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PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

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Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#11

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

cycloptic wrote: post #8
misterbishop wrote: post #3

Jack, while incredibly powerful has been a huge hurdle for pro audio on Linux. I'm looking forward to Pipewire being the default audio interface. Hopefully it drives a revival of the Linux sound engineering community and new software projects. Specifically the lack of a user friendly loop/sample-based recording tool like Ableton Live is glaring.

Can you describe what some of your hurdles have been? Pipewire is probably not going to solve your issues as it's not a complete replacement for JACK [0] and uses the same API anyway. Realistically, if you're writing a new DAW, you're still going to want to use the JACK API. If your problems are driver-related, that definitely won't be solved by switching to a different audio daemon. And for the record, the open sour…

To be fair, as the original author of JACK and the lead author of one the main DAWs on Linux, we no longer encourage the use of JACK with Ardour.

JACK is an exceptional powerful tool (if I do say so myself) but it is overkill for the majority (maybe even the vast majority) of users. We try to encourage most Ardour users to use its builtin ALSA audio/MIDI I/O support rather than JACK these days.

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#12

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

misterbishop wrote: post #3

Jack, while incredibly powerful has been a huge hurdle for pro audio on Linux. I'm looking forward to Pipewire being the default audio interface. Hopefully it drives a revival of the Linux sound engineering community and new software projects. Specifically the lack of a user friendly loop/sample-based recording tool like Ableton Live is glaring.

The reasons why a tool like Live exists or does not exist on a platform has essentially zero relationship to the APIs used for audio and MIDI I/O.

As others have noted, Bitwig already exists - in some ways, it is more powerful than Live (and in others, less). It is also proprietary.

Also, Live is not the kind of tool that most people would associate the term user friendly with. It's quite hard to get started using Live, despite the program being basically 100% awesomesauce. Live is extremely friendly towards a certain kind of workflow for "in-the-box" music production, and has fundamentally changed the entire zeitgeist surrounding making music with computers. But it's not a replacement for linear timeline DAWs (like ProTools, Logic, Sonar, Ardour etc. etc.) and has its own foibles and certainly its own complexities and limitations.

I anticipate that the next major release of Ardour will have some Live-like features starting to arrive.

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#13

Post by bwanab »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11
cycloptic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe what some of your hurdles have been? Pipewire is probably not going to solve your issues as it's not a complete replacement for JACK [0] and uses the same API anyway. Realistically, if you're writing a new DAW, you're still going to want to use the JACK API. If your problems are driver-related, that definitely won't be solved by switching to a different audio daemon. And for the record, the open sour…

To be fair, as the original author of JACK and the lead author of one the main DAWs on Linux, we no longer encourage the use of JACK with Ardour. JACK is an exceptional powerful tool (if I do say so myself) but it is overkill for the majority (maybe even the vast majority) of users. We try to encourage most Ardour users to use its builtin ALSA audio/MIDI I/O support rather than JACK these days.

Paul, first of all, let me thank you for the great software you’re developed. As a long time JACK user, Can you point me to a more detailed write up on why it is overkill?

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#15

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

bwanab wrote: post #13
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, as the original author of JACK and the lead author of one the main DAWs on Linux, we no longer encourage the use of JACK with Ardour. JACK is an exceptional powerful tool (if I do say so myself) but it is overkill for the majority (maybe even the vast majority) of users. We try to encourage most Ardour users to use its builtin ALSA audio/MIDI I/O support rather than JACK these days.

Paul, first of all, let me thank you for the great software you’re developed. As a long time JACK user, Can you point me to a more detailed write up on why it is overkill?

There's no such writeup.

But look - most people don't actually want to connect multiple applications together to make music. Most people don't actually want to move audio between applications at all. As we get more and more (reasonably) good plugins available on Linux, the "monolithic" approach - do it all inside one program (e.g. a DAW or something a bit like it) is easier for most people (no complex state management) and closer to their pre-existing mental models.

If you do need/want to connect multiple applications together, then sure, JACK is great and better than more or less any other possible alternative for that purpose.

But most people don't want to do that, and increasingly do not need to either.

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#16

Post by cycloptic »

cjsthompson wrote: post #9
cycloptic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe what some of your hurdles have been? Pipewire is probably not going to solve your issues as it's not a complete replacement for JACK [0] and uses the same API anyway. Realistically, if you're writing a new DAW, you're still going to want to use the JACK API. If your problems are driver-related, that definitely won't be solved by switching to a different audio daemon. And for the record, the open sour…

Before giving others lessons you should get your facts straight. PipeWire is meant to be a complete replacement for not only JACK, but also PulseAudio. One of it's goals is to merge the functionality of both of these and only provide a compatible API for apps as a convenience. It will be possible to write apps that don't use these. Internally it's different from JACK and PulseAudio. Other goals include better latency…

I'm going by what's in the FAQ that I linked. I already gave you the primary source of whatever facts I have so take it up with them, not me. If it's wrong, and you have the ability to edit it, can you fix it?

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#17

Post by cycloptic »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11
cycloptic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe what some of your hurdles have been? Pipewire is probably not going to solve your issues as it's not a complete replacement for JACK [0] and uses the same API anyway. Realistically, if you're writing a new DAW, you're still going to want to use the JACK API. If your problems are driver-related, that definitely won't be solved by switching to a different audio daemon. And for the record, the open sour…

To be fair, as the original author of JACK and the lead author of one the main DAWs on Linux, we no longer encourage the use of JACK with Ardour. JACK is an exceptional powerful tool (if I do say so myself) but it is overkill for the majority (maybe even the vast majority) of users. We try to encourage most Ardour users to use its builtin ALSA audio/MIDI I/O support rather than JACK these days.

I am a JACK/Ardour user and I still use application-application routing regularly to do other things. There are some workflows that are hard to do inside any given DAW, not just Ardour. This results in me having to run multiple DAWs at once, so running Ardour directly on ALSA won't work. You're right though that this situation is overkill -- I want to help fix some of these issues but Ardour is a large project and is difficult for me to start contributing to at the moment. Porting JACK-native programs over into audio plugins also takes time. Unfortunately this means I will probably be stuck on JACK for a while.

But all that is beside the point anyway. I still stand by my statement that a new DAW should use the JACK API, for compatibility purposes. I would change my mind about this if it ever comes to the point where JACK support is removed from Ardour and the other major DAWs. Take that as you will.

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#18

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

8bitsrule wrote: post #14

Good news to see work being done on the Linux-audio 'bottleneck'. I miss the ease-of-use and options available on other platforms (I left behind).

Trust me, the device audio/MIDI APIs are not the bottleneck.

Things like JACK (which tend to draw complaints) don't exist on other platforms (except ... by running JACK there), so complaining about its complexities (not that you did, explicitly) isn't really fair since that is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison.

I would guess that the options you miss are the result of application and plugin developers (not) being willing to include Linux in their target platforms. As cool as PipeWire might turn out to be, it isn't going to have much effect on those decisions.

Finally, lots of people seem to manage to forget how for years (decades, perhaps), high performance audio software on Windows required new device drivers (ASIO) for your audio hardware, because the ones that came with Windows couldn't do the job. This has mostly changed now, but ASIO is still with us nevertheless.

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#19

Post by ivarv »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #12
misterbishop wrote: post #3

Jack, while incredibly powerful has been a huge hurdle for pro audio on Linux. I'm looking forward to Pipewire being the default audio interface. Hopefully it drives a revival of the Linux sound engineering community and new software projects. Specifically the lack of a user friendly loop/sample-based recording tool like Ableton Live is glaring.

The reasons why a tool like Live exists or does not exist on a platform has essentially zero relationship to the APIs used for audio and MIDI I/O. As others have noted, Bitwig already exists - in some ways, it is more powerful than Live (and in others, less). It is also proprietary. Also, Live is not the kind of tool that most people would associate the term user friendly with. It's quite hard to get started using Li…

> I anticipate that the next major release of Ardour will have some Live-like features starting to arrive.

This is pretty intriguing - is there a public roadmap for these Live-like features ?

Re: PipeWire 0.3 – JACK compatibility layer with comparable performance to JACK2

#20

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ivarv wrote: post #19
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons why a tool like Live exists or does not exist on a platform has essentially zero relationship to the APIs used for audio and MIDI I/O. As others have noted, Bitwig already exists - in some ways, it is more powerful than Live (and in others, less). It is also proprietary. Also, Live is not the kind of tool that most people would associate the term user friendly with. It's quite hard to get started using Li…

> I anticipate that the next major release of Ardour will have some Live-like features starting to arrive. This is pretty intriguing - is there a public roadmap for these Live-like features ?

We don't have enough developer resources to make roadmaps a worthwhile thing to spend time on. I work on this stuff when I am inclined and when there don't seem to be more important things to work on.

Also, just to be clear, I said "the next major release" because in my own head, 6.0 is "almost upon us". What I meant was the next major release after 6.0.

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