[PlanetCCRMA] Unable to get any sound through jackd

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 03:42 -1000, Ron Fox wrote:
> Aloha,

Aloha!!

> I'm new to Linux Audio but am a longtime Fedora and Linux user.
> 
> I'm not able to get any sound at all through jackd running on F8-ccrma
> on my Dell M90 laptop/workstation with built-in Intel Soundcard.
> 
> ALSA is working as demonstrated by running (as user=rfox)
> $ speaker-test -c2 -twav
> 
> Output from the alsa-info script is posted at http://pastebin.ca/1069099
> 
> I've followed configuration directions from many different documents,
> most recently "Professional audio with Fedora" by Keith Sharp: 
> 
> http://www.passback.org.uk/music/fedora-music-intro/
> 
> which was created on 19 Jan 2008.  I was hoping that the combination of
> jackd and ZynAddSubFx would give me a "simple as possible" environment
> to troubleshoot my problems but, even using this combination, I can't
> get a peep out of the ZynAddSubFx keyboard.

I usually use Hydrogen with one of the demo patterns for quick testing. 

> Is there a set of steps that I can follow to setup jackd and hook a
> simple audio app to it?
> 
> Hear is what I've tried most recently
> --------------- starting ZynAddSubFx from the command line ---------
> [rfox at kolea ~]$ zynaddsubfx 

I would start jack first. 

A possible sequence of operations:

- verify that jackd is not running, kill it if it is. 

- start qjackctl

- if you are running on an hda-intel card (I think you are) you need to
change "Periods/Buffer" in the Setup/Settings dialog to "3" (not 2,
hda-intel hardware is not happy with that). Also check that "Interface"
is pointing to "hw:0". If you want lower latency you can lower
"Frames/Period" to, say, 128 (but after initial testing confirms things
are working). 

- start jack (press the "Play" button). 

- verify that it starts fine and is reasonably stable. 

- start Hydrogen, select one of the demo songs

- go to qjackctl and connect the output of Hydrogen to the soundcard

- press play in Hydrogen

- you should hear the pattern...

= to check: verify mute state and volume of the soundcard...

-- Fernando


> lash_open_socket: could not connect to host 'localhost', service '14541'
> lash_comm_connect_to_server: could not create server connection
> jackd 0.109.2
> 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 ..
> SSE2 detected
> creating alsa driver ... hw:0|hw:0|1024|2|48000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|
> 32bit
> control device hw:0
> configuring for 48000Hz, period = 1024 frames (21.3 ms), 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
> lash_open_socket: could not connect to host 'localhost', service '14541'
> lash_comm_connect_to_server: could not create server connection
> SSE2 detected
> Connected to JACK server with client name 'LASH_Server'
> Opened ALSA sequencer with client ID 128
> Listening for connections
> Created project project-1 in
> directory /home/rfox/audio-projects/project-1
> Added client 9551ce86-4b1c-4916-823c-2a08634382e3 of class ZynAddSubFX
> to project project-1
> 
> ZynAddSubFX - Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Nasca Octavian Paul
> Compiled: Oct 10 2007 18:06:01
> This program is free software (GNU GPL v.2) and 
>     it comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> 
> Try 'zynaddsubfx --help' for command-line options.
> Sound Buffer Size =     256 samples
> Internal latency =      5.3 ms
> ADsynth Oscil.Size =    512 samples
> SSE2 detected
> Internal SampleRate   = 48000
> Jack Output SampleRate= 48000
> 
> --note that this starts jackd according to
> $ ps auxwwf |grep jack
> rfox 11018  0.5  0.3 30092 3888 ? Ssl 02:51 0:01 /usr/bin/jackd -T
> -ndefault -T -d alsa
> 
> ----- starting qjackctl from the command line to make connections
> [rfox at kolea ~]$ qjackctl
> Warning: no locale found: /usr/share/locale/qjackctl_en_US.qm
> 
> 
> Before doing anything with the QJackctl GUI, the QJackctl message window
> shows:
> 02:58:45.411 Patchbay deactivated.
> 02:58:45.500 Statistics reset.
> 02:58:45.560 Client activated.
> 02:58:45.566 XRUN callback (1).
> SSE2 detected
> 02:58:45.763 JACK connection change.
> 02:58:45.765 ALSA connection change.
> 02:58:47.571 XRUN callback (29 skipped).
> 02:58:49.577 XRUN callback (29 skipped).
> 02:58:51.586 XRUN callback (30 skipped).
> 02:58:53.591 XRUN callback (28 skipped).
> 02:58:55.597 XRUN callback (28 skipped).
> 02:58:57.604 XRUN callback (30 skipped).
> every 2 seconds
> 
> Clicking on the [connect] button in QJackCtl, there are three tabs,
> Audio, MIDI and ALSA.  The Audio tab shows 2 readable clients named
> "system" and "ZynAddSubFx" and one writable client named "system".
> 
> I connect readable "ZynAddSubFx out_1" to writable "system playback_1"
> and readable "ZynAddSubFx out_2" to writable "system playback_2" and
> close the Connections window, the Messages window records:
> 
> 03:16:15.930 JACK connection change.
> 
> If I then press keys on the ZynAddSubFx keyboard, the key turns dark
> blue while pressed but there's no output from the speakers and the audio
> meter at the bottom of the ZynAddSubFx GUI shows no activity at all.
> 
> I'm well and truly stuck!
> 
> I'm scheduled to give a public presentation on using Linux as a Digital
> Audio Workstation and had hoped to be able to demo this and a virtual
> MIDI keyboard plus Soundgarden and other cool things in the CCRMA
> collection on Tuesday night but if I can't get past this hurdle, I'll
> have to switch to another topic.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'll be happy to post output
> from any commands or the contents of any files but this post is getting
> long already.