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Old 01-21-2022, 06:24 PM   #1
beermao
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Default Could switching from Windows to Linux improve latency issues?

As per the title, I'm wondering if installing Linux on my Windows laptop, and using Reaper that way, could iron out some awful latency issues I have with my Dell Vostro 5481. Any clues?

Currently, under windows, the laptop is great for basic useage but utter tripe when it comes to music production, with clicks and pops popping up under low stress conditions no matter how much I try to tweak the settings with ASIO, and LatencyMon wont even complete a check the DPC latency is so bad. It has 16GB of RAM and the CPU, an i5-8250U, is listed at 5,944 on PassMark - so I don't think those are the issue, nor is the 256GB SSD it's running. A search of the internet, where I read of other owners with similar issues, has led me to believe the laptop, at least under Windows, is just massively unsuitable for audio production.

It'd be nice if I could utilise it for a bit more than just browsing the web; watching movies; and listening to mp3s. I was just going to buy a Macbook but it would save me some money if I can just use it with Linux instead.
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Old 01-21-2022, 07:09 PM   #2
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Create a live bootable Linux DVD or flash drive and try it. You can install REAPER for Linux while booted up on a live disk and test it out.
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Old 01-21-2022, 08:48 PM   #3
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Create a live bootable Linux DVD or flash drive and try it. You can install REAPER for Linux while booted up on a live disk and test it out.
Coolio, I'll give it shot. Thanks!
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Old 01-22-2022, 09:19 AM   #4
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Create a live bootable Linux DVD or flash drive and try it. You can install REAPER for Linux while booted up on a live disk and test it out.
I think that would only be useful for linux testing, if you are using a live distro that is tuned for low latency. The tuning does a lot to make things work better. I would suggest trying something like a AV Linux or Ubuntu Studio if they allow live distros. That would be the only real true way to test Linux latency easily with a live distro.
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Old 01-22-2022, 10:11 AM   #5
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I think that would only be useful for linux testing, if you are using a live distro that is tuned for low latency. The tuning does a lot to make things work better. I would suggest trying something like a AV Linux or Ubuntu Studio if they allow live distros. That would be the only real true way to test Linux latency easily with a live distro.
When I was thinking about switching from Xubuntu to Manjaro I created a live bootable Manjaro flash disk, installed REAPER and loaded up several of my projects. When they played without pops or clicks, I installed Manjaro for real.
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Old 01-22-2022, 02:13 PM   #6
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When I was thinking about switching from Xubuntu to Manjaro I created a live bootable Manjaro flash disk, installed REAPER and loaded up several of my projects. When they played without pops or clicks, I installed Manjaro for real.
Yes, but a untuned distro doesn’t really show what is really possible with Linux. What if this user wants to test to see what’s truly possible with Linux?
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Old 01-22-2022, 02:32 PM   #7
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Yes, but a untuned distro doesn’t really show what is really possible with Linux. What if this user wants to test to see what’s truly possible with Linux?
Seeing how your audio interface performs is certainly possible on a live disk. Before switching to Manjaro, I wanted to verify that I was going to be able to flawlessly play projects with around 24 tracks of mostly audio.

Booting from a live Manjaro disk, I was able to play my most demanding projects for multitrack audio, and verify at the same time that I could run my Behringer UMC1820 at 64 samples latency like I was currently doing in Xubuntu. The next day when I installed Manjaro, I was confident that my audio interface would perform up to my needs.
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:10 PM   #8
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Seeing how your audio interface performs is certainly possible on a live disk. Before switching to Manjaro, I wanted to verify that I was going to be able to flawlessly play projects with around 24 tracks of mostly audio.

Booting from a live Manjaro disk, I was able to play my most demanding projects for multitrack audio, and verify at the same time that I could run my Behringer UMC1820 at 64 samples latency like I was currently doing in Xubuntu. The next day when I installed Manjaro, I was confident that my audio interface would perform up to my needs.
That’s excellent latency for no tuning! However, Manjaro does come native with the Zen patches in the kernel. I would imagine a non-Arch derivative might not perform as well. Imagine what kind of load at low latency one could get on an Arch distro that was actually tuned for audio
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:19 PM   #9
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A search of the internet, where I read of other owners with similar issues, has led me to believe the laptop, at least under Windows, is just massively unsuitable for audio production.

One thing that has helped some laptop owners in the past is to turn off the WIFI on your laptop. (I don't know if the WIFI thing is still an issue in this era but it's easy enough to give it a try.)
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:25 PM   #10
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That’s excellent latency for no tuning! However, Manjaro does come native with the Zen patches in the kernel. I would imagine a non-Arch derivative might not perform as well. Imagine what kind of load at low latency one could get on an Arch distro that was actually tuned for audio
Even back to when I first switched to Xubuntu Linux in 2018, I was seeing excellent audio interface performance with no tweaking.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=210218

Quote:
If I'm not using any VSTi plugins, I can run the same as I do with the same hardware in Windows, which is 64 samples and super tight response
Back in 2018 that was on a nine year old i5 with two M-Audio AP2496 PCI cards. I only had to start tweaking Xubuntu when I started trying to play bridged Windows plugins.

Playing and recording audio or using native Linux VSTi plugins worked fine in Xubuntu at 64 samples latency before I started tweaking so Windows plugins also performed well.

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So right this moment I have the native Linux U-He "Repro-5" instrument plugin running with only 64 samples latency. No pops or crackles, and extreme tight response.
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Old 01-22-2022, 07:09 PM   #11
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One thing that has helped some laptop owners in the past is to turn off the WIFI on your laptop. (I don't know if the WIFI thing is still an issue in this era but it's easy enough to give it a try.)
Thanks for the tip, will certainly bear that in mind if I run into any trouble.

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I think that would only be useful for linux testing, if you are using a live distro that is tuned for low latency. The tuning does a lot to make things work better. I would suggest trying something like a AV Linux or Ubuntu Studio if they allow live distros. That would be the only real true way to test Linux latency easily with a live distro.

I remembered the existence of the lowlatency kernel from a previous, albeit brief, tinkering with Linux a few years back so just went with a full install of the latest Ubuntu LTS. Unfortunately, I didn't happen upon Ubuntu Studio until just after I'd run the generic install but no biggie. Anyway, searching for info about the kernel led me to the handy system configuration guide at linuxaudio.org that helped me run QuickScan and make all of the tweaks it suggested (after some googling). Installed Jack too, and got Reaper running. All good, so far, only I've not had time to download and test any plugins yet. My M32 keyboard works well enough controlling the stock ones though, which I'm very pleased about.

I've just installed Sitala using the Ubuntu software manager but Reaper isn't recognising it, hopefully some more googling will come up with something.

Cheers folks!

Edit: I've just noticed the Sitala thread on the first page, with any luck that'll help.
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Old 01-22-2022, 07:14 PM   #12
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The WIFI thing is a Windows issue and not, as far as I know, anything to do with Linux. I thought it might ease your burden in Windows until you get comfy with Linux.
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Old 01-22-2022, 07:52 PM   #13
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The WIFI thing is a Windows issue and not, as far as I know, anything to do with Linux. I thought it might ease your burden in Windows until you get comfy with Linux.
Ah I see, I'll give it a go if I ever put Reaper back on Windows. Last year I unintalled everything music prod related from Windows and have just been relying on my Mac Mini for making tunes. I also wanted a portable device, however, to take travelling with me, and Linux seemed worth a shot before shelling out for a Macbook.

If Linux fails to impress I'll try disabling the wifi on Windows though, thanks!
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Old 01-23-2022, 01:04 PM   #14
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I've just installed Manjaro on my old quad core i7 Hp laptop and with my steinberg UR22c I'm getting great performance at 32 sample buffers...reportedly less than 1ms latency, which is better than the windows partition. I'm running jack and Reaper and it's really very snappy.

The current project opens as fast as I can hit 'enter' .... pretty impressive.



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Old 01-23-2022, 02:56 PM   #15
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I've just installed Manjaro on my old quad core i7 Hp laptop and with my steinberg UR22c I'm getting great performance at 32 sample buffers...reportedly less than 1ms latency, which is better than the windows partition. I'm running jack and Reaper and it's really very snappy.

The current project opens as fast as I can hit 'enter' .... pretty impressive.



M
I did have Manjaro on my back-up laptop for a while last year, it is certainly quite impressive (I prefer the KDE desktop) and was a toss-up between that and Ubuntu this time, but I went for the latter just because of the larger user-base and number of help guides that would come with that. However, I've decided to ditch Linux for now.

I started having problems everytime I'd run Reaper, other video and audio applications would freeze. So I installed Ubuntu Studio Controls and bridged JACK and Pulseaudio (maybe ALSA too, can't remember) with which everything seemed fine until I rebooted (before this I'd rebooted a dozen or so times, just from setting everything up, the kernel etc; all without issue). Upon reboot this time, however, I just got a persistent blank screen after logging on and after previously messing around in terminal for hours getting the system setup - something I'm prepared to do to an extent but don't particularly enjoy - that was the last straw. I guess I could have used the live usb to attempt recovery but I'd had enough by then. Linux just isn't user-friendly enough for me... yet. I don't want to be somewhere on the other side of the world trying enjoy my vacation, yet having to deal with issues like this should they arise, so I think I'll just get a Macbook instead. Maybe another distro, ie Manjaro, could be suitable but I'm all out of motivation, and time, to try atm.

I was further demotivated when after deleting the Ubuntu partition and trying to fix the mbr with Windows' recovery tool (as per suggested in multiple guides), it wiped the GRUB options but I'd still get a screen mentining something, or other, GRUB-related (a bunch of command options, or something, iirc) with no obvious way to boot anything, instead of booting Windows, and so I rather annoyingly had to resort to reinstalling.

If I ever give Linux another crack it'll have to be on a mono-boot machine. Thanks for the suggestion though, it's good to know there are some decent options out there if I ever return.
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Old 01-23-2022, 04:44 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by beermao View Post
I did have Manjaro on my back-up laptop for a while last year, it is certainly quite impressive (I prefer the KDE desktop) and was a toss-up between that and Ubuntu this time, but I went for the latter just because of the larger user-base and number of help guides that would come with that. However, I've decided to ditch Linux for now.

I started having problems everytime I'd run Reaper, other video and audio applications would freeze. So I installed Ubuntu Studio Controls and bridged JACK and Pulseaudio (maybe ALSA too, can't remember) with which everything seemed fine until I rebooted (before this I'd rebooted a dozen or so times, just from setting everything up, the kernel etc; all without issue). Upon reboot this time, however, I just got a persistent blank screen after logging on and after previously messing around in terminal for hours getting the system setup - something I'm prepared to do to an extent but don't particularly enjoy - that was the last straw. I guess I could have used the live usb to attempt recovery but I'd had enough by then. Linux just isn't user-friendly enough for me... yet. I don't want to be somewhere on the other side of the world trying enjoy my vacation, yet having to deal with issues like this should they arise, so I think I'll just get a Macbook instead. Maybe another distro, ie Manjaro, could be suitable but I'm all out of motivation, and time, to try atm.

I was further demotivated when after deleting the Ubuntu partition and trying to fix the mbr with Windows' recovery tool (as per suggested in multiple guides), it wiped the GRUB options but I'd still get a screen mentining something, or other, GRUB-related (a bunch of command options, or something, iirc) with no obvious way to boot anything, instead of booting Windows, and so I rather annoyingly had to resort to reinstalling.

If I ever give Linux another crack it'll have to be on a mono-boot machine. Thanks for the suggestion though, it's good to know there are some decent options out there if I ever return.
If you install Linux as a dual boot on the same drive Windows boots from, it will overwrite the MBR (Master Boot Record), and to go back to single boot Windows you only need to rewrite the MBR for Windows by booting to a Windows command prompt from a Windows install or rescue disk and the run the "fixmbr" command. That will rewrite the MBR and Windows will happily boot again.

Manjaro installs stock with a low latency kernel and using ALSA is the easiest audio system for REAPER because it's the closest to the OS. JACK is a layer that runs on top of ALSA and adds unnecessary complication to getting things to work.
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Old 01-23-2022, 09:12 PM   #17
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If you install Linux as a dual boot on the same drive Windows boots from, it will overwrite the MBR (Master Boot Record), and to go back to single boot Windows you only need to rewrite the MBR for Windows by booting to a Windows command prompt from a Windows install or rescue disk and the run the "fixmbr" command. That will rewrite the MBR and Windows will happily boot again.

Manjaro installs stock with a low latency kernel and using ALSA is the easiest audio system for REAPER because it's the closest to the OS. JACK is a layer that runs on top of ALSA and adds unnecessary complication to getting things to work.
That's what I tried, the fixmbr command, and although I received the message that the command had completed successfully, upon reboot the weird GRUB screen I mentioned above was all that I got - running the command a few more times proved fruitless. Not sure what that was all about but I took it as a sign that Linux still isn't for me, just yet. I will certainly give Manjaro a run next time I my dip toes back in, at some point. Thanks.
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Old 01-24-2022, 03:05 AM   #18
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Manjaro installs stock with a low latency kernel and using ALSA is the easiest audio system for REAPER because it's the closest to the OS. JACK is a layer that runs on top of ALSA and adds unnecessary complication to getting things to work.
so if I'm building a live keyboard rig laptop I don't need Jack at all?

I can uninstall it and run directly with same/better performance just using ALSA?


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Old 01-24-2022, 06:47 AM   #19
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I re-purposed an old laptop to run Ubuntu Studio for the sole purpose of connecting to Jamulus, to jam and rehearse with a band during lockdown.

I tried it first from a bootable USB in my Windows laptop.

On either laptop, the latency under Linux is consistently 10-20 ms better than the identical software running in Windows. Doesn't seem like much, but it makes a big difference when playing with other musicians.

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Old 01-24-2022, 06:50 AM   #20
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so if I'm building a live keyboard rig laptop I don't need Jack at all?

I can uninstall it and run directly with same/better performance just using ALSA?


M
Should be able to. Just be sure to select your audio device on the two drop down panels for input and output device.

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Old 01-24-2022, 09:30 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by norbury brook View Post
so if I'm building a live keyboard rig laptop I don't need Jack at all?

I can uninstall it and run directly with same/better performance just using ALSA?


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Yep! 🙂
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Old 01-24-2022, 09:38 AM   #22
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great.... off to give it a go


I shall report back.


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Old 03-31-2022, 10:36 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by dave_t View Post
I re-purposed an old laptop to run Ubuntu Studio for the sole purpose of connecting to Jamulus, to jam and rehearse with a band during lockdown.

I tried it first from a bootable USB in my Windows laptop.

On either laptop, the latency under Linux is consistently 10-20 ms better than the identical software running in Windows. Doesn't seem like much, but it makes a big difference when playing with other musicians.

$0.02
Yep, I can confirm. Using JamulusOS (now foregone, was a re-distribution of Ubuntu 20.4 LTS / Xfce with more audio software and scripts) booted from a USB key, I regularly shave of 7 to 20 ms of my overall latency in Jamulus sessions, better than in Windows. Considering to install a Ubuntu LTS or Ubuntu Studio LTS on another bootable SSD drive for my tower ... and switching to Reaper Windows and Linux from Cakewalk :-)
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Old 03-31-2022, 01:08 PM   #24
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It sure did for me...ever had 5ms round-trip latency in Winblows, lol? Solved a slew of other annoyances Windows has been doling out for decades. Pipewire is amazing. Yabridge is amazing. Manjaro is amazing. Simply hasn't been a better time to switch.

I tried Ubuntu Studio about 5 years ago, but with Carla et al I could still only run 10% of my plugins and they were buggy. Now the vast majority run even better than in Windows!

Just make sure you clear at least a few days to adapt, learn and correct the mistakes you'll inevitably make getting things set up. Good news is that once it's set up, you'll never have to think about it again. No forced update in the background is going to throw a spanner into the works.

A few major caveats:

No iZotope (they don't support cloud or maschine ilok and Linux can't recognize the dongle.

No NI hardware. My Maschine and Komplete Keyboard are now running on an old, but dedicated Win10 laptop. It's not how I prefer to work, but at least being committed to the audio that setup is producing should force me out of some of my indecisiveness. All the software works flawlessly though.

Certain plugin managers are finicky or broken (Waves, Softube). I had to install Waves on Windows and then copy over all the files from:
64-bit — C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins
32-bit — C:\Program Files (x86)\VSTPlugins
to the same folders under Wine. With Softube I had to d/l the individual installers on Windows and then run them in Manjaro.
https://www.waves.com/support/locate...lug-ins-folder

No one asked, but here are my go-to guides for the moment, after having gone through the install process numerous times with various other old and conflicting guides:

Install: https://github.com/ElizabethHarmon/M...main/README.md. Stop after step 8 if you want to use Pipewire (yes, you do). I'd suggest btrfs as a filesystem. I'm no expert, but instantaneous backups and multi-partition volumes has me sold. I guess it's fatally incompatible with RAID 5 & 6 though, if that's a concern.

Note that you'll need 2 separate USB sticks (or SD card if your computer can boot from that) to complete the setup. You use one as an installer to create a "Live" installation on the other, which will then be used for the actual installation.

Setup:
https://averagelinuxuser.com/manjaro...after-install/

Pipewire: Simply install the package and it's dependencies from the add/remove programs manager. It's really that easy.

Wine: https://github.com/Frogging-Family/w...r/wine-tkg-git. This is an optimized branch and not necessary, but it's certainly good and not hard to install. I had the best luck with staging v7.0, which you can define in the cfg file after cloning the git.

Yabridge: https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge

Enjoy!
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Old 03-31-2022, 01:10 PM   #25
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Any special reason you guys are still suggesting to use ALSA though? Because Pipewire is awesome. It's also a one-click install.
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Old 03-31-2022, 09:46 PM   #26
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A single daw using just alsa can allow for great compositions. But I want my entire OS to be the daw, 'all hands on deck' so to speak. I use a variety of hardware instruments for input, and a variety of standalone executable audio softwares, and Reaper for my main daw app. I need a gui system to make easy connections between everything. Jackd and it's various connection utilities make that possible, and without ruining performance.

I have yet to see anything so useful in alsa-only, or pipewire setups.
I wouldn't mind using basic commands to establish connections, if they are
sensible like

name-of-device-outout connect-to name-of-software-input

name-of-software-output connect-to name-of-device-input

(which is how the qjackctl gui visually connects things)

If Pipewire coders have made, or plan on providing visual and/or command based connections that are easier to manage/troubleshoot than what currently exists, they'd be wise to document that soon, and in depth. I doubt that a nebulous undocumented pipewire wafting about in the sky will inspire musicians to include linux in their toolbox. Performance is already good enough, easy enough to configure, and ready-to-play in audio distros

If anyone has personal pipewire or alsa config and connection examples to share, that can do what qjackctl does, I'm all for learning new and better solutions!
Cheers
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Old 03-31-2022, 10:04 PM   #27
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I did see this in-progress project for patching in pipewire: https://github.com/Ax9D/pw-viz

But yeah Jack is working perfectly for me, or just plain ALSA if I'm purely in Reaper.

It's my understanding I could achieve better round trip latency on a tuned pipewire system but I don't think I'll bother with config until it's less of a moving target.
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Old 04-01-2022, 12:52 AM   #28
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I need a gui system to make easy connections between everything. Jackd and it's various connection utilities make that possible, and without ruining performance.

I wouldn't mind using basic commands to establish connections, if they are sensible
I believe that is what wireplumber is meant to address. I think it's command-line only but there could be GUI versions around. I have an RME card so I just use the hdspe mixer for routing.

Quote:
It's my understanding I could achieve better round trip latency on a tuned pipewire system but I don't think I'll bother with config until it's less of a moving target.
Quote:
If anyone has personal pipewire or alsa config and connection examples to share, that can do what qjackctl does, I'm all for learning new and better solutions!
Cheers
You don't have to do much tuning yourself. On the yabridge page, he's got a custom pipewire config that you can use. It worked great for me with no setup, but tuning it only involves changing numbers in a couple files.

But holy shit! A modular routing interface like in that link (reminds me of Unreal Engine blueprints) would be a dream come true! It's exactly what I was hoping the routing matrix in Reaper would turn out...
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Old 04-01-2022, 03:58 AM   #29
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Jackd and it's various connection utilities make that possible, and without ruining performance
I compose relatively busy MIDI tracks (40+ independent instruments) and play live with Linux/Manjaro in my job as a music teacher in a school, and from my experience in those activities I can safely say that, performance-wise, ALSA is better than JACK. I get hiccups (with that awful beep noise) sooner with JACK; although I use it too for all its modular glory.
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Old 04-01-2022, 05:05 AM   #30
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It's my understanding I could achieve better round trip latency on a tuned pipewire system but I don't think I'll bother with config until it's less of a moving target.
Interesting, I actually went back to jack from pipewire because of latency issues. When I was using pipewire I would sometimes have noticeable latency when recording. So I measured the roundtrip latency and found there were huge variations of sometimes up to +300 samples each time I restarted pipewire (or used 'pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum [buffersize]) to change buffersize. With jack the variation is more like +5 or so.

I definitely intend to switch to pipewire as soon as it matures a bit for pro audio. Not really sure why this was happening, might also be specific to my sound card... Has anyone else experienced similar issues?
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Old 04-01-2022, 06:00 AM   #31
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So I measured the roundtrip latency and found there were huge variations of sometimes up to +300 samples each time I restarted pipewire (or used 'pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum [buffersize]) to change buffersize. With jack the variation is more like +5 or so.
When I was tuning my system and measuring roundtrip latency using ALSA, I was seeing variations, but by a much smaller margin.

Jack Winter told me I should exit REAPER between each test, because when REAPER first grabs the audio device, that's where the variation becomes established. I ran the loopback test ten times in a row, along with Kenny's test to measure hidden latency, and then entered an offset in REAPER that was the average of those ten tests.
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Old 04-01-2022, 08:36 AM   #32
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I have a tough time trying to tweak Windows to not do any strange things causing totally random dropouts (independent of CPU usage). When I made a Linux setup, then I could have lower latency without any such issues. However I have a stupid issue while using JACK. My MIDI devices were randomly shuffled each time I connected them to different USB ports. Using pure ALSA solved this problem.
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Old 04-01-2022, 09:20 AM   #33
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However I have a stupid issue while using JACK. My MIDI devices were randomly shuffled each time I connected them to different USB ports. Using pure ALSA solved this problem.
There's at least a partial solution to this as I described here.

The naming is still shit (like system:midi_capture_1 etc), and I think it only works during startup. No ideas what the jack devs were thinking here... One of the reasons I'm looking forward to using pipewire.
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Old 04-01-2022, 12:13 PM   #34
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Any special reason you guys are still suggesting to use ALSA though? Because Pipewire is awesome. It's also a one-click install.
Simplicity would be the only real reason--that and I don't use JACK for anything. If it's not needed, there's no reason to add the extra layer in with everything else. However, if it's needed, it's nice to know that JACK is there for you.
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Old 04-10-2022, 12:09 PM   #35
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As per the title, I'm wondering if installing Linux on my Windows laptop, and using Reaper that way, could iron out some awful latency issues I have with my Dell Vostro 5481. Any clues?

Currently, under windows, the laptop is great for basic useage but utter tripe when it comes to music production, with clicks and pops popping up under low stress conditions no matter how much I try to tweak the settings with ASIO, and LatencyMon wont even complete a check the DPC latency is so bad. It has 16GB of RAM and the CPU, an i5-8250U, is listed at 5,944 on PassMark - so I don't think those are the issue, nor is the 256GB SSD it's running. A search of the internet, where I read of other owners with similar issues, has led me to believe the laptop, at least under Windows, is just massively unsuitable for audio production.

It'd be nice if I could utilise it for a bit more than just browsing the web; watching movies; and listening to mp3s. I was just going to buy a Macbook but it would save me some money if I can just use it with Linux instead.
I'm not sure if your original title question was necessarily answered but my own take on it having a dual boot between Manjaro KDE and Win11 is that when both OSes are configured correctly, I'd say both should be very, very similar. The one major advantage to Windows is the availability of native drivers (if they exist) for your USB interface. It also side-steps the one big issue on Linux of having to calibrate hardware latency every time you plug in your device (though apparently that's changing soon with a new kernel?). While I'm Linux through and through at this stage, it would be remiss to point out that with Win10/11, often the only thing needed is to switch to performance or ultimate power mode to enjoy a lean audio production machine. After that it's the small things like setting the anti-virus exceptions for your sample and recording drives. For me, Win11 stays out of my way just like Linux does.

In 2022 when deciding on an audio OS, it's less about performance and more about privacy concerns and the brilliant open source software and plugins that are a click away in your favorite Linux package manager. Oh yeah, my favorite Cockos DAW also runs on Linux. Yay.
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