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I was going through IR software like LSP-plugin and it just confused the heck out of me, to be honest. I am not computer illiterate, I am a programmer. But, I really don't want to have to deal with computer shit while also trying to make music. So, I eventually got a pair of Two Notes CABs that are essentially IR boxes that are programmable via USB with mac/pc/android/iphone. Using them with a Suhr and a Two Notes Captor reactive boxes, the amps (Traynor Rerverb Master and YBA3) sound great going strait in the computer and on headphones from the devices. I thought this was a pretty nice way to get around a basic Linux issue, albeit adds some cost.

I eventually went with Bitwig for the same reasons: there's a lot of built in stuff that I don't need to fiddle with, as opposed to Reaper, which is a lot clunkier, though it has its pros as well. I will probably try using Reaper anyway, they do have the ReaVerb IR plugin that seems pretty nice. I am not super picky on cab sounds, and I honestly get overwhelmed with a million options, so I feel really comfortable with the Two Notes CABs right now.

Amazingly, I ended up finding a Sys76 Thelio on eBay for real cheap: 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 @ 3.35ghz each, with 32gb of DDR4 RAM. This thing is built for music production, and even has an EVO NVMe high speed SSD in it with 3 expandable slots. The thing is a beast and I paid like next to nothing for it because of the niche brand (I already own Sys76 laptops and love them and love using Pop and know the value of them). So, even if I needed IR processing in the computer, it's got the horse power to do it, but it is nice to have that offloaded to another piece of hardware right now.

I picked up that Behringer UMC404, and while it's a nice, inexpensive audio interface, I think I'm going to need to get something with 8 inputs, since I'm planning on replacing my accoustic drum set with a vdrum kit to keep the volume low to no in my home studio. I was thinking of getting the 1802, but I've been looking at mixers and the Tascam Model 12 looks really interesting for a digital mixer, or even the Mackie Onyx 8 or 12, which are around the same price. These should work with any USB compliant input, regardless of OS.

Also, I watched some videos on JACK and now that I understand what it does, I'm 1) unsure if I should even use it sometimes over Pulse, and 2) excited to know that I can use it to patch up software outside of a DAW (or with one). My other idea here is to be able to have band practice through either a DAW or the Mixer, into headphone monitors. I think having a mixer over a basic audio interface is going to be more useful here. The Tascam Models offer on board compression and EQ, and the 12 despite the name is really an 8-track board at heart. I really don't think I'll need more than 6 channels for practice (bass, guitar, 2 vocals, stereo drums).

Out of curiosity, I emailed Cranborne-Audio about their 500R8 and Linux, and they said Ubuntu Studio and PopOS have both been tested and work great with it. So if I ever decide to jump the Mac/UA ship, that looks snazzy.

blnkbnkr wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:51 pm Out of curiosity, I emailed Cranborne-Audio about their 500R8 and Linux, and they said Ubuntu Studio and PopOS have both been tested and work great with it. So if I ever decide to jump the Mac/UA ship, that looks snazzy.

Thanks for the info! It's a bit out of my price range. I think as long as the equipment is component compliant, it should work. I've been digging into mixer/interfaces, and there seems to be quite a few good choices. Gonna make a separate post on a few that I have general questions on.

I got the Tascam Model 12 set up. It was way better in Linux than in Windows. I tried both out of curiosity, but I eventually killed the Windows partition and bootloader (fuck it, I hated the experience from the get go). Initially I had issues with the Model 12 and JACK in Linux, but it ended up being something with a Pulseaudio Bluetooth module I had installed for temporary use.

Anyway, the Model 12 shows up in JACK with all 10 inputs, no issues. The Thelio desktop is rad, got latency down to 2.6ms. I can't tell the difference between the live board and routing through Bitwig. I guess we'll see when there's more than 1 or 2 tracks being recorded at the same time. But I'm feeling really good about the direction this is going!

I recently got a set of vdrums, and the module can be used as an audio interface for the purpose of multitracking (28 tracks total). Only drivers available were for Windows or Mac.

I tried installing on a Mac for the hell of it, but the audio interface never shows up with the drivers installed. Some issue with Big Sur. Also, in order to use the interface in Mac or Windows, you have to change the audio interface system-wide, negating the interface you will need for output and other captures that aren't the vdrum module.

So, why am I posting about this here?

In Linux, the solution is simple and elegant, but not obvious unless you know ALSA. You can add multiple interface ins and outs via command line, which will be picked up by Jack. Then, you just do a simple route in the map to connect ins to the DAW. This setup requires no special driver, just class compliant USB connection.

So, now I have a whole interface worth of ins for multitracking drums, which includes the modules overhead and room outs. Pretty sick!