Here are the steps we took to get JACK up and running with Ardour. The following was done on a clean install of Ubuntu Studio using the M-Audio Delta 44 sound card. We understand that different sound cards may require different settings, but this guide will at least give you a general idea of what needs to be done.
Getting JACK Started
First you’ll want to run JACK Control from the Applications menu. Here we see the default JACK panel :
Select the Settings button to configure JACK for your sound card. Here is the default JACK configuration :
We only needed to modify the following four things to get JACK working for us :
- Select your sound card or interface from this drop down list
- Enable Realtime by checking this box
- Enable Monitoring by checking this box
- Set Frames/Period to a lower number for a lower latency
Select OK to return to the main JACK panel. Now select the Start button to fire up JACK :
If JACK does not start at this point, try unchecking the Realtime box. You may want also to select the Messages button and make note of any errors. Make sure that you have no programs running that may be utilizing your sound card. Even having a YouTube video open in Firefox will make JACK angry. No matter if the video is playing or not! Below is the output of a successful JACK connection :
Making JACK Easier to Use
Now that we have JACK running, there are two essential options we need to set under the Misc tab of the JACK Control Settings panel :
- Enable system tray icon
- Automatically start the JACK engine when you run JACK Control
The system tray icon is possibly the most underrated feature of JACK Control. You can show or hide the JACK Control panel with a click of a button. It also lets you visually monitor XRUNS while you are working.
Watch Out for XRUNS
XRUNS occur when there is too much or too little data in the audio buffer. All you really need to know is that XRUNS are bad. You can reduce the amount of XRUNS you get by setting Frames/Period to a higher number.
If you do get an XRUN (they sometimes occur when opening a program or inserting a plugin) your system tray icon will turn red like so :
You can reset the system tray icon by right clicking on it. You can also access any of the JACK control panels from this menu :
Managing Levels with AlsaMixer
You may not have to do the following, but all of our inputs were turned all the way down by default. We were able to crank them up by running alsamixer from the terminal :
As you can see all four or our inputs (labeled ADC) are set at zero volume. We can use the arrow keys to turn each one up to zero dB :
Now we can TAB over to the Capture menu and do the same. You could also TAB over to the All menu and turn them all up at once :
It seems like a lot, but it really only took us about 2 minutes to do. We hope this guide helps you on your way to getting JACK up and running with your sound card. Good luck!
maybe someone can help me get jack configured? got an intel hda audio device w/ sigmatel chipset, in a dell inspiron e1505. this tutorial got jack started.. but then it hits an xrun an stops. here’s what the message outputs:
16:04:16.812 JACK is starting…
16:04:16.813 /usr/bin/jackd -R -dalsa -dhw:0 -r44100 -p128 -n2 -m
16:04:16.819 JACK was started with PID=10907 (0×2a9b).
jackd 0.102.20
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
JACK compiled with System V SHM support.
loading driver ..
apparent rate = 44100
creating alsa driver … hw:0|hw:0|128|2|44100|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
control device hw:0
configuring for 44100Hz, period = 128 frames, buffer = 2 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 32bit little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 32bit little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for playback
16:04:18.856 Server configuration saved to “/home/rockman/.jackdrc”.
16:04:18.859 Statistics reset.
16:04:18.862 Client activated.
16:04:18.867 Audio connection change.
16:04:18.875 Audio connection graph change.
16:04:18.877 XRUN callback (1).
16:04:20.878 XRUN callback (204 skipped).
jackd watchdog: timeout - killing jackd
zombified - calling shutdown handler
16:04:21.963 Shutdown notification.
16:04:21.966 Client deactivated.
16:04:21.968 JACK was stopped successfully.
16:04:21.969 Post-shutdown script…
16:04:21.969 killall jackd
cannot read result for request type 7 from server (Connection reset by peer)
cannot send request type 7 to server
cannot read result for request type 7 from server (Broken pipe)
jackd: no process killed
16:04:22.188 Post-shutdown script terminated with exit status=256.
any help would be grrrreatly appreciated!
andygrav you might try unchecking the RealTime box under settings. Also, try setting the Frames/Period higher than 128
Anyone have any luck using a SB Audigy2 PCMCIA card to record? I’ve got a dell 5150 laptop with the same sigmatel audio in it, and it works just great with one exception….the input is MONO only!!! aaaaagh. So far I haven’t had any luck getting the inputs to work on the SB card. (It works just fine in windoze…still dual booting for the time being).
Anyone with any possible clues for getting this card to work? TIA
BTW, ubustu team, awesome job!
thanks ubustu that got it running… but it xruns a bazillion times, the systray icon redlights and while its running i cant seem to get anything to actually make any sound.
i’m brand new to jack and linux audio tweakings.. been using ubuntu since dapper and audio always “just worked”
i havnt had much luck w/ other forums or anything about help w/ my audio card
but i gather from what i have found that the intel hda is rather crap
can anybody suggest an external firewire or usb soundcard or audio controller or whatever that would work with my inspiron e1505 that will play well with ubuntu studio?
and / or some newbie guides to jack / linux audio configuration, etc?
thanks a ton!
sorry i dont mean to be dominating this forum so much..
but to followup my last question:
if i shell out for an m-audio fast track pro is this bugger going to play nicely with ubuntu studio and jack and all that? seems to be what i need to do what i want.
thanx in advance
andygrav it seems there are two forum posts which seem to indicate that it does work well with Ubuntu
Although the card is not listed in the ALSA soundcard list, there is a note at the top of the page that reads :
From what we’ve gathered, generally M-Audio products are some of the best supported audio devices for Linux. You probably wont even need the generic install instructions.
Good Luck!
Uh. i have had a hard time getting things to work. I finally ended up with JACK running, but i had to have Frames/Period: 128 and Periods/Buffer: 4.
I have a Lexicon Omega - i can’t really give it positive reviews (with linux) - fx. midi makes it restart ???.
Anyway. I have a problem with alsamixer. Check out my terminal output below.
Carsten
carsten@carsten-laptop:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SI7012 [SiS SI7012], device 0: Intel ICH [SiS SI7012]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Omega [Lexicon Omega], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Omega [Lexicon Omega], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
carsten@carsten-laptop:~$ alsamixer -c1
No mixer elems found
carsten@carsten-laptop:~$ alsamixer -c1 -D0
ALSA lib control.c:910:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL 0
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for 0: No such file or directory
carsten@carsten-laptop:~$
hi! appart from this topic with jack, would you post a how-to update to the latest alsa drivers?
I tried to do so but broke my system, my lan network stopped working after the upgrade and nobody has the answer (my ethernet addapter was not recognized anymore), maybe i did something wrong.
I have a laptop ACER 1692 and I need the latest alsa because it adds support for edirol UA-101 which is my soundcard…
Hi!! I put a short Howto in my blog about upgrading to the latest ALSA release.
It’s in spanish if you can read it but it worked for me quite good!
Now I have my edirol UA-101 working (at least it’s recognized and can play sounds) and thanks to the howto jack config The server works as well.!
The article is here
Hi all,
i have a master keyboard Cme uf8 with an expansion card cme uf400e (that seems to be a firewire Terratec Phase 24 or 26, I don’t sure but read on some newsgroup ..), and would know if the tutorial can help me to the setup of this firewire card on Jack.
I’ve installed Ubuntustudio on a laptop and connect audio expansion of the keyboard via firewire pcmcia card.
What device i must select in the Interface option menu? How can I associate the “hw:x,x” with my external audio card to set as default Interface in Jack?
Excuse my bad english, if so,
and thx for any answer.
Hi people
I try all of configurations but I didnt configure my jack setting.
I have laptop.My sound card is onboard.
When I use jack , sound is very slow and like pit pit pit pit
I dont understand what can I do about this.
I want to use jack to connect programs but I cant take good sound while jack running.
Hi all
I checked my setting and I saw xrun count that is rising on jack panel. I reduce frame/ period but the conculusion is same also xrun count is rising up what can I do to stop xrun count.
Please help me!!!
I have a problem running alsa on my delta 44. It is running with oss, but none of my alsa stuff recognizes the card. I found it interested on this site that you can open up the alsamixer. How do you do that? Am I needing a plugin so oss and alsa can work in harmony?
I am a newbie, so I need some hand holding here.
Thanks
Great article, keep em comin’. After I did this, I got my super-old “blasterkey mp3″ midi keyboard to work in ustudio. It was a long hard battle! If I had a reliable site to post on, I’d put a tutorial up myself but I’m probably the last person alive that has one!
Hi
I am really excited. This will be my first time visiting, good work. Good stuff. :-)..!
Bye
I understand that there should be no programs running while jack is in motion. How can I terminate these apps? If I want to start jack, quit, and start again, how can I keep from having to terminate them (when i figure out how)? thanks for your help in advance.
also, i want to start recording. does an external usb sound card function as a miniature mixer also? i read in a post off of ubuntuforums.org that a mixer would be a good investment in the long run, “unless you have a usb soundcard.” what does this mean? double thanks for anyone that can help me.
volksolwagen: You just need to be sure you don’t have any programs open which might be utilizing sound, like a Firefox page with Flash, or even something innocuous like GAIM. Just fire up JACK when you first log into your desktop.
That depends on the context of the post. With a mixer you can mix several sound sources down into one or two channels. Some USB cards only have one or two inputs, so a mixer could be useful. If your USB card has several inputs, a mixer may not be practical.
johnapeterson: Not sure what your problem can be. For the most part you should be interested in getting ALSA to work and not OSS. I can tell you that the entirety of this tutorial is all we had to do “out of the box” to get our Delta44 working with Ubuntu Studio.
I tried this config, however, I actually have 2 sound cards. one is a built in card, and the other is a Delta 44. When I run Alsamixer, it displays the onboard card (no matter which interface I select in JACK). Please help!
Aamir,
alsamixer -c1
Thanks Nighto, a great tip.
Thank you!
Have Jack up and running, using a Tascam US-122. However, when playing tracks through Jack (using an xmms-jack output plugin), playback is about a tone lower than it should be, due to slow playback. Do I need more memory, or is there a different issue? I’m not even sure how to search for help on this problem.
Thanks
Tom
Regarding Nighto’s Post (for the newbie’s like me):
Go to ‘Applications’, ‘Accessories’, ‘Terminal’
at the prompt (ends in a $), type in ‘alsamixer -c1′ and hit
by the way, ‘h’ in alsamixer gets you a menu
alsamixer for the other card will start, or at least it did for me. If I simply type in ‘alsamixer’, I get my computer’s default card.
Peace,
Gruvola
FYI - for my M-Audio Delta 1010LT, I had to add ‘H/W Monitor’ in JACK Setup to hear Output.
Interesting the mention of Intel HDA. I have an Inspiron 6400 laptop with the dreaded sound chip.
When first set up with defaults, jack ran with numerous xruns, and no sound. Looked at this forum and several others, scratching the head.
My solution was this - turn off input capture - all of a sudden no xruns and very low latency (around 3.8 ms) was doable. Settings were - no input capture, 3 buffers, 64 periods 44100 hz, realtime etc.
Doesn’t assist those who wish to capture - buts its great for me - I do all my capture on a vast AMD opteron dual CPU with Hammerfall DSP etc - I only need laptop for gig playback.
I’m trying to configure JACK. I have a Dell XPS M140. I can’t seem to get the client to connect. Any help would be awesome.
Hi,
Thanks for the good guide!
Is there also a tutorial for jack-rack? I want to add some effects to my guitar, but I can not make jack-rack work.
I’ve intel 82801DB-ICH4 onboard soundcard.
jack starts and also hydrogen > ardour > jack (from your other tutorial).
But jack-rack seems to do nothing:
Some screenshots:
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/3113/jackrackoc1.png
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/9431/jackconnectnm2.png
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/5948/patchageke7.png
I hope you can help me? And maybe it is a good idea to write a tutorial about jack-rack?
ok, got the delta 44, now i need to get it to output in stereo. I had a Y cable i hooked up to the out 1 and 2, but still all i get is everything though left channel, any help?
I found that no other option influenced the numbers of xruns I got more than the Periods/Buffer. Setting this to 3 greatly helped reduce the number of xruns. Then tweaking the realtime priority and buffer sizes helped more. Right now I have very few xruns if any. I also noticed that selecting hw:0 was more unstable than hw:0:0.
I had problems with Ardour choppy playback, but somehow after fiddling with Jack, i got it to work. I wasn’t able to use the realtime option but I think that after i chose hw:0:0, it worked although now it’s hw:0
Plays fine now, not sure exactly what fixed it, but I’d be glad to help
Yep… I can confirm that if I set hw:0 I get choppy playback in Ardour, but with hw:0,0, the playback is perfect!!!
Yeeehaaaaaww!
the other options are frame/periods: 512, and periods/buffer: 3 or 2
Again, realtime option is not selected.
Using frame/periods lower than 512 may create problems for me.
My hardware is: Acer Aspire 5610-4654, onboard Intel soundcard, and I’m running Ubuntu 7.10, not Ubuntu Studio…
hi,
I managed to get jack to run in Realtime, but I get much more xruns. I thought that if I was getting one xrund every 10 mins, without realtime, i would do better with it enabled.
In about o minute after I start Ardour and have jack in realtime mode i get something like 2(360) xruns wihtout even doing a thing… any ideas?
hi have you try changing the sample rate in jack? This may help!
I have been struggling for a couple of weeks to get an M-Audio Delta 44 to work with Ubuntu. I printed this article to study. It worked perfectly. It took longer to print the article than it took to get the card working. The problem of XRUN made it unusable at first but it was recognized and operating. The tuning of JACK in the article worked exactly as expected. I have it working to my satisfaction (probably not an an optimum of minimum latency but OK for the applications I have in mind.
I was able to record from a four track tape recorder with Audacity with no additional setup.
Thank you very much. This is a many beans article. *****