Just an idea; Some of us like using jack, and after learning how to use pulseaudio-module-jack with jackd via qjackctl I find every time I boot up, I need to re-assign things to work with Jack. It’s tedious and I would rather get rid of Pulseaudio but it also takes ubuntu-mate-core with it.
For somebody who doesn’t need all the tools that Ubuntu Studio has to give, but want to fool around with some streaming things and dink around with Jack-aware programs, it’s difficult for the end-user to get down with it. Now sure, some of the more cheekier among you might say But that’s what’s Ubuntu Studio is for! But I want to use Ubuntu MATE because it’s a nice and easy desktop for me to use, and while Jack adds a litle more complexity into it, I don’t think I would see myself using Pulseaudio in the future if I were to master how Jack works, and have all of my applications be Jack-aware.
Also, I have no use for Pulseaudio’s sound server features yet. I might reconsider it if I can find some fun uses for Pulseaudio’s sound server stuff but I simply see no need for it. Shame I can’t get rid of it without removing a core package… unless this has already been resolved for 16.10 and I needn’t worry about it in the future?
I absolutely agree. Pulse is at a place where it works OK for most desktop users, but it should be easier to get rid of for those of us doing audio work.
In the meantime, try using Cadence from the KX Studio repos. It seamlessly sets up a bridge from ALSA to JACK at boot. Cadence also has PA bridge that doesn’t seem to work, but you don’t need it–with the ALSA bridge all sound seems to get routed through JACK.
Ubuntu MATE + KX Studio is heaven if you looking for a music-making distro.
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You seem knowledgeable about the topic. A little bit off-topic, but do you know of an equalizer for a Jack newbie that’s reasonably easy to use?
Yeah, I know I said earlier I like using Jack but I haven’t found an EQ that’s easy enough to get working when I choose to completely abandon Jack Pulseaudio (Previously I screwed this up sorry). I presently use for PA pulseaudio-equalizer but I found no equal of purpose and simplicity for Jack.
I also know Jack is for professional work, but I’m using it to faff around with audio from other applications and to improve my personal listening experience, if at all possible.
Hmmm. They probably exist, but since I’m using it to record audio, I really wouldn’t want that. The only EQ I use is for processing while mixing. I would want the rest of my system to NOT have any weird EQ stuff going on.
If you are just wanting to use EQ as an effect for playback, choose a player that has it built in. Maybe someone else has a suggestion for which ones provide that. Clementine maybe?
Here is where I am coming from. You might understand my motivation if I explain the problems I’m having with PA and why I want to switch entirely to Jack;
Jack lets me connect and disconnect things so long they are Jack-aware. So because any PA EQ solution I’ve encountered sucks massive elephant dong, I was thinking a Jack-aware EQ would allow me to fine-tune the audio output how I want it without needing to have a chunky EQ to physically pipe my audio through.
That, and if I knew what I was doing, share audio with friends from other sources without needing to link them content, so I could say, have a social music website play music in my browser, but I pipe the browser audio directly to capture, and have an EQ for playback, for my own personal use.
I know, a rather petty and silly use of Jack from some professional perspectives, but as a consumer who simply wants to pipe audio to my friends it’s a godsend. That and the option of an EQ that is Jack-aware which might not suck bullocks was an enticing incentive for me to switch over to Jack. If I can find such a thing and configure it correctly, I’d be in for some serious audio enjoyment, and maybe some silly manipulation when I get bored.
There are plenty of options to have JACK and Pulseaudio play nice together
from your comments about switching to and from JACK, there is a simple couple of commands that can be used when starting jack
pacmd set-default-sink jack_out pacmd set-default-source jack_in
If you have two sound devices, use the Pulse configuration options to use one device with pulse and keep another for JACK. Althought most DEs have a panel control, they don’t shows some Pulse options, get pavucontrol mixer to access everything
If you only have one sound card, can disable it in pulse completely so it will only use jack sink and jack source. Won’t be any switching problems, but you will have to have JACK running all the time if you want to hear sound
I have been contributing to a tutorial about using JACK with Pulseaudio on the Manjaro forum. This covers using either QJackCtl or Cadence and most of it will transfer to other distributions easily
how-to-replace-pulseaudio-with-jack-jack-and-pulseaudio-together-as-friend
Your suggested use case of having EQ and routing sound to voip callers is best done using JACK. For EQ and other DSP, jack-rack is a good basic host for audio effects. add in jack_mixer to have level controls and mute buttons. There are plenty of other options, but many have fancy level displays and meters that will add to cpu load
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