Linux Sound Studio

qjackctl

qjackctl is the app I use as an "easy" interface to Jack. I will not delve into all the details now - as qjackctl will be mentioned all around

Ardour

Ardour is a Digital Audio Workstation, it’s interface seems complex at first sight, but we can go very far only scratching the surface
I use it for a few very specific tasks:

1. Record all the instrument/tracks and arrange them.

   1. To create a new track, right click in the grey zone below the Master track
   2. chose a name, define number of channels - and click add
   3. Once the track has been added, it appears in qjackctl, and we can connect send a source to it.
   4. click on the source on the left, on the destination on the right, and then click connect, voila my capture_1 is connected to demo/audio_in 1.
   5. Now, if you have an instrument connected to capture one; you could:
      1. Press on the red circle in the demo track bar to indicate you want to record that one
      2. Press on the red circle in the main controls on the interface to indicate you want to record
      3. Press on Play in the main controls to actually start the recording session
      4. Until you press stop cause you’re done

2. Act as a Timemaster

   While it is nice to be able to record instruments one by one, and not really an issue when people are playing them, it becomes more of an issue of synchronizing instruments that are played by programs. This is where the Timemaster comes into play: it allows to sync the playing of all programs.

   1. right click the metronom icon in main controls, go in the sync tab and select JACK. Click on editor (all top right) to go back to main interface.
   2. Enable external positioning sync by
      1. In ardour 5.8, click on the int button below the metronome icon
      2. In older ardour, click the int button left of the timeframes
      3. In the menu, click on Session -> properties -> Timecode, and Ardour is Time Master box must be checked. And voila, ardour is TimeMaster, a good thing done, more on that later.

3. Export Songs

   1. Click on session->export->export audio files (or just press alt-e)
   2. Select Format
   3. Select Timespan
   4. Select the channels you want to include
   5. Check any extra option you want
   6. Click on Export

Ardour can do MUCH MORE than just this, but as to record your first song, that’s all you really need to know!

zita-ajbridge

1. The simple solution: alsa_out
   alsa-utils package provides two utilities, called alsa_in and alsa_out. These allow you to make a bridge to or from jack.
   In this case, I launch alsa_out in a shell, and a new device pops in jack:
   I connected ardour’s demo/audio_out 1 to both of the alsa_out playback devices (demo track is mono), I could have connected capture_1 directly to the playback, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
   
2. But experience has shown that the easiest solution is not always the best one. If what you want is great sound quality, then what you want is zita-ajbridge. I won’t lie to you, this is more difficult. You will need to install a build environment, a few dependencies and might have to compile a few others. If/Once you compiled it and installed it on your system, you must find the reference of the soundcard that you will send this to.
   $ aplay -l
   In my case, I send the audio from the studio to the Audinst HUD-mini, thus card 5.
   The resulting command to create my output device is thus:
   $ zita-j2a -d hw:5 -j zita-a2j -r 48000 -p 256 -n 2 -c 2 -Q 48
   And resulting in the same connections as with alsa_out (but with a better sound):
   

zita-at1

1. First we find out that the song is in A minor
2. The we find that the notes from A minor are ABCDEFG
3. We select those notes in zita-at1 (the blue squares arranged like the keys of a piano)
4. we send capture_1 to zita-at1, zita-at1 to our demo track, and our demo track to the speakers.

guitarix

guitarix: Is a virtual guitar amplifier. Or that’s what they say… actually it’s a complete rack with thousands of effects and possibilities. Once installed, it is important that you add some presets to guitarix, in order to have more effects. (download the file, extract, and copy the .gx files to ~/.config/guitarix/banks/
Once banks are added, you can start guitarix and start playing with nice sounds (I particuliary like Darling’s JCM800)

Purists will say that the JCM800 is not a real JCM800, and that is true, but purists also know that no 2 JCM800 sound exactly the same. The amazing thing here is the number of available sounds to make the one that you love.
But the killer feature of Guitarix VS a JCM800 is the ability to process a stream that has been recorded before. Stay with me on that one!

1. Connect capture_1 to demo/audio 1 (So I can record a clean guitar)
2. Connect demo/audio 1 to gx_head_amp
3. Connect gx_head_amp to gx_head_fx (gx stands for guitarix, and yes, it has 2 jack components, like any real cabinet, allowing for other effects to be placed between both)
4. As you note, gx_head_fx has a stereo output, I thus created a new track called demo-postprod and connected both channels.
5. Connect both channels of demo-postprod to both channels of zita-a2j

calf studio

As we’ve juste seen, guitarix has space for more effects between the amp and the fx, this is where calf comes into play.
Calf has a mountain of effects, but on top of that, those effects have parameters that would make NASA engineers jealous!

And here is also where we start seeing the limitations of qjackctl connection panel (in terms of clarity… imagine more instruments)

This overflow of clarity leads us to the next handy application:

Patchage

1. the sound is coming from capture_1
2. Goes to the demo1 track (which’s audio_out2 is connected to zita_out while it shouldn’t)
3. from there it goes to the head_amp, which sends it to calf
4. calf then sends it back to the head_fx (and thus the virtual Cabinet too)
5. Which sends it back to calf’s vintage delay (try to do that with a real JCM800!)
6. It then enters out postprod track in ardour, which in turn
7. Sends it to the speakers.

Hydrogen

1. Start hydrogen,
2. Go to tools->preferences->audio system, and choose Jack
3. Before clicking OK, go to MIDI System and choose Jack
4. Now click OK
5. Now just right of where the BPM are indicated, you make sure that J.TRANS and J.MASTER are active.
6. And make a simple beat, and connect hydrogen’s output to a2j-bridge
7. Now start ardour, and click play in ardour. – hydrogen should start playing your beat and be in rhytm with ardour’s metronome.

tuxguitar

Tuxguitar is basically a guitar tablature editor, and that’s what I used it for… until I discovered it’s hidden superpowers! Indeed, while you can write the partition/tablature that you want with tuxguitar, but tuxguitar is able to play tabs to a MIDI synthetizer, all this of course, in sync with Jack.
To setup tuxguitar, click on tools->Settings->Sound, and set “Jack Sequencer” as the MIDI Sequencer, and MIDI THROUGH PORT as MIDI PORT. Now chose your instrument, and type your partition.
However, you will hear nothing until you get a synth running, leading us to:

fluidsynth and qsynth

1. Install fluidsunth and qsynth (qsynth is an interface for fluidsynth)
2. start qsynth, and go in setup
3. in the MIDI tab, enable the MIDI INPUT using Jack as driver (MIDI DEVICE can be blank)
4. In the Audio tab, set Jack as audio driver, if possible with parameter corresponding to the ones in qjackctl config, and auto connect jack outputs.
5. Launch a browser, fetch soundfonts, and uncompress the archives. (Soundfonts are basically collections of instruments.)
6. Go in the soundfonts tab, click open and add the soundfonts you just downloaded.
7. click OK and Qsynth should ask you to restart fluidsynthTimeMaster Example:

1. In the MIDI tab (so far we only worked in the Audio tab), connect Midi through Port-0 to fluidsynth’s midi (be carefull, if you restart fluidsynth with qsynth, you will need to remake this connection)
2. In ardour we make create two new tracks, I named them hydrogen and guitarix
3. In the connection panel, we connect both hydrogen out to ardour’s hydrogen in and then ardour’s hydrogen out to zita-a2j’s playback.
4. In the connection panel, we connect both fluidsynth out to ardour’s Guitarix in and then ardour’s Guitarix out to zita-a2j’s playback.
5. We make sure that all apps are well configured for the jack timemaster
6. In Ardour, we click the red buttons in the two tracks we want to record, then the red button on top on the interface to indicate we want to start a record session, finally we press play to start the recording session.
7. All that’s left is to export.For the sake of helping your testing, you can use this example file, which contains:
   1. bj.tg –> tuxguitar save
   2. bj.h2song –> h2 save
   3. bj.ogg –> result, exported in ogg with ardour

ALC1150

My internal sound card (ALC1150) works ok”ish”. I mean it works great, but there are some parasitic noises from time to time that seem to be driven by interference from my GPU(NVIDIA 1060, 6GB). I’m quite sure of the cause, as the hissing becomes unbearable when I execute GPU intensive tasks like training tensorflow. Hence I use this card for general pulse audio, where quality is not critical. Additionally, with this setup, I can still play sounds or music while working in ardour and Jack has a monopoly on my recording device.

Lightsnake STUSBG10

Was my first try at recording guitar on my pc a long time ago.
Pros:quite affordable, nothing to configure on the device (only qjackctl).
Cons:Not the best sound, 16bit, nothing to configure on the device.

Behringer Xenix X1832USB

This device was quite interesting, until I realised that while the whole device works in 24 bits, the USB output is limited to 16 bit. So while I was thinking of using this as primary recording device, it got relegated to second row: multiplexing drums (more on that later).
Pros:Plenty of inputs, phantom power, nice parameters and effects for each track.
Cons:16 bit USB, lacked a bit of power when sending to a 400W amp.

Boss RC30

This one has a USB port, but I didn’t manage to get it working on linux so far :'(
Pros:Great pedal overall.
Cons:Expensive, not working as USB input for my linux studio.

Audinst HUD-Mini

I use this one as main output on the computer - or mainly with zita-a2jbridge to listen while recording.
Pros:Great sound, I love the physical switch to toggle between speakers and headset.
Cons:Price maybe.

Lexicon Omega

This one is at the end of commercial lifecycle, what a pity. I’m thinking of buying a spare one… love this device.
Pros: 24 bits 48khz, reasonable price, Good sound quality, awesome connectivity.
Cons: Only record 2 tracks at once.

Allen & Heath ZED 428

This is a great soundboard, allowing me to mix levels and send to amp system while also sending lines to the soundcard.
Pros:bits khz, Great sound quality and connectivity.
Cons:Price?

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20

This is a great external soundcard: allows for recording 8 high resolution channels at the same time!
Pros:bits khz, Great sound quality and connectivity.
Cons:Price?

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20

For a long time, I used a cheap noname noncondenser microphone, it was “okayish” for recording, but I quickly realised it had a strong tendency to larsen when jamming. Now I switched to a Shure SM58 for amplyfied singing, and my cheap condensor mic for “acapella” recording.
For live jamming, I usually don’t use any artefacts, so the SM58 goes straight into a hardware amp with speakers.
For acapella recording, the condensor mic is connected to the Omega, and usually straight into ardour. Like for the guitarix example earlier, if you record a voice without effects, you can easily post process it (zita-at1, calf,…)One important factor when choosing your mic is “phantom power”: in brief, some mic’s require to receive power to work. So if the device you connect the mic to doesn’t send power and the mic needs phantom power, it just won’t work. This can often explain the case where a mic works on one device, but not on another one. On some devices, you can choose weither the mic inputs receive phantom power or not.