[PD] [OT] New machine - sound hardware?

[Ed Kelly]

Hi all,

Been off the list - overworked and ill...

So, after my laptop was stolen, I bought a new one. But really a new one, so now I have some serious problems...

Technically this does what I need in every way but sound hardware. Two instances of PD use seperate processors of the CPU, so sound and PDP can run in two PDs ;~) Well, The audio latency is 280ms and I still get dropouts. Damn you Dell ;-{

BUT - there is no PCMCIA cardbus slot. Only a new expresscard slot, which might become useful given a year or two. Of course I am hoping that there is a solution to my audio hardware problems, so I ask a few questions now.

1. Has anyone a working firewire (ieee1394) interface with their laptop that runs with low latency (<16ms, MIDI in to audio out) under Linux with PD? What is it and what driver (ffado? freeBoB?)

2. What MIDI interface under Ubuntu? I have tried and tried again to get a Midisport 2x2 working with both the source code (both versions - 0.5 and 1.2) and the Ubuntu packages - no luck!

3. USB audio interface? I know this is a long shot...ALSA has never worked with PD on any computer I have owned.

There is also the expresscard interface - for which their are only two soundcards AFAIK - Creative X-Fi (support has been dropped, and no source code available) and Universal Audio X-Pander (I can't afford it, and there's no Linux support as yet).

So, are there any really good reports of successful hardware/linux combinations? I really think we and the rest of the Linux community need to crack this. I'm not a good enough software developer to write drivers and I don't have much time right now*, but the best hardware is firewire these days, and RME don't make a PCMCIA expresscard interface.

Searching the archives lead me to few emails, one success with freeBoB and an Edirol interface was the only optimism I found. PD under Linux has become pretty much useless with this new computer - dropouts everywhere. (PS, Window$ Vista is the operating system that stops you operating, and is bad with every audio program I have found).

But as the old computers die, we'll be left with these machines with their altered hardware configuration. It's getting harder and harder to run PD on new hardware.

Best,
Ed
 
Lone Shark "Aviation" out now on http://www.pyramidtransmissions.com
http://www.myspace.com/sharktracks




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