Playback silent in Ardour. What do I do?

  • saghaulor
Posted: Mon, 08/13/2007 - 00:13
Hello all! Tonight I sat down and started my first multitrack recording session with Ardour. After getting my mic levels adjusted I began recording. I played back a few takes to listen to the quality. Everything is fine. Then I recorded some more. At some point I lost playback. When I audition a region, I can hear the file, but trying to do playback from the main screen returns no sound. I figured it was a routing problem. I disconnected ardour, and reconnected it. Nothing. Then I tried to manually connect all the busses, trying various combinations. Nothing. I thought maybe it was a problem with jack, so I stopped jack, turned it to playback, and restarted jack. Reconnect ardour, and Nothing. I don't know how to get my playback working again. I should at that at a few points, I was trying to get limiters working on my pre inputs, but I deleted them. Then I also tried using a limiter from jackrack, but couldn't figure it out, so I shut it down. As far as I can tell, all the connects in jack are the same as when I previously had playback. And as far as I can tell, when I tell ardour to autoconnect, it connects up properly. Does anyone have any ideas?
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It's my pleasure

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Thu, 08/16/2007 - 05:58
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In my "real" job I am a customer support engineer in a global medical imaging company. My daily task is to calmly show customers that their machine is not really broken, and that they just need to use it right. I only need to break open the toolkit for 40% of the breakdown calls I get sent on. This is why I wanted to see your screen, because sometimes you get so wound up in everything you checked already that you forget to check the basics again, as you said. This is why we have the forum. To help each other and to further the goal of a widely supported professional linux alternative to a heavily overpriced and overweight proprietary audio software market. Cheers,

Silent

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Wed, 08/15/2007 - 08:17
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If I look at the first image, you see no connections from the output of the audio tracks to anything else. This is fixed in the second image though. In the Ardourmixer image you sent I also see that the faders is drawn shut in your two source channels. It should look like the master channel to let anything through... Click with your mouse in the gray area to set the level to something mare than -120.4 dB Hope it's it!

Lesson learned: Start simple

  • saghaulor
  • 08/06/07
  • Thu, 08/16/2007 - 00:32
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Quentin thank you for reminding me of a very valuable lesson I apparently forgot. In the IT industry, it's wise to start simple, then work your way up the mountain of catastrophes. I remember one time I thought my mother board had fried out because the computer wouldn't turn on. Turns out the power cord was unplugged. Anyways, your very keen eye noticed my levels were too low. I didn't realize this because I'm not quite used to Ardour yet, so I thought the looked maxed out, but as we are both very well aware, it was quite the opposite. Thanks for the help.

Pics

  • saghaulor
  • 08/06/07
  • Tue, 08/14/2007 - 23:08
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Alright, here we go. So I got the clever idea to start a new project, similar to the one I lost my audio in. I took note of the connections, and then reopened my silent project. Then I connected it up to match the previous project. Still no sound. Then I tried to open an old project that I had a recording in. No sound there either, except for the auditioning of regions. Well, anyways, here are the pics. Here is my settings in Jack. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/jacksetup.png Here is my connections prior to experimenting. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/jackconnect.png Here is my connections after I cloned the settings of the new project. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/jackconnect2.png Here is the audio mixer in Ardour (pre cloning I think). http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/ardourmixer.png The following image were taken post cloning. Master Ins. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/masterin.png Master Outs. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/masterout.png Audio1 Ins. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/audio1in.png Audio1 Outs. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/audio1out.png Audio2 Ins. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/audio2in.png Audio2 Outs. http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i203/kingconfessor/audio2out.png

Indeed!

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 20:35
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When you press the print screen button, a "Save Screenshot" window opens... The rest is easy! I need to see your mixer window while you are trying to play back music Another one would be the expanded view of the jack control connect interface. Happy Shooting!

Thanks a lot

  • saghaulor
  • 08/06/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 20:41
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Thanks so much for the help Quentin. I'll have the pics up sometime tomorrow.

Screen Shots?

  • saghaulor
  • 08/06/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 20:00
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Is there a way I can take screen shots in 64Studio? I will do so, add them to my photobucket, and link them here. You tell me what to screen shot and I'll get to it.

Connections

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 15:46
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The easiest way to check your connections is to open your ardour project, and look at the "Connect" window of the "jack control" application. You will see your track listed on both sides, outputs left and inputs rights. You should see a line going from each of your source tracks either to the master track on the right, or to physical outputs, or both, if you set it up that way. The master track output should be connected to physical output's inputs. DO NOT EDIT YOUR CONNECTIONS HERE!!! Did I say it loudly enough? Go to the ardour mixer window, and edit the relevant inputs or outputs on the tracks. It's a pity I cannot see your app... Cheers,

Help with signal routing

  • saghaulor
  • 08/06/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 13:34
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I figured something like that was going on. Perhaps you can give me the basic signaling chains? I'm a bit confused by the read and write columns in jack. Write is the live input, and read is what is on the disk? Also, there are so many different connects in ardour, I'm not sure where to send/receive them. Can someone please give me a quick run down of proper signal paths using ardour?

Ardour Mixer window

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Mon, 08/13/2007 - 05:43
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Hi, When you tried all these different options you must have broken your signal path in the Mixer window. The fact that you can audition successfully proves my point. Follow your signals outputs and make sure they go to the right places... Open another project to test the path Hope it helps,