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Pipewire status?

Hi,

Does/will Qtractor support pipewire?

For what I understood, Qtractor needs ALSA and JACK, but not Pulse, right? I'm having too many issues with Pulse, so I'm thinking in replace it with pipewire.

Cheers,
Castle

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rncbc's picture

as long as you do setup it properly re. pipewire JACK API substitution, qtractor could not care less...

however there are things that PW doesn't support yet or at all: one showstopper is the JACK freewheeling mode and that will preclude all and any audio track export under qtractor premises; normal real-time play-back and recording should work fine though.

cheers

Thanks.

I can keep JACK, and just remove Pulse. right? Does Qtractor need pulse for anything?

rncbc's picture

nothing. nada.

Thank you!

I'm a bit confused now as to where JACK plays a role with PW and Qtractor.

POP!_OS 22.04 defaults to PW and seems to ignore the settings in Qjackctl. For example, Qtractor defaulted to my laptop's internal microphone, even though my UR22 was defined in Qjackctl; I had to "rewire" within Qtractor to disconnect the laptop mic and connect my UR22's input, which I've never had to do before (even on the Raspberry Pi). But if Qjackctl settings are being ignored, I don't know how to define my recording sampling rate, frames, periods, etc.

Is Qjackctl even used anymore when PW is the system default? Or, what's the relationship between PW, JACK, and Qtractor now?

Thanks!

rncbc's picture

when under PipeWire (PW), QjackCtl functions as a JACK client only--state is "Active" instead of "Started" in the main display--therefore you may well use the Graph, the Connections and the Patchbay without compromise; however, when in pure JACK client mode, all the Setup/Settings have no use nor meaning whatsoever: they serve only for you to start the JACK (jackd(bus)) server or service under QjackCtl premises, which is a huge mistake when PW is in charge and you don't control any aspect of the PW sub-systems with QjackCtl, ever.

Qtractor is, has been and always will be a pure JACK client, so it will work either under genuine JACK server (jackd(bus) or under the PW's JACK substitution sub-system. JACK is still the recommended way for all things pro-audio low-latency infrastructure, while PW is slowly catching-up but there are plenty of issues with the said substitution, still short from perfect, although complete at the API level, at run-time it still has some rough edges...

but if you're only targeting consumer workflows and desktop audio, you're perfectly fine now with PW. You won't miss PulseAudio the least :)

cheers

Thanks! All seems to be performing fine under PW; it's just the settings that seemed confusing. I'm not missing PulseAudio at all (not yet, at least.) Is there a setting within Qtractor to force use of the JACK server, or is that a more complex task?

rncbc's picture

there's none.

Qtractor uses the JACK API: it cannot tell the difference whether it's talking to a "real-McCoy" (JACK) or a "fake" one (PW)

byee

Okay. Thanks! :)

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