Me and my Bass Guitar???

[southpaw76]

Hello fellow Bass Players,
I'm hoping that there are some supporters of open source software and using Linux as an alternative for a DAW. Anyway I'm trying to do some digital recording with my bass guitar and my computer. I've spent most of the weekend setting up audio software on my pc. So heres what I'm using...

I have a Dell Dimension 4300 which has a P4 running at 2ghz with an 80gb HDD and 1gb of DDR 333 RAM. For sound I'm using SB Audigy2 Platinum LS with the onboard breakout box. I'm Slackware 12 and my HDD is partitioned as such:

/dev/hda  WinXP

/dev/hdb1 /
/dev/hdb2 /swap
/dev/hdb3 /home

As for audio software, this is what I have installed thus far:
Ardour
Jack
Alsa
Hydrogen
Freewheeling
...as well as all assorted libraries and dependencies....

My problem is that when I plug my bass in I don't get any signal on screen nor through my speakers. However, I have no problem hearing the drum track from Hydrogen so I'm guessing that it may be a hardware issue. Does anybody know if the breakout box for this particular soundcard is supported? I've checked the Alsa site and Google but no luck. I've tried finding a decent How-To but no luck either. I know that there are several Multi-media distro's available out there but I kind of like my Slack set up, adding only what I need.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanx....

[southpaw76]

Is there any fellow TB members who open source software for digital recording??? ???

[Tenma4]

I do, but mine is on WinXP. I play around with Linux, but I've never done multitrack recording on it.

[Infernal Affair]

Are you making sure that you've set up the input in whatever tracking/recording software you're using? You should probably refer to the Ardour documentation. Call it basic, but that's my first assumption as to why you're not getting sound out of that box.

[lemur821]

I don't know what DE you're using, but have you opened up your mixer to check your recording source? Once you've set that, try using jackrec to grab a short clip without worrying about your Ardour setup.

[Jim Roseberry]

Open Source is nice in that it's free...
But when you look at all the different Linux Distros and factor in the beta status of most of the DAW apps... it's going to be a hair-pulling/rocky ride.

If you're serious about using the PC for recording, I'd highly recommend installing WinXP... and picking up a copy of Reaper ($40 for the non-commercial license).
You'll spend FAR less time futzing/configuring/tweaking...


Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
jim@studiocat.com