[PlanetCCRMA] Rhythmbox and Jack

[fonse006]

>===== Original Message From "Saul Lethbridge" <saul_lethbridge at hotmail.com> 
=====
>I'm wanting to have jack started upon startup but don't want to have to stop
>it in order to use other sound apps. Can I use Rhythmbox and other alsa apps
>with Jack? I found some info on the alsa site (editing asound.rc) but it
>looks like it only works with specific applications. Has anybody succeeded
>in doing this?
>
There should not be a problem with this.  Jack is a transport layer where as 
alsa is a set of hardware drivers.  If you are using jack to communicate with 
your hardware you are still using the alsa drivers.  The reason that an 
application would prefer to use jack is because jack lets you communicate with 
more than just your hardware.  As a typical example, let's say that I am in 
the process of mixing down and mastering a piece of music.  For this I use two 
programs Jamin and Ardour.  Both of these programs can send jack output and 
recieve jack input so I am in good shape.  Here is how I would do it.  I route 
the jack output for all tracks from Ardour to Jamin.  Next I set the Jamin 
output to go to my soundcard (via the alsa driver) and back into Ardour for 
recording.  This is easiest to do graphically with  Qjackctl.  Rhythmbox on 
the other hand does not use jack. It sends output to the alsa soundcard driver 
directly.  It will be no problem to hear the sound that Rhythmbox makes, but 
it will be more difficult (and in some cases imposible) to send the output 
from Rhythmbox to other programs like Ardour, Muse, or whatever else you want 
to work with.  Jack is clearly the better setup.  Not all of the good linux 
audio software supports jack yet, but things are certainly moving in that 
direction.  To be honest I am not familliar with Rhythmbox, but is it is a 
good piece of software hopefully future versions of it will support jack.  I 
hope that this gives you a beter idea of how jack and alsa work with each 
other.  If not let me know and I will try to explain it better.

Adam