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Thread: The Free Studio Project - part 5 Installing Ardour or Harrison Mixbus

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    Default The Free Studio Project - part 5 Installing Ardour or Harrison Mixbus

    Finally we are ready to install our D.A.W. (Digital Audio Workstation)

    This tutorial uses Ardour as example,
    The reason for this is that Ardour is a Free (as Free Speech) D.A.W. so it fits in the Free Studio concept.

    - Download Ardour
    -- You can download it from the Developers website (http://ardour.org/)
    -- unless you want to compile the software from source (source code) you'll need to pay for it (well I think there is a free option but that requires registration) there are 2 options

    option 1 : Get a subscription costs $1 , $4 or $10 / month (unless you cancel it will run for 12 months and then automatically stops)
    option 2 : "Purchase" Ardour the price for this option is a minimum of $1 (you decide what you want to pay but you really can pay just $1)
    option 3 : is compiling from source, but that's outside the scope of this tutorial

    - Install with your package manager
    -- If you absolutely seriously want to get it completely free (as free beer) you can install it through your package manager, and there are a few options aswell.

    option 1 : use the "geek" method (fastest) just open a terminal and type : sudo apt-get update && apt-get install ardour3
    the first part "apt-get update" will update the package list so APT knows what files are updated and available
    the seconf part "apt-get install ardour" is the actual installation command (so it will download and install ardour)
    and from the previous tutorials we know that "sudo" is needed to execute the command with root privileges (APT will not work for a "normal" user)

    When you give these commands you should be presented with a list of files that will be :
    - installed (new)
    - upgraded (newer version than the one on your computer)
    - removed (if there is a conflict and some files need to be removed for the new ones to be installed)
    - suggested (files that are not needed but are suggested by the package maintainer)

    option 2 : use Synaptic :
    Synaptic is a GUI for apt so it might appeal the people who don't want to use the CLI
    to start it go to the top left of the screen and type synaptic or search for it through the menu system (for older versions of Gnome)
    You should see a box to enter the password and when it's done you should have access to synaptic
    - click search
    - enter ardour
    - right-click on ardour and select install
    - Synaptic should present a list of all "dependencies that will also be installed"
    - Click mark
    - Click Apply
    - After synaptic is done and there are no error messages you should have ardour installed.

    - install the version you've downloaded from Ardour.org

    -- open a terminal window and go into the folder where you downloaded Ardour (by default /home/USERNAME/Downloads
    -- type : tar -xvf Ardour_64bit-3.5.380-dbg.tar
    -- enter the new folder cd Ardour_64bit-3.5.380-dbg
    -- start the installation sh install.sh
    -- enter your password for SUDO
    -- Follow the instructions when asked to install other apps like jack choose YES since you need this to be able to run Ardour
    -- Congratulations you now have Ardour installed on your computer

    If you decide to purchase Harrison Mixbus instead (I personally prefer it over Ardour) the installation is similar (since Mixbus is based on Ardour).

    You can also choose to install and use another D.A.W. like
    - Tracktion 5 for Linux (beta version)
    - Bitwig-Studio
    - energyXT

    but these use another installation method

    now we just need to setup Jack so we can actually use Ardour/Mixbus

    - go to the top left of your screen and type qjackctl in the search box

    you should see the following screen
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    now click on Setup
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    here you'll setup Jack to use your Interface these settings may vary based on your hardware but mine are :
    - Frames/Period : 64 (AFAIK this is the buffer so if 64 gives XMARKS (buffer underrun) you'll need to increase this but that will increase the Latency)
    - Sample/Rate : for me it's 44100 but maybe for you 48000 (on my system 48000 gives too many buffer problems so this is trial and run)
    - periods / buffer 2
    - port maximum : 128
    Timeout (msec) : 5000

    input Device : for me that's hw:CI2 (my Yamaha Steinberg CI2+ Interface)
    output Device : for me thats hw:CI2 or hw:CI2,0 (both seem to work)

    next is the options tab:
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    The only thing I chage here is the option to start a program after startup : "Execute script after Startup"
    I put /opt/Ardour-3.5.380-dbg/bin/ardour there to make Ardour automatically start after I've started Jack (again, since this is a dedicated studio system I don't see a reason to manually start Ardour when you can do it automatically during startup of your system).


    The next tab is Display and I just leave it as it is
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    and Finally the Misc tab
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    my settings are :
    - Start JACK Audio server on application startup (this will start Jack automatically when you start qjackctl)
    - Enable System Tray Icon
    - Start Minimized to system tray (this hides qjackctl after startup so it's not shown on your desktop. I advise to do this after you've found the right setup for jackd and your audio interface)
    - Single Application instance (don't allow qjackctl to be started twice)
    - Save Jack audio server configuration to : .jackdrc 'this is the default option)
    - check Enable ALSA sequencer support
    - check Enable D-Bus interface

    if you have problems starting jack with these settings try to uncheck the D-Bus and if that does't work it's possible that your Buffer size (set in the first TAB under Frames/Period is too low (for me the minimum is 64 and 16 or 32 will not work)

    Last step is to set qjackctl to autostart
    - Go to the top left of the screen and enter tweak in the search box
    - You should see an icon with "Tweak Tool" click this
    - in the new window you can setup some things (like a dark theme instead of the default white)
    - go to "Startup Applicatons"
    - Click on the + and add QjackCtl from the list and add it
    as you can see on my screenshot I start Dropbox and QjackCtl during startup

    Close the tweak tool and restart your computer
    If is done correctly you should see QjackCtl start after login (it might take some time) and after that Ardour should start.

    if Ardour doesn't start after a few minutes open a terminal window and type /opt/Ardour-3.5.380-dbg/bin/ardour3
    OR if you installed through APT just type ardour or ardour3 (I'm not sure since I've installed the version from the Ardour website).
    Last edited by Patrick; 09-29-2014 at 04:45 AM.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  2. #2

    Default

    Last edited by Patrick; 09-29-2014 at 04:53 AM.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









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