetical ones. It's just not quite (yet) what I need as a DJ and looper.
The problem is, that it's crackling also in normal use. The log always says, that the client is too slow.
Maybe it's my sound card (driver) which I doubt because it should make no problems with a Focusrite interface. However ... I'm tired of tuning the system when I want to make music.
So pipewire is really cool but not usable for pro audio yet (IMHO)
I actually develop modern-day plugins on an old Snow Leopard macbook pro, before porting them to other systems and making the more modern, signed, M1-enabled versions. I've not run across anything that the Snow Leopard box can't handle, at least without expecting to run lots of instances of it.
So if you went for a Snow Leopard audio/music machine you'd be in good company :)
What are you running for an OS? If it is MacOS, how do any of your apps work? I would not think that even recent web browsers would install on Snow Leopard.
I put Linux on old Macs precisely because I cannot go a day on older MacOS without hitting 10 applications whose latest versions I cannot install on MacOS.
If you are not having that problem, I would like to know more.
Followup post has it figured out. I code initially on the SnowMeow laptop, so I can have retro AUs and VSTs: that also runs an old Parallels which runs a Windows VM and a Linux VM, where those VSTs are made.
All that stuff is old, the laptop's air-gapped and never talks to the internet, and I bring the code over on an SD card to the Mac Studio where I do the signed versions of AU and VST, make the videos, etc.
I also resist 'latest versions' of things quite hard. Generally that's not what I want. I want stuff where it's working consistently. Even my web browser is a Chromium picked specifically so I can be sure it will get old and go out of date until _I_ have a reason to change it, which will doubtless happen but it'll happen when I want.
I can't imagine running Snow Leopard but also feeling like you have to run the newest of everything. It can't even run a remotely current web browser. You have to already have programs that will be exactly what you want and need. Then, you use those and get used to them, like cooking with an old chef's knife you've had for decades :)
Contents of the article aside, I’m intrigued by that Thinkpad with what appears to be a graphics tablet in the palm rest. Anyone know what model that is?
Two pairs of physical "mouse" buttons - one for the touchpad and second for trackpoint (red "dot") - look quite unusual.
Especially in comparison to the new Z13 model[1] in which Lenovo has ditched buttons-buttons on top of the touchpad in favor of an area of touchpad acting as buttons for both trackpoint and touchpad. My T-series has physical buttons-buttons for the trackpoint on top of the touchpad and bottom area of the touchpad acting as buttons for the touchpad. I haven't tested neither Z13 model (not yet released) nor the old W-series but I think Z-series may be a downgrade.
Seriously, the trackpoint/touchbar from MacBooks is the only thing I miss after switching to ThinkPads.
Lenovo keeps trying to kill the trackpoint. With the T440 they also killed the trackpoint physical buttons but people HATED it so they brought them back for future T series devices. The Z line is their attempt to do it again. I hope it stays contained there.
With OpenArena you have that some maps still look really nice in 2023 if you set all settings to the highest settings, which any modern GPU can easily handle. Some maps are just plain super cool. So I mean some maps can give you an experience that the best commercial titles can't match right now. Urban Terror is probably similar in that it has been developed more and more over the years and has received better maps and features.
Can you just tell which maps are those? Whenever I check OpenArena I am saddened to see that every server is empty of humans or there are just few russians arguing in regular stype maps
I still do, because there is no other game which can match the experience of jump-slide-fps action as this one does, simple as that. Sadly there are only ever two maps where people still play and neither of them roll Dust2 or Ryiadh maps, which are my fav.
I'm presuming the rate "oss -r44000" should actually be "oss -r 44100" for normal audio (or 48000 for audio to be embedded in video output, 48000 also appears to be the default rate).
I really support FreeBSD whenever I can, but not here. Linux, ubuntu specifically, out of the box can have an audio workstation ready to go within 10 minutes of installation. Not to mention you get a much larger array of software and VST plugins. When you consider hardware support, its almost a nobrainer. However FreeBSD is probably a bit more stable with jack in realtime mode.
10 years ago, I used to run Linux as my effects processor for my guitar and keyboard synth when I was in a band. That same laptop also ran projectm to display realtime visuals on our backdrop.
I have a machine running ubuntu studio. While it is easy to get up and going, the upgrades over the years have not been smooth. I'm thinking about going back to FreeBSD because long term it is easier to upgrade. pkg is an amazing system that beats dpkg or rpm (it took 10-15 years to get ahead though)
What's your reasoning for this statement? I find poudriere[1] handy for compiling one's own packages from ports configured to fit one's goals, but I see nothing outstanding in plain pkg.
It has issues when there's an IPv6 address up (even link-local) but no egress v6 routing. It would hang and wait for a timeout when an IPv6 address is selected from resolved addresses. After a timeout - pkg connects to v4 endpoint but if there's several packages to be downloaded, it can fall back to trying to connect to v6 with the next package.
On the other hand, I've recently had Ubuntu 22.04 register Python-related packages which were not successfully installed, resulting in all dpkg/apt/apt-get commands failing due to py3clean script throwing tracebacks, until /var/lib/dpkg/status was edited and these packages were in fact installed and then removed.
Not op here, but: I think the philosophy of ports and packages (shared with other BSDs) has an upside over dpkg and rpm in that you can customize options when you build from source. The downside is that building from source takes a long time.
If you follow Debian testing or sid, you will experience a lot of dependency breakage that I've never seen on a BSD, but that may not be dpkg or apt's fault so much as ongoing package maintenance causing those issues.
That you can mix ports and pkg is a big deal. 99% of the time the default binary pkg is good enough, but that last 1% I can get the exact options I want.
I haven't used IPv6 with pkg though. (stupid ISPs).
> It has issues when there's an IPv6 address up (even link-local) but no egress v6 routing.
I have multiple FreeBSD machines, all of them with IPv6 up on link-local, and pkg doesn't hang at all. Even without valid globally unique IPv6 addressing, but valid ULA addressing (unique local address) and valid routing for IPv6 on an internal network, no issues.
It sounds like you've got some globally unique IPv6 addresses assigned to an interface somewhere and address selection (and thus the addresses returned from getaddrinfo) will return IPv6 first and try that before falling back to IPv4.
You can configure this address selection by using the ip6addrctl tool which will allow you to validate and change that address selection.
FreeBSD also has predefined policies you can set in /etc/rc.conf:
ip6addrctl_enable="YES" # Set to YES to enable default address selection
ip6addrctl_verbose="NO" # Set to YES to enable verbose configuration messages
ip6addrctl_policy="AUTO" # A pre-defined address selection policy
# (ipv4_prefer, ipv6_prefer, or AUTO)
> It sounds like you've got some globally unique IPv6 addresses assigned to an interface somewhere
Single inet6 address up is fe80::xxx. My outdated ISP does not provide any v6 connectivity. But my cellular (other) ISP provides v6 and I use tethering while traveling, so would like to avoid disabling INET6.
> addresses returned from getaddrinfo) will return IPv6 first and try that before falling back to IPv4.
It's random with no v6 preference.
ping6 fails immediately upon attempt to reach outside world:
ping6: UDP connect: No route to host
ping6 2606:4700:4700::1111 0.00s user 0.00s system 50% cpu 0.005 total
And here's an example[1] of how how pkg hangs for about a minute when it selects unreachable v6 address.
Wonderful idea, I shall commit to a blog post about it and share it this week. I will note that oss apps do not hold a candle to most professional apps. That said, you can make all of the popular effects yourself, you just really need to understand your synth/vst/daw
If you actually need Windows VSTs in your workflow, then it would still be best to run Windows. However, yabridge is pretty amazing these days (still, however, utterly dependent on the ever-shifting sands of what Wine does).
Is FreeBSD bringing anything special and mention-worthy to the table here or is this just a post in the realm of "Hey, FreeBSD can do this, too!"? Not a rant (I'm working with OpenBSD and/or FreeBSD almost daily) but more of a question if I have missed anything.
The author is known to blog his notes using FreeBSD as a daily driver for things other than just damn fast HTTPS video streaming and ZFS file or block storage.
For those that might have struggled with Ardour or were looking for something just a bit more professional on Linux, I recommend Reaper - it's a one time purchase and in my opinion about as good as it gets on Linux: https://www.reaper.fm/
Thanks, I was recently trying to figure out what audio app use for some very amateur toying around. I used to play around with a version of Reason I had long ago and recently just started playing with Garageband. It's pretty difficult trying to understand where to get started and what to use, esp as just a hobby.
Googling "reason vs X" just turned up ad-loaded drivel.
Anyone know of any good guides that lay out the land? Venn diagrams of where DAWs (digital audio workstation), Mixers, etc overlap or how they relate/compare with each other?
Bitwig specifically is very known and exceptional. It isn't just a "daw for linux", it is a major cross-platform DAW that is being developed by a bunch of ex-Ableton people. Been following it since the initial release, and by now it became clear that they are clearly shooting (and really promisingly) for the "top DAW overall" status rather than something more narrow like "top Linux DAW".
“I want to record audio” should not require even 2 hours of work. It’s still a 10 year learning experience in some circumstances. I’m at 20, hopefully I’m saying something useful.
I support reaper, here’s an opinion. My problem with reaper is that I think it was trying to be protools for people who couldn’t afford protools.
The thing is, most people aren’t recording 32 ADC channels and 1024 midi tracks on rackmount stuff. I think I have my dad’s last MIDI cables, and it makes me feel either ancient or hipster. Even pro studios are slimmer, cause it’s not 2003. Workflow is at a premium, and reaper… kinda feels like an expensive version of FOSS.
Still so great in the ecosystem, and aw, a DAW love of mine. A chisel for the days when the 3D printer just isn’t robust enough.
I use Logic Pro and bitwig. Bitwig fails the same test. I rarely say this, but this niche could inspire nerdy moments a bit less, and creative workflows a bit more to be attractive to a prosumer.
The problem is that after your typical singer/songwriter spends a month or two working with the sort of tool they "really need", their sense of the possible expands. And expands. And expands. They may never get to 32 hardware channels, but they will get to automation, VCAs, plugin favorites, grouping, and much, much more.
I've considered doing a crazy-simple version of Ardour (nominal name "arb" for "Ardour Recording Button"), but I'm still not convinced that writing a tool that will only be useful to most of its users for a couple of months makes sense.
You probably mean the equivalent of a scratchpad for writing down ideas without caring about formatting, typos, small details etc. This is often accomplished much quicker in music by using a hardware platform such as a portable recorder with a set of effects and sometimes instruments too: plug mic and guitar, start drum machine and start recording, then add a few tracks, mix down to .mp3 and the quick demo is ready, when done you export the result into the DAW where the real work work happens. Zoom and Tascam have some really nice devices in their catalog.
The same could be accomplished also in software, and it would have a huge success, however packing it with features can only slow down the work; everything should be thought without the idea of turning it into a full DAW but just putting it there the minimum necessary to be productive without distractions. Think about a mini Linux distro (Alpine?) that boots in seconds on a small netbook to directly load the "music scratchpad" at full screen and no other software in the background. Plenty of devices are out there ready to be repurposed for that, and good external USB audio card can be found for cheap.
Years ago I used my old Samsung NC10 netbook to record my band. The internal mics were crap like with every laptop, but once I built a small stereo jfet preamp to connect two external dynamic mics, I got quite good results. It was a bit slow to operate, and more so managing the long files we created (~3 hours at 44.1KHz 16bit stereo .wav) but I used a full Debian plus Audacity without any optimization for speed and size.
1. no, you should never ever "mix down to mp3 and export to the DAW, where the real work happens". If you're going to work in a DAW, please, please start with losslessly compressed or uncompressed PCM data.
2.
> The same could be accomplished also in software, and it would have a huge success
Odd how none of the proprietary DAW manufacturers believe this, isn't it?
I've already described the basic problem with this idea: it starts out as being precisely what someone wants, but every few months, their desires/expectations expand. What "productive without distractions" means looks very different after you've done a bit of computer audio production for a year than when you're just starting out.
1. Of course I would export to the DAW in uncompressed format, the mp3 would be handy for quick listening and sharing among players.
2. Yes, that is odd (although I seem to recall Dr. T's did something like that ages ago). It doesn't bring money apparently, so they concentrate on much bigger overcomplicated software that does everything except simple things but shines when showed in ads. It seems to me this one could become the right niche in which FOSS can surpass commercial software: do 3 things and do them well.
sure. But we take your 3 things, then Ben over there's 3 things, then Maggie's 3 things, and then Olafur's 3 things and add in Vieux's 3 things and pretty soon we're talking about a real DAW!
Reaper is awesome! I did a bunch of research before buying a DAW and Reaper struck me as the most principled and generally well-designed option among those I found.
It's very powerful, which means there is a bit of a learning curve, but it can do everything you want it to, and it has nice stuff like really solid scripting support (lua, python, and some DSL).
I record like 20-30 audio tracks at a time from my rackmount setup and reaper handles it no problem.
I would also add Non DAW. Great example of modular design, extremely lightweight, non-destructive editing. The session files of Non Timeline are also comfortable and fun to parse or even modify with sed/awk etc scripts.
EDIT: Also, if you're a command line and text file weirdo like me:
Mixer4: http://www.acousticrefuge.com/mixer4.htm (From the homepage: "Mixer4 is an audio mixer and processor that can be controlled through simple text files.
Over a dozen accessory programs complete what can be a very solid recording studio." I can confirm that it is extremely fast and very interesting to use. Nice, responsive and friendly solo developer, too.)
Earlier this year I was struggling with just trying to get an audio recording workflow together on linux mint. It was really eye opening and disappointing, considering that to get some tools to work optimally, you have to get into the weeds and see if you have the right kernel. Adjusting mic levels are painful, everything is painful. I thought we moved beyond having to dualboot windows and linux, but now that I’m here for the coding, other techie pursuits (bash scripting, homelabbing and the like), and gaming, I come to find out that if you still probably need to dual boot if you want to do content creation. Oh and the only seeming distro thats setup out of the box thats focused on content creation is ubuntu studio, and I don’t want to be run up against a wall because of the snap eco system.
Not really qualified because I am not a musician and I was only using lmms to play around with a midi dials and buttons box, openbsd's sndio. and to see if I could get them to work togther. So in my case it was more of a systems integration exercise than making any music with it.
What do you think the readers of this space do? What is your vision of this "non-working" hacker news reader? I legitimately can't imagine anything here but a 90's era stereotype.
Ride their tandem bikes around "SanFran" with raspberry pi's up their asses. Complain about how normal people don't use Firefox anymore and that it should be rewritten in Rust. Try to convert their FreeBSD thinkpads into modern DAWs.
I think it’s a comment on tinkering vs working. A lot of people view alternative OS’s like BSDs as a toy for tinkering but not being productive. I wouldn’t know because my entire 7-figure income comes from my basement rack of Plan9 machines…
I think it's cool that people work on DAWs for *nix/*bsd, but as someone who uses linux as a daily driver, I don't really see the point.
When I want to make or record music, I don't want to spend time debugging the system. I just want it to work, and I don't want have to worry if a plugin runs on my system. *nix/*bsd don't come close to achieving that, and windows is not stable enough for audio systems for my taste. IOW what is the hobby here? Making music, or tinkering with my *nix/*bsd system?
Linux didn't get that way without people like OP helping to make things work. Many people said (and still say) the same things about Linux vs Mac for example.
The association of using linux/bsd and spending time debugging system is getting old. Like very very old and outdated.
The parent article show a small number of config files to set and a package to install. It is not more complicated than installing ASIO4ALL driver and setting it up on a windows box.
And I can show you countless of threads in music forums about people asking how to solve their midi connections / sync / latency / clipping problems on macOS and windows.
"The association of using linux/bsd and spending time debugging system is getting old. Like very very old and outdated."
I literally use linux every day on my pc, work laptop, and personal laptop. It's not outdated at all, it's part of using linux. Granted it's a lot better than before.
MacOS having occasional issues is not comparable to having to mess around with alsa/jack/pipewire and debug linux issues in general. Obviously no system is perfect.
I'd be curious to know what you need to debug on a regular basis. I don't have to do anything with alsa. On pipewire I just use pulseaudio volume control to define the sound levels and codec used by the different audio devices/interfaces I plug into. This is pretty seamless. And that's it.
The only things that makes me pull my hair sometimes are pairing bluetooth devices but that is regardless of the OS. It may just be that some hardware/firmwares of bluetooth devices are just shitty because it is the same misery regardless if I am on mobile, windows, linux, whatever.
This might be a good idea to find a more stable platform. I may start messing with GUIX to feel Lispy throughout my next computing adventures
I love Linux, but feel a bit of whiplash after Ubuntu's feeping commerce creaturism, charging for things that it seems like should be in the core product. (live kernel patching, for example)
109 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadsemi-pro/more serious: MOTU 828
pro/studio level: PRISM Sound Lyra or Titan
Because they seem to have great performance and stability on Windows.
Note that, while the BabyFace Pro doesn't have native Linux or BSD drivers, it does have a USB class-compliant mode that, while feature-limited compared to the proprietary drivers, may be sufficient for DAW use — AFAIK, the primary limitation is limited control over the hardware mixer, so problematic if you need low-latency monitoring of multiple input channels simultaneously, but possibly irrelevant otherwise.
There's also a full-featured iPad mixer app that works in class-compliant mode, so full control is at least theoretically possible, lack of published details notwithstanding, and there appears to be at least some support for this in the Linux kernel,
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2eb29d59ddf02e39774ab...
Software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on.
- I had a consumer M-Audio interface that was always a bit weird. One day well outside the warranty period I popped the lid off and discovered a tombstoned resistor and two bodge wires on the PCB. I reached out to M-Audio on Twitter and the best they could do was offer me a $20 discount on another interface. Very unimpressed.
- I replaced it with a Behringer UMC404HD and the very first thing I did when it arrived was pop the cover off. I'm an EE by trade and I was very impressed by the design. The board layout etc was nice, but the part that really surprised me was the pre-amps for the mic inputs. Maybe I'm weird for feeling this way, but the folks who designed it have taste. The pre-amps are designed around some NJR op-amps; NJR parts are notorious for being slew-rate-limited for a lot of applications, but to my ears they sound absolutely buttery smooth. The fact that the designers used those parts instead of some jelly-bean "flat" op-amps really made me appreciate the consideration that went into the design.
Edit: and yes, I know Behringer has a bit of a reputation for being "kinda cheap and kinda crappy" but I have zero complaints and I've had this unit for a few years now.
Behringer has gotten a lot better, their early days (20 year ago) they made cheap junk clones. Now they have some good gear as well.
Though the company itself has other operating practices people don't like. You should for sure do your research on them. I have some of their gear, but I'm not sure I'll buy more.
Universal Audio recently released some really nice made-in-taiwan desktop interfaces in the same price range as the Scarletts. I have scarletts on my rackmount setup, UA Volt on my desk.
UA's software is atrocious though. Their spyware DRM crashes any windows VM I try to install it on.
Scarlett's software is relatively good by comparison, although you have to start their server by hand from the terminal if you don't want it running all the time.
Without going into tons of nitty-gritty details, the major ones are the number of inputs/channels, size, and price.
Scarlett 2i2 is more than enough for most people, with its 2 channels (both with independently controllable headphone and monitor outputs).
Motu 828, the one listed as semi-pro tier, has 20 input channels.
I suggest reading reviews of each of them, but basically the rule of thumb is that if the review is listing bajillion things that you have no understanding of at all, you don't need that tier and can safely move to the tier below.
No shame in that at all. Even the home/hobby level of audio equipment today is functionally crazy, and priced insanely cheap compared to just a couple decades ago.
I went with the Scarlett because A) it was relatively cheap and B) it had quite good reviews, but I'm curious what I'm losing on a technical basis by going for the $500 option over the $1000 option.
I recommend a good USB-powered dynamic microphone, such as the Samson Q2U or Samson Q9U. If you're going to buy an interface (maybe to drive some monitors as well as a microphone) and an XLR microphone for exclusively spoken-word stuff, the "buy a dynamic" advice still applies--I like the sE Dynacaster but I'm also the type to spend $300 on a microphone, you don't need to be--but you really don't need more than something like a Behringer UMC22 for an interface. Not a UM22, that's different and a bit below-the-bar, but you don't need to spend more than $60-$70 for an interface that will do everything you need.
I wrote this near the start of COVID when at a previous company and my advice still holds.
https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-1
https://www.mux.com/blog/zoom-like-you-mean-it-2
> If you plan to use your USB mic with its own headphone jack, then most of what is written here does not apply to you, and you can regard the microphone as a small, not particularly good, simple audio interface just like one of the boxes you might otherwise connect to you computer.
Yup. This is true. I recommended the Samson Q2U or Q9U in no small part because of this. It is a single-purpose audio interface and it's fine for people who want a good-sounding Zoom presence. They are also both microphones that provide some nontrivial improvement when they are used over XLR, which can rationalize later buying an interface once you've decided that you want to do so.
> If you're making a podcast, or working with some audio where the highest possible fidelity to the original sound isn't particularly important, you're probably going to be just fine with this resampling taking place. You can use your USB mic, the operating system will resample one or both audio streams, things will seem to just work, and you'll probably be happy with the results.
As it happens, I agree with the general thrust of what they're saying--for music. This is a reason why I have a very large and moderately expensive digital mixer. But they themselves are not intending to cover general-purpose, spoken-word uses, like podcasts (which I think one can reasonably expand to "teleconferences"), with their criticism.
So can you enlighten me as to your point?
I think the document speaks for itself. USB mics are a mistake, in general. If they do duplex (record & playback), they are sufficiently less of a mistake to maybe warrant no concern. Manufacturer's took the easy path ("easy! just plug it in!") when they should have been encouraging people to stick to the existing path ("not that easy, but not hard either!")
Though honestly, on Linux I just use ALSA for everything and don't think about it after that. By definition neither Jack nor Pipewire can be faster than the ALSA they are talking to.
> By definition neither Jack nor Pipewire can be faster than the ALSA they are talking to.
Sure, but that's like saying that you don't need an operating system when you can compile to baremetal. Both Jack and Pipewire are slower, but offer pretty substantial routing options on top of that. Furthermore, I believe both protocols support ALSA connections too.
I use Bitwig on NixOS and it's not too bad with PipeWire. Latency and routability generally rivals CoreAudio, which is good enough for me.
And I don't want to sound like I'm dumping on Pipewire; I think the work Wim has been doing is absolutely awesome and (unlike a lot of what FDo puts out) actually solves existing problems rather than hypothetical ones. It's just not quite (yet) what I need as a DJ and looper.
So if you went for a Snow Leopard audio/music machine you'd be in good company :)
I put Linux on old Macs precisely because I cannot go a day on older MacOS without hitting 10 applications whose latest versions I cannot install on MacOS.
If you are not having that problem, I would like to know more.
All that stuff is old, the laptop's air-gapped and never talks to the internet, and I bring the code over on an SD card to the Mac Studio where I do the signed versions of AU and VST, make the videos, etc.
I also resist 'latest versions' of things quite hard. Generally that's not what I want. I want stuff where it's working consistently. Even my web browser is a Chromium picked specifically so I can be sure it will get old and go out of date until _I_ have a reason to change it, which will doubtless happen but it'll happen when I want.
I can't imagine running Snow Leopard but also feeling like you have to run the newest of everything. It can't even run a remotely current web browser. You have to already have programs that will be exactly what you want and need. Then, you use those and get used to them, like cooking with an old chef's knife you've had for decades :)
Here's an image of one with the monitor slid-out:
http://www.tabletsnlaptops.com/laptop-images/lenovo-thinkPad...
Especially in comparison to the new Z13 model[1] in which Lenovo has ditched buttons-buttons on top of the touchpad in favor of an area of touchpad acting as buttons for both trackpoint and touchpad. My T-series has physical buttons-buttons for the trackpoint on top of the touchpad and bottom area of the touchpad acting as buttons for the touchpad. I haven't tested neither Z13 model (not yet released) nor the old W-series but I think Z-series may be a downgrade.
Seriously, the trackpoint/touchbar from MacBooks is the only thing I miss after switching to ThinkPads.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34954787
10 years ago, I used to run Linux as my effects processor for my guitar and keyboard synth when I was in a band. That same laptop also ran projectm to display realtime visuals on our backdrop.
What's your reasoning for this statement? I find poudriere[1] handy for compiling one's own packages from ports configured to fit one's goals, but I see nothing outstanding in plain pkg.
It has issues when there's an IPv6 address up (even link-local) but no egress v6 routing. It would hang and wait for a timeout when an IPv6 address is selected from resolved addresses. After a timeout - pkg connects to v4 endpoint but if there's several packages to be downloaded, it can fall back to trying to connect to v6 with the next package.
On the other hand, I've recently had Ubuntu 22.04 register Python-related packages which were not successfully installed, resulting in all dpkg/apt/apt-get commands failing due to py3clean script throwing tracebacks, until /var/lib/dpkg/status was edited and these packages were in fact installed and then removed.
[1] https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki
If you follow Debian testing or sid, you will experience a lot of dependency breakage that I've never seen on a BSD, but that may not be dpkg or apt's fault so much as ongoing package maintenance causing those issues.
I don't know whar Debian does for the above.
I haven't used IPv6 with pkg though. (stupid ISPs).
I have multiple FreeBSD machines, all of them with IPv6 up on link-local, and pkg doesn't hang at all. Even without valid globally unique IPv6 addressing, but valid ULA addressing (unique local address) and valid routing for IPv6 on an internal network, no issues.
It sounds like you've got some globally unique IPv6 addresses assigned to an interface somewhere and address selection (and thus the addresses returned from getaddrinfo) will return IPv6 first and try that before falling back to IPv4.
You can configure this address selection by using the ip6addrctl tool which will allow you to validate and change that address selection.
It is based upon https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3484
FreeBSD also has predefined policies you can set in /etc/rc.conf:
ip6addrctl_enable="YES" # Set to YES to enable default address selection ip6addrctl_verbose="NO" # Set to YES to enable verbose configuration messages ip6addrctl_policy="AUTO" # A pre-defined address selection policy # (ipv4_prefer, ipv6_prefer, or AUTO)
Single inet6 address up is fe80::xxx. My outdated ISP does not provide any v6 connectivity. But my cellular (other) ISP provides v6 and I use tethering while traveling, so would like to avoid disabling INET6.
> addresses returned from getaddrinfo) will return IPv6 first and try that before falling back to IPv4.
It's random with no v6 preference.
ping6 fails immediately upon attempt to reach outside world:
And here's an example[1] of how how pkg hangs for about a minute when it selects unreachable v6 address.[1] https://bsd.to/NuYu/raw
Googling "reason vs X" just turned up ad-loaded drivel.
Anyone know of any good guides that lay out the land? Venn diagrams of where DAWs (digital audio workstation), Mixers, etc overlap or how they relate/compare with each other?
I support reaper, here’s an opinion. My problem with reaper is that I think it was trying to be protools for people who couldn’t afford protools.
The thing is, most people aren’t recording 32 ADC channels and 1024 midi tracks on rackmount stuff. I think I have my dad’s last MIDI cables, and it makes me feel either ancient or hipster. Even pro studios are slimmer, cause it’s not 2003. Workflow is at a premium, and reaper… kinda feels like an expensive version of FOSS.
Still so great in the ecosystem, and aw, a DAW love of mine. A chisel for the days when the 3D printer just isn’t robust enough.
I use Logic Pro and bitwig. Bitwig fails the same test. I rarely say this, but this niche could inspire nerdy moments a bit less, and creative workflows a bit more to be attractive to a prosumer.
I've considered doing a crazy-simple version of Ardour (nominal name "arb" for "Ardour Recording Button"), but I'm still not convinced that writing a tool that will only be useful to most of its users for a couple of months makes sense.
The same could be accomplished also in software, and it would have a huge success, however packing it with features can only slow down the work; everything should be thought without the idea of turning it into a full DAW but just putting it there the minimum necessary to be productive without distractions. Think about a mini Linux distro (Alpine?) that boots in seconds on a small netbook to directly load the "music scratchpad" at full screen and no other software in the background. Plenty of devices are out there ready to be repurposed for that, and good external USB audio card can be found for cheap.
Years ago I used my old Samsung NC10 netbook to record my band. The internal mics were crap like with every laptop, but once I built a small stereo jfet preamp to connect two external dynamic mics, I got quite good results. It was a bit slow to operate, and more so managing the long files we created (~3 hours at 44.1KHz 16bit stereo .wav) but I used a full Debian plus Audacity without any optimization for speed and size.
2.
> The same could be accomplished also in software, and it would have a huge success
Odd how none of the proprietary DAW manufacturers believe this, isn't it?
I've already described the basic problem with this idea: it starts out as being precisely what someone wants, but every few months, their desires/expectations expand. What "productive without distractions" means looks very different after you've done a bit of computer audio production for a year than when you're just starting out.
2. Yes, that is odd (although I seem to recall Dr. T's did something like that ages ago). It doesn't bring money apparently, so they concentrate on much bigger overcomplicated software that does everything except simple things but shines when showed in ads. It seems to me this one could become the right niche in which FOSS can surpass commercial software: do 3 things and do them well.
sure. But we take your 3 things, then Ben over there's 3 things, then Maggie's 3 things, and then Olafur's 3 things and add in Vieux's 3 things and pretty soon we're talking about a real DAW!
It's very powerful, which means there is a bit of a learning curve, but it can do everything you want it to, and it has nice stuff like really solid scripting support (lua, python, and some DSL).
I record like 20-30 audio tracks at a time from my rackmount setup and reaper handles it no problem.
Very much worth the $60.
It also has a comprehensive API that can be manipulated with Lua.
http://non.tuxfamily.org/
EDIT: Also, if you're a command line and text file weirdo like me:
Mixer4: http://www.acousticrefuge.com/mixer4.htm (From the homepage: "Mixer4 is an audio mixer and processor that can be controlled through simple text files. Over a dozen accessory programs complete what can be a very solid recording studio." I can confirm that it is extremely fast and very interesting to use. Nice, responsive and friendly solo developer, too.)
And Ecasound: https://ecasound.seul.org/ecasound/
https://lmms.io/
Not really qualified because I am not a musician and I was only using lmms to play around with a midi dials and buttons box, openbsd's sndio. and to see if I could get them to work togther. So in my case it was more of a systems integration exercise than making any music with it.
What do you think the readers of this space do? What is your vision of this "non-working" hacker news reader? I legitimately can't imagine anything here but a 90's era stereotype.
hmmm
When I want to make or record music, I don't want to spend time debugging the system. I just want it to work, and I don't want have to worry if a plugin runs on my system. *nix/*bsd don't come close to achieving that, and windows is not stable enough for audio systems for my taste. IOW what is the hobby here? Making music, or tinkering with my *nix/*bsd system?
The parent article show a small number of config files to set and a package to install. It is not more complicated than installing ASIO4ALL driver and setting it up on a windows box.
And I can show you countless of threads in music forums about people asking how to solve their midi connections / sync / latency / clipping problems on macOS and windows.
I literally use linux every day on my pc, work laptop, and personal laptop. It's not outdated at all, it's part of using linux. Granted it's a lot better than before.
MacOS having occasional issues is not comparable to having to mess around with alsa/jack/pipewire and debug linux issues in general. Obviously no system is perfect.
The only things that makes me pull my hair sometimes are pairing bluetooth devices but that is regardless of the OS. It may just be that some hardware/firmwares of bluetooth devices are just shitty because it is the same misery regardless if I am on mobile, windows, linux, whatever.
I love Linux, but feel a bit of whiplash after Ubuntu's feeping commerce creaturism, charging for things that it seems like should be in the core product. (live kernel patching, for example)