Recording with JACK and a USB recording device in Audacity

[tom_bitt]

Hi,

I am using a TASCAM US-100 (http://tascam.com/product/us-100/) with my Lenovo R500 laptop to record my guitar, bass, voice etc. in Audacity with several tracks. I have changed to Ubuntu lately because I was fed up with Windows.

I wasn't able to record several tracks with the standard ALSA device and driver - for one track, it was okay, but the next ones were all blurry. So I switched to JACK. It worked fine the first time I started it - I'm not using any additional effects or anything like JACKRack - but now I can't get it to work properly. Every time I start the JACK server (via QJackCtl) and launch Audacity, recording is done via the internal microphone of the laptop, and playback is done via the internal speakers. In the Audacity device toolbar, it says JACK and then "system" for both recording and playback.

I have already tried to force Ubuntu to recognize the USB device as the one and only soundcard - that didn't help really. The thing is, it all worked well the first time, and then once more later when I had been fiddling around with the controls for 4 hours (and after many restarts etc.), but I have no idea how to reproduce this. Any help? Thanks!

Tom

[steve]

Open Jack Control and click on the Setup button.
The Input device must correspond with your USB device.
Once you have Jack started with the USB device as the input device, launch Audacity and set it to "Host: Jack", Record and Playback: System.

[tom_bitt]

That was the first thing I tried when I installed QJackCtl - it didn't impress JACK very much. If it had been that easy, it wouldn't have taken me the 4 hours I mentioned

I have chosen the USB device as input and output device, but the sound is still coming from the speakers /recorded from the internal mic.

[steve]

I have chosen the USB device as input and output device, but the sound is still coming from the speakers /recorded from the internal mic.

Have you tried any other Jack applications?
"Hydrogen" (drum machine) is a pretty good test for Jack. Try running it and check that (a) it works. (b) it plays out through the USB device.

[tom_bitt]

I hadn't tried it with Hydrogen before - now I have: Same effect. When I connect the Hydrogen input to the System Playback Output under QJackCtl's "Connections" screen, I hear the playback from the internal speakers, although the USB device is chosen as input and output device under QJackCtl's preferences screen. I also tried to chooses the other devices mentioned there (like dev/audio, dev/dsp etc.), but that also didn't change anything. I am a bit lost here, sorry.

[steve]

In QJackCtl, click on the "Setup" button.
In the setup screen, look on the right hand side where it says "Input device:" and "Output Device:"
Ignore the drop down menus, look just to the right of those and you should see a [>] after each of those drop down menus.
Click on the [>] and you should see some options. What are the options?

[tom_bitt]

In QJackCtl, click on the "Setup" button.
(...)
Click on the [>] and you should see some options. What are the options?

The options are:

hw:0 HDA Intel
hw:0,0 Conexant Analog
---
hw:1 USB Audio CODEC
hw:1,0 USB Audio
---
hw:29 ThinkPad Console Audio Control
---
(default)


I tried every one of those, but it didn't work. Thanks for your help, Steve!

[steve]

You need to use one of the "hw:1" options - either of them should do.
What do you mean "it didn't work"?

[tom_bitt]

Sorry to bother you with this

Well, choosing the hw:1 or hw:1,0 device was the rather obvious thing to do - I tried that in the very beginning. Result: Sound was coming through the internal speakers. That hasn't changed until now...I don't know what to do. JACK just doesn't use the USB device!

[steve]

That hasn't changed until now...

Until now? What's happening now?
Is Jack actually running with hw:1 selected for both Input and Output Device? (you should see yellow lettering in QJackCtl that says "Started")

QJackCtl.png (33.08 KiB) Viewed 9172 times