Thanks!

I enjoyed helping you along!

I'll look into motifator.com to see what I can "hear"

Thor

I'm now trying UbuntuStudio. Although I had to fiddle around with QJackCtl a bit, things are working nicely now. Phasex is also working well. I guess in all, probably 8 different synths!

Sooner or later I'll dive into Ardour, God willing..

Brian

Only if what you use now does'nt reach your goals anymore...and not god willing, but YOU willing
Ardour is a bit more of a learning curve, but there's no reason to stop using what you've got now. The goal determins the tools, not the other way round!

Thor

True, true.
At the moment, I'm just so happy to have all these synths working well, and some of them have really good sounds..

How is Ardour compared to Rosegarden? They look similar, but I don't know which advantages or disadvantages each one has..

brian

...the only difference for me is my experience with them. I never used Rosegarden but just moved to Ardour instead. Rosegarden seems to have MIDI possibilities...that makes it interesting for other stuff. I did'nt find that in Ardour.

Worth a look-see from my part?

Thor

Well, I only looked briefly at Rosegarden. It certainly seems to have a lot of options and functions available, but I haven't delved into it yet.

For now, I'm just having fun with the synths.
Have you made any interesting patches? Maybe it would be neat to start a thread for people to share their homemade synth patches!

brian

Well, fun is the main keyword here too. If I can get the time...I just bought a house so there's a lot to be done here...
I'll snapshot a picture to show what I've got - it's not a lot, but it fullfills my needs...

Well, it would...but maybe (I'll google around) there are forums that do just that. Maybe (dare I dream) Jeremy could start up a subforum for Linux and music...why dont I suggest this....

Edit - I uploaded a picture of my very humble setup...

Hey, nice pics! I should put up some pics too... I'm just lazy. or maybe not enough time in the day..

I'll google for a place where patches can be shared. And if I can't find one, I can make it! If I have time, that is..

I'll let you know what I find.
If you want, you can email me at: info (at) ahigherway (dot) net
That way, people here won't get bored with a thread that's getting derailed..


As for QJackCtl, I have to say this: sometimes things have a way of solving themselves without our "intervention." Sometimes all it takes is a reboot!

Bri

By the way, the googling may not even be called for, right after my last post, I raised a suggestion for a sub forum, Jeremy is (apparently) considering setting up a safe have for that subject now...innit cool?
Thanks for the feedback on my gear...it's somewhat dated, but it's just how I need/like it.
It's a Siel DK80 as general synth and MIDI controller, a PC (Compaq EVO) as recording box (Ardour was active at the time) and an other PC as soft synth with AmSynth (later MX4 as well) and...the jack server.
One silly issue: the softsynth and the DK80 can not be tuned in completely...the two together sound somewhat...detuned. But, such is life
Thor

Great! Sharing patches would be fun.. if lots of people participate.. I had a friend years ago who was really good at making sounds. It's a gift. I'm convinced.

Right now I'm having problems with Jack (again!). It was working fine this morning. But now it's giving problems that I don't know how to fix. The keyboard sends the midi signals to the softsynth, but no sound.

brian

Hmm, okay. This could be a missed step. I noticed with myself that I skip a step sometimes. Look in the patch panel, is everything patched up? Does the softsynth have an "audition" button (AmSynth does) that you can hit to test if it's the softsynth or jack...
By the way, my cable (MIDI to USB) has an LED that shows up when there's signal...is yours something like that?

I ruled out un- and re-plugging cables, since it worked and if it works (if you're a little like me) you dont touch it...

Thor

Hi Thor,
really glad to see you here now!

I usually connect the keyboard to the softsynth through patchage rather than Jack, and with no problems.

But now it doesn't work, even though the signal is sent to the synth, because I see the sound meter move. But no audio comes out.

So the midi-usb-softsynth seems to be communicating as it should.

I connected the keyboard and softsynth through Jack as you suggested, but no sound. Even the "audition" button gives no sound.



brian

PS. the only error message in Jack that I get is this:

"ALSA: Cannot open PCM device alsa_pcm for capture. Falling back to playback-only mode"

-maybe it's relevant?

That seems like the software to "listen" (capture) is either faulty (update) or not loaded (anymore - crashed and did'nt respawn), since I suspect you did a reboot already, I asume that the driver is broken. Or, but this may be unlikely, there has been an inavertent change in the setup.
I had good results tinkering with the settings...

Okay, I'm off to work now, but this will be my main thread of meditation...hmm, something should be happening there that's not proper...

Hang in there!

Thor

You might be on the right track. In fact, the problem started after I connected by keyboard to a different USB port. (I did this because I moved some stuff around the room, and decided to reconnect it at a USB port in the back of the PC instead of in front.)

Would that be sufficient to make Jack go into "tilt?"


brian

...hmpf...dunnow, really. I've seen this behaviour on **dows many times before....but Linux? Would it make your intertior decorator cry if you'd plug things the way they were? Just to eliminate the variables some more...

Thor