Input-wise: Steinberger Synapse bass guitar. Eden WTDI bass preamp, Yamaha 01v96i + RME Digi PCI card as an audio interface (any decent audio interface should do). Roland GI20 module via USB feeding MIDI notes from the GK3b MIDI pickup on the bass guitar. Akai LPD8 MIDI controller via USB for parameter adjustments.

All processing in Carla, including reverb. Screen-recorded directly from Carla into #OBS via #Jack.

When Carla is in patchbay view, I get xruns caused by incoming MIDI CC events. Strange. Also, AudioDamage Dubstation 2 does not care for tap commands via MIDI CC unless its window is displayed. Also weird. It would be sweet to have the vzTec Overdrive here, but that just won't work out…

Considering a longer video my PeerTube / @atkwap

#LinuxProAudio #LinuxAudio #BassGuitar #Effects #Plugin #Recording #BassRig

https://tal-software.com/products/tal-chorus-lx

Another #plugin I found today is simply called #Overdrive, by #vzTec. Digital overdrives are quite a difficult thing, and coming from a simple analog #tcElectronic #DarkMatter, the vzTec Overdrive is the first I encountered that I might actually want to use.

https://en.vztecfx.com/overdrive

Yet I won't use it live, because it consumes too much CPU power for my old machine.

So what's the fuzz about all this, overdrive and chorus in the box, if I do have a pedal board full of expensive TC gear?

Well… the board cannot host #AudioDamage #Decent #GranularDelay / #GranularReverb anyways, and hardware granular stuff is more expensive than a used Mac M1.

Plus… why not having a laptop-sized *extra* pedal board? For almost no money? Both plugins in this toot are: Free as free beer.

#LinuxAudio #LinuxProAudio

I had thought.

But just today, Audio Damage released version 1.0.9 of their #Descent #GranularDelay / #GranularSampler which features: Performance improvements on Linux.

And all of a sudden, my old PC is okay at least at 256 samples buffer with running this weird setup live…

(Yes, this includes #DecentSampler, since one of my basses has an additional MIDI pickup.)

I really love updates that do make my life better.

(One might almost think that these days, updates only make things worse. But it's not all Windows 11 doing AI shit or macOS losing features.)

EDIT: This now seems to work even at 128 samples buffer.

EDIT2: The gain modules in the graph are controlled by an AKAI LPD8 MIDI controller.

#LinuxAudio #LinuxProAudio #Bass

You also have hardware integration, so theoretically, you could place a hardware pedal in the middle of a device chain. And of course layers, so you can mix to taste, even if the plugin doesn't have a mix knob.

In Bitwig you can easily setup remotes, which can be controlled by midi.

If you don't need RME-class high end inputs, you can check out older Focusrite OctoPre units on the used market. For feeding your ADAT ports.

The inputs of my 01V96i are also not that good… so I use an RME Octamic II for microphones and the internal inputs of the 01V96i for keyboards.

I notice that there must have been days with more revenue when I bought these things.

The Octamic also goes together with the mobile setup with the Fireface 400… usually with an old MacBook from 2017, which is the shittiest MacBook ever since it easily goes into throttle mode due to overheating and then it ruins recordings… just using it for original TotalMix because ffadomixer for the Firefaces makes me go mad.

Most recordings I do these days are multitrack live recordings happening inside of some Allen&Heath mixing console with their okayish preamps… nobody cares.

Interesting! So Bitwig will feed the tempo into the effect even when transport isn't running?

The routing however is a bit weird in my setup… now testing Audio Damage Dubstation 2… actually a pretty sweet delay, but it is hungry. So the entire “circuit” hits the limits of my old machine now.

For a more advanced setup, you could make your own controller extension in Java (or Javascript), so you have exactly the controls you want. I have done that with my small midi keyboard, to give me all the controls I normally need while producing (transport, tap tempo, browser etc…).

I don't think that generally speaking RME products work better with old-Jack vs. Pipewire doing the Jack thing too.

The RME Digi was a discontinued model in 2006 when I bought it. I might be the only person around still using it in Europe. Haha.

The more recent RME HDSP cards (PCIe) are also old already.

The Fireface 400 (Firewire, not PCIe) seems to work well with Pipewire directl.

The modern RME interfaces with USB class compliant mode should work well with Pipewire. (TotalMix however cannot be used in most of them, except for the UFX II which is supported by Oscmix.)

Apparently, the #RME #Digiface #Dante recently got a firmware update allowing for an USB class compliant mode and operation with #Linux.

I just found this out. This is great news. Don't have the time to test the Digiface Dante with Linux at the moment… it was a bad investment anyways.

I wouldn't expect it to be #LiveProfessor or #Mainstage.

Yet, easier MIDI tempo sync would be a great thing to have in a plugin host, and perhaps some kind of preset loading by program change. Also, which is an unfortunate thing with #Linux audio altogether is that the MIDI routing between Pipewire/Jack and applications never loads reliably as previously stored.

I'd also have more than two audio outputs without using multiple clients mode.

But then again, I'm on #UbuntuStudio, so my Carla is likely terribly outdated.

@falktx @moonshinebrigade

Not surprisingly, one is by #AudioDamage, the guys also bringing us the #Descent #GranularDelay / #GranularReverb – also for #Linux.

https://www.audiodamage.com/products/ad036-dubstation-2

@moonshinebrigade

So there is midi-clock-jack-bridge, a Tool that will sync Jack transport to MIDI Clock. I got this working, and I do have a MIDI Clock pedal (which I created myself, it's an Arduino something).

I've written this down in German: https://fresszettel.drni.de/index.php/2026/03/13/rezept-audio-plugins-in-carla-unter-linux-zu-externer-midi-clock-synchronisieren/

Yet I'd like to do this differently, because the MIDI Clock pedal is part of a different effect setup on a larger pedal board.

The only tool I found is InConcert, and this is from 2008… https://www.teuton.org/~gabriel/InConcert/

I'm using Jack. Old Jack. Because the RME Digi does not work with Pipewire. (Pipewire sits on top of it, providing audio to everything not Jack, and this works pretty well).

Jack reports a latency of 5.33msec, so roundtrip would be like 10.66msec The Digi sound card is connected to a Yamaha 01v96i via ADAT, which is my studio console. The console has 1,6msec roundtrip latency at 48khz. Would be 0,8msec at 96khz… pretty decent for a console from 2011. So altogether theoretically around 12msec round trip. Which is in a range that might be disturbing for some people already, especially on bass.

The Roland GK3B MIDI system however has more than 30msec of tracking latency on the low E of the bass, so it can be used for longish, pad-style sounds only, everything else drives me nuts.

The PC is an old Xeon workstation with poor single core performance. I expect this to work better on my laptop.

The delay tap issue remains.

So, the bass goes into a Roland GI20, which provides MIDI notes and audio. Audio goes into an Eden WTDI preamp and then into any decent audio interface. MIDI goes via USB into the computer – which only works on Linux because the G20 needs special drivers and other OSses do not ship them included, and it's and old device… difficult.

I can control parameters (such as volume of the FX returns) via an AKAI LPD8 MIDI controller.

Yet, there's trouble which I often have with this kind of setup: None of the delay plugins I have has a tap control that can be operated via MIDI. Jack/Carla can be sync'ed to MIDI clock, but that doesn't help either with the buttons of the MIDI controller.

Also, my elderly studio PC is a little challenged at 256 samples buffer size (RME Digi PCI sound card… also only Linux drivers available these days).