3 ms·

10 or so years ago I spent a long time customizing a DAW workstation on Arch using JACK and Ardour and a lot of other utilities. It had a steep learning curve

10 or so years ago I spent a long time customizing a DAW workstation on Arch using JACK and Ardour and a lot of other utilities. It had a steep learning curve and a lot of configuration but I loved the freedom JACK granted to wire applications to each other. Is anybody using PipeWire in an audio engineering setup? Or would JACK still be the preferred method here?

vonjuice 3y ago
I was using JACK and tried switching to PW at various points and always encountered issues. Last year I took another chance and made a fresh Arch install on my laptop and went with PW (on previous attempts I tried to switch on an already running system). I had no issues, and in fact it solved some issues I used to have on jack. Then I did the same on my desktop. I had problems setting up my microphone, but I managed to solve it. Now I have two, very minor issues: sometimes bitwig takes a bit to start the audio engine, or I have to restart the program; and sometimes my audio stops working when I unplug my zoom h1n while the system is running. I rarely do the latter so it's barely an issue.
jampekka 3y ago
There are patchbays for PipeWire that allow for wiring like jack. qpwgraph seems to be the most functional. Can use pw-cli too. Actually it allows wiring also jack applications to pipewire applications and pipewire to jack. I use e.g. "pw-jack ardour" to run ardour and launch pw-jack jconvolver and route inputs and outputs with qpwgraph.
tcrenshaw 3y ago
I'm currently in the process of setting up pipewire in an audio engineering setting. Currently in the process of latency tuning, hovering around 9ms right now, would love to cut that in half. I'm using ardour (after the creator recommended I try it in another HN thread) on Debian with a realtime kernel for a 16 in by 8 out interface for eventual use as a FOH mixing console. After lots of tweaking, I haven't seen much improvement over the default pipewire-jack config, but I've only recently started tackling realtime priorities and modifying pipewire metadata for interfaces.
jmkr 3y ago
In my experience pipewire didn't work for me but Jack did. > It had a steep learning curve and a lot of configuration Yeah I experienced that with Jack too. I spent even more time trying to learn and configure Pipewire, much longer than I ever did with Jack, all to give up and go back to Jack.

vonjuice 3y ago

I was using JACK and tried switching to PW at various points and always encountered issues. Last year I took another chance and made a fresh Arch install on my laptop and went with PW (on previous attempts I tried to switch on an already running system). I had no issues, and in fact it solved some issues I used to have on jack. Then I did the same on my desktop. I had problems setting up my microphone, but I managed to solve it. Now I have two, very minor issues: sometimes bitwig takes a bit to start the audio engine, or I have to restart the program; and sometimes my audio stops working when I unplug my zoom h1n while the system is running. I rarely do the latter so it's barely an issue.

jampekka 3y ago

There are patchbays for PipeWire that allow for wiring like jack. qpwgraph seems to be the most functional. Can use pw-cli too. Actually it allows wiring also jack applications to pipewire applications and pipewire to jack. I use e.g. "pw-jack ardour" to run ardour and launch pw-jack jconvolver and route inputs and outputs with qpwgraph.

tcrenshaw 3y ago

I'm currently in the process of setting up pipewire in an audio engineering setting. Currently in the process of latency tuning, hovering around 9ms right now, would love to cut that in half. I'm using ardour (after the creator recommended I try it in another HN thread) on Debian with a realtime kernel for a 16 in by 8 out interface for eventual use as a FOH mixing console. After lots of tweaking, I haven't seen much improvement over the default pipewire-jack config, but I've only recently started tackling realtime priorities and modifying pipewire metadata for interfaces.

jmkr 3y ago

In my experience pipewire didn't work for me but Jack did. > It had a steep learning curve and a lot of configuration Yeah I experienced that with Jack too. I spent even more time trying to learn and configure Pipewire, much longer than I ever did with Jack, all to give up and go back to Jack.