Tracktion and Linux

[Matt73]

Hello Good People,

I couldn't find answers to my questions in the Linux FAQ so thought I would post here.

I love Waveform but I have found it to be a bit crashy on Ubuntu Studio. It just freezes up sometimes and I have to hold the off button down to switch the computer off and the reboot. Today I was choosing an input for my midi keyboard and it all just froze up and when I rebooted and chose the 'temporary' saved version, there was nothing there. Luckily I had an archived version but I the previous two hours of recording were wasted. I wonder if I should run it on Ubuntu 18.04 (as that's the version Tracktion say they have tested their software on).

Also, Waveform doesn't always remember my audio settings. I select my Focusrite Interface and it's all working fine but the next time I open the DAW, it has switched back to pulse audio and I have to change it back. Or it has remembered the settings but the audio is distorted and I have to switch from 48000 sample rate to 41000 and back again to restore the audio to being clear again.

I would love to just be able to turn on my computer, open the DAW and get on with recording rather than deal with these annoying issues as they frustrate me and dampen my creativity and spontaneity.

Any help appreciated

Best Regards

Matt

[mikoatkvr]

@Matt73 Just to clarify, are you on version 12 ?

I also experience all of the above on occasion , but have never been able to nail it down to the exact cause to make a full detailed bug report.

There is a vast improvement in the latest version, but as I say it can happen randomly where my internal Audio gets kicked or I get a frozen Desktop or Waveform just locks up and has to be killed from the terminal sometimes leaving zombie processes behind, all of which makes debugging almost impossible.

[ It's a bit cleaner to do the ' Alt PrtSc R,E,I,S,U,B ' key sequence to shutdown your system when you get a freeze ].

I run Waveform_12 on a few different systems which all have some realtime kernel tweaks, similar to Ubuntu Studio which you are running , so I can't say for sure if Waveform will run better on a vanilla kernel unless I installed such a system to test.

I'm going to look into these issues in more depth to see if this can finally be resolved by the developers, as I too find it frustrating when these occur.

[Matt73]

Ok, thank-you sir for the info. Very interesting.

[mikoatkvr]

@Matt73

Could you please paste the output of this command from the terminal ?

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep snd

I have a suspicion that ALSA is bugging out when it is struggling to meet buffer requirements which momentarily kicks Waveforms Audio connection and pulseaudio is grabbing the card.

If this doesn't yield much info , I'll look into debugging with journalctl.

[Matt73]

I stopped the endless crashing by booting with the generic kernel in Ubuntu Studio rather than the low-latency one. But today I switched to Linux Mint and it's all running smoothly for now. In fact there is seemingly less delay when I play the midi keyboard and I can reduce the sample rate down to 5ms with no crackles or pops. I'm a bit wary of the dreaded Ubuntu update which for some reason changes the default sample rate to 44100 rather than 48000 but there is a thread on rediit on how to fix that. Plus I took a system snapshot so I can hopefully revert if the update messes things up. Linux is a cruel mistress and the tech headaches it has caused a reluctant nerd like me have brough me close to tears at times. Hence the name of the album 'Uphill Struggle'. Very apt.

[mikoatkvr]

That's interesting that the generic kernel is giving you better results. Maybe things have improved in the kernel lately making audio/midi much less prone to latency. Yeah the maintainers sometimes get crazy ideas on what your defaults should be ( maybe now most soundcards are average 44100 samplerate or perhaps this just works best with the overall audio subsystem ? ) , but as always they are easily enough tweaked to fix.

Maybe in the near future the Linux devs will have 'pipewire' as the standard frontend and so well polished that we will never need to mess with config files and have true low-latency audio for all applications.

[Matt73]

Hi,

Yes, hopefully Linix will continue to improve. I was just admiring linux mint today. I mean who would want to go back to Windows having seen how stylish and beautiful Linux can be made to be. But there is the price of having to learn so technical stuff. Worth it overall.

[mikoatkvr]

Linux can only get better with time. I agree about MInt, I have it installed on a partition on my Desktop, such a slick DE.
I've been using Linux for about 15 years now so I'm kinda used to doing the technical stuff.

Unfortunately Linux has such a small share of the market that a lot of companies can't/won't invest time in developing for the platform because they would make no profit. This hits hard on things like MIDI controllers as we never quite have the full functionality unless someone writes a driver or the program supports it natively.

[Matt73]

When I installed Linux Mint, I hooked up to wifi during the installation so I think it downloaded updates as it installed. The first thing I did after it was up and running was install Waveform...and it all worked great...no discernible latency when playing the midi keyboard. Then the dreaded update kicked in and the audio went funny but I was prepared and edited the .conf file to fix it. But then I noticed that there was a lot of latency again (19ms, you can run a test in Waveform). God alone knows why there was no discernible latency when playing a MIDI keyboard just after install but later there was. I am always on eggshells when I open the DAW. Will the interface work without distortion...? Will the latency change? I just want to open it and get on with the album rather than constantly having tech headaches, some of which have brought me close to a breakdown on more than one occasion.

So I looked into the update manager and saw how relatively straightforward installing different kernels and reverting back if necessary is. Despite the low latency kernel seemingly causing problems in Ubuntu Studio, I decided to risk installing it and it's all working nicely through hours of mixing with no hangs or crashes (I'm using Waveform Pro 11).

Finally, I boot up and open Waveform and it remembers the audio settings with no audio distortion. All crystal clear. When I plug in the keyboard, I can play the VSTs with no discernible latency. Have done the auto-detect test for latency compensation (down to around 4ms now) so that overdubs all line up sweetly (didn't know about this for a long time and it caused me so much grief wondering what happened to the groove when listening back to stuff that sounded great whilst I was recording it with live monitoring in the interface; the tracks were slightly out of sync).

Anyway, this message is to give moral support to other non-nerd artists who want to run Waveform on Linux and have it all just work. It CAN be done. I am an artist before I am a nerd and Linux has been a cruel mistress sometimes. The learning curve is steep but it IS possible to get Waveform running smoothly on Linux with the low-latency kernel and working nicely with an audio-interface so that you can get on with being inspired and creative and recording and producing and mastering great sounding tracks (enough of a challenge in itself) without the murderous headache of constant tech problems.


Best

Matt

[edrickblade]

W12 Audio engine works flawlessly in Ubuntu Studio 22.04 with Pipewire backend, some JUCE bugs but usable.