Questions[ardour](ubuntu)

I'm absolutely stuck on getting Ubuntu Studio 20.04 + Ardour 5 + EMU 0404 PCI working as it should.

I installed Ubuntu Studio on an old PC of a buddy of mine. He wants to do some recordings and it is perfect to "recycle" the old machine. This PC includes a EMU 0404 PCI.

I have already googled many sites and did many things, such as:

• Re-installed Ardour & Ubuntu Studio controls
• Re-installed jack
• Tried to install driver/firmware for EMU 0404

What is working:

• Playing recorded stuff
  • Output to stereo-out works
• Jack seems to work
• Running a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 (USB) Device worked
  • Both playback and recording
• However, the EMU 0404 (already included in the PC) could not be used

What is not working (and the reason I'm posting this question):

• I can not use the EMU0404 stereo-input to record stuff
  • No matter what connections in Ardour I make or what additional devices I add in the Ubuntu Studio controls
  • I never got it working, that the (directly into the stereo input) plugged in guitar gets routed to the input of Ardour

Due to the fact that everything is there and and works, I think that I don't understand all the dependencies in the whole system:

• Ubuntu Studio Controls
• QJackCtl
• Pulse Audio
• Ardour Channels
• Buses
• Hardware
• Settings

I have no clue what to try next, this is the reason why I'm asking for help of you guys. But I'm annoyed that I'm near the finish and only the very last thing ("Getting the input-signal working") is not working.

Below I have tried to post as much information as possible, so maybe one of you can tell me what I am doing wrong!

inxi -Fxxxrz\n\n

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-56-lowlatency x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.13 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa) 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Olidata S.p.A. product: N/A v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTek model: M2NPV-VM v: 1.xx serial: <filter> BIOS: Phoenix 
  v: ASUS M2NPV-VM Revision 5005 date: 06/02/2010 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: K8 rev.F+ rev: 3 L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 svm bogomips: 11224 
  Speed: 1000 MHz min/max: 1000/2800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1000 2: 1000 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA G84 [GeForce 8400 GS] driver: nouveau v: kernel 
  bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0404 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: NV84 v: 3.3 Mesa 20.0.8 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA MCP51 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:10.1 chip ID: 10de:026c 
  Device-2: Creative Labs CA0108/CA10300 [Sound Blaster Audigy Series] 
  driver: snd_emu10k1 v: kernel bus ID: 02:08.0 chip ID: 1102:0008 
  Device-3: Thomann SWISSONIC EasyKeys25 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio 
  bus ID: 2-3:3 chip ID: 07fc:1110 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-56-lowlatency 
Network:
  Device-1: NVIDIA MCP51 Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK type: network bridge 
  driver: forcedeth v: kernel port: f200 bus ID: 00:14.0 chip ID: 10de:0269 
  IF: enp0s20 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 698.64 GiB used: 31.88 GiB (4.6%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Hitachi model: HTS541075A9E680 size: 698.64 GiB 
  speed: 3.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: B480 scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 668.19 GiB used: 31.74 GiB (4.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
  ID-2: /boot size: 944.6 MiB used: 142.1 MiB (15.0%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sda1 
  ID-3: swap-1 size: 17.82 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 31 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 0 

I have already tried to re-install the alsa firmware:

cd ~
wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/firmware/alsa-firmware-1.0.28.tar.bz2
tar xjf alsa-firmware-1.0.28.tar.bz2
cd alsa-firmware-1.0.28
./configure --enable-buildfw
cd emu/
make
sudo make install

Here are as many screenshots as possible:

Ardour 1

Ubuntu Studio Controls

QasMixer

QJackCtl

At the moment I have completely lost the overview of what to connect or activate.

I've been trying to get a simple recording setup working with Ardour 5 on UbuntuStudio 20.04. I first faced an issue with HDMI being the default and unable to capture through the mic port. I solved that by changing the sound card to PCH and was successfully recording guitar.

Then I tried syncing Hydrogen for drums, so I set the syncing in Ardour from Int to JACK. However now everything that Ardour plays sounds like some kind of digitally scrambled noise (the time code?) and no setting in ardour changes that. I've tried disconnecting everything in JACK and reconnecting everything individually, but that does nothing either. If I set the sound back to HDMI Ardour plays the audio fine, but of course I have no capture devices. The PCH card plays audio from other applications as normal when Jack is disabled. Can anyone give me any pointers on where to look to solve this?

I'm very new to music on Linux so be gentle with me :-)

When running Ubuntu 19.04, I'm trying to install ardour, but apt is requesting to uninstall GIMP:

$ sudo apt install ardour
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gimp-data libamd2 libass9 libbabl-0.1-0 libbs2b0 libcamd2 libccolamd2 libcholmod3 libde265-0 libflite1 libgegl-common libheif1 libmetis5 libmng2 libmypaint-1.3-0 libmypaint-common libmysofa0 libnorm1
  libpgm-5.2-0 libraw19 libumfpack5 libvidstab1.1 libzmq5
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  ardour-data
Suggested packages:
  jamin
Recommended packages:
  ardour-video-timeline
The following packages will be REMOVED
  gimp gstreamer1.0-libav libavfilter7 libgegl-0.4-0 libgimp2.0 libpostproc55 libswscale5
The following NEW packages will be installed
  ardour ardour-data
0 to upgrade, 2 to newly install, 7 to remove and 1 not to upgrade.
Need to get 9,885 kB of archives.
After this operation, 20.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n

Why is apt trying to get me to uninstall GIMP (amongst other things) when trying to install ardour?

apt-cache output:

$ apt-cache policy gimp gimp-data ardour
gimp:
  Installed: 2.10.8-2
  Candidate: 2.10.8-2
  Version table:
 *** 2.10.8-2 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
gimp-data:
  Installed: 2.10.8-2
  Candidate: 2.10.8-2
  Version table:
 *** 2.10.8-2 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
ardour:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:5.12.0-3
  Version table:
     1:5.12.0-3 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/universe amd64 Packages

Repository list:

$ grep -r ^deb /etc/apt/ --include="*.list"
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco main restricted
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco-updates main restricted
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco universe
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco multiverse
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list:deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list:deb [arch=amd64] http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main

I have Ubuntu Studio with its version 5 of Ardour[Ardour 5.12.0 "Working Backwards" (rev 1:5.12.0-3)], but none of the plugins shows it. I read in a forum to find a checkbox in GUI configuration, but there isn't any GUI in the configuration. Is there any limitation in Ardour 5 that comes installed on Ubuntu Studio?

I don't remember what forum I found the checkbox mentioned, but it is also mentioned in this Ardour's manual link: http://manual.ardour.org/working-with-plugins/working-with-ardour-built-plugin-editors/ (Right in the first phrases in "generic plugin editor" instructions)

Can someone familiar with Ardour 2.8 please make a video / youtube guide showing precisely how to use SC3 Side Chain Compression? I've read every guide online currently and side chain is simply not working, very frustrating. http://ardour.org/node/1013 seems to be the main one people go by, however when I have the sends coming into the bus there is simply no effect from SC3. Thank you for your time.

Here is another relevant thread: http://ardour.org/node/3882