WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.000 Well, I'm kicking it off today, here at the music production 00:08.000 --> 00:15.000 Deafroom. My name is Jeremy. First of all, I want to thank 00:15.000 --> 00:20.000 Luencio, Minero, and Stephen Goodwin for hosting this music production 00:20.000 --> 00:29.000 Deafroom. And let me move on. Like I said before, my name is Jeremy. 00:29.000 --> 00:36.000 I'm also known as Autostatic on the Interwebs, that's my nickname. 00:36.000 --> 00:42.000 I'm a Linux specialist engineer by trade, so that's my work. 00:42.000 --> 00:50.000 I work for Surf, which is the Dutch National Research and Education Network. 00:50.000 --> 00:56.000 And there I am, I'm a Linux specialist, so I'm maintaining the internal Linux systems. 00:57.000 --> 01:03.000 What I didn't add here is that I'm also a musician, I make music, I play guitar, I do vocals. 01:03.000 --> 01:07.000 And I play in several bands, punk rock bands, indie rock bands. 01:07.000 --> 01:14.000 And I've been making music since I was 14, I'm 52 now, so that's almost 40 years. 01:14.000 --> 01:20.000 And when it comes to Linux, I've been using it since, like, the end of the 90s. 01:20.000 --> 01:28.000 And I got involved in doing audio with Linux around 2007. 01:28.000 --> 01:35.000 And I really got hooked up during the first Linux audio conference that I visited in 2010 in Utrecht. 01:35.000 --> 01:42.000 And then that really got me going regarding Linux audio and doing music production on Linux. 01:42.000 --> 01:47.000 But back to the, back to the matter at hand. 01:47.000 --> 01:55.000 When you want to, when you want to start doing music production on your Linux machine, 01:55.000 --> 01:59.000 you have to start somewhere, of course. 01:59.000 --> 02:04.000 First of all, you start with your hardware, so your computer and audio interface. 02:04.000 --> 02:09.000 Also cables, yeah, I can demo it later on. 02:09.000 --> 02:14.000 Maybe, or you can ask me afterwards, if you have any questions or I can show stuff. 02:14.000 --> 02:21.000 I recently bought a USB cable from a renowned Dutch company. 02:21.000 --> 02:26.000 All my cables are from the same brands, also the microphone cable, speaker cables. 02:26.000 --> 02:30.000 USB cables also, I bought a new cable, plugged it in. 02:30.000 --> 02:35.000 And I wiggle it a bit, and my interface was just failing. 02:35.000 --> 02:38.000 So those kind of things happen. 02:38.000 --> 02:43.000 So cables are really important. 02:43.000 --> 02:48.000 Then you have your equipment, your computer and such. 02:48.000 --> 02:52.000 And you move on, of course, you have to install a distribution on it. 02:52.000 --> 02:55.000 Kind of speaks for itself. 02:55.000 --> 03:00.000 Then you move on with installing yourself where you want to use. 03:00.000 --> 03:02.000 You can choose for a modular setup. 03:02.000 --> 03:08.000 So you have different pieces of software talking with each other using Jack or 5 wire. 03:08.000 --> 03:11.000 Or you can use a monolithic approach. 03:11.000 --> 03:21.000 So use Reaper, Bitwig, other studio fender or anything else that runs on Linux. 03:21.000 --> 03:28.000 And when you're using this monolithic approach, you can add your plugins in there. 03:28.000 --> 03:30.000 You can also be done with a modular setup. 03:30.000 --> 03:35.000 If you use something like a walking host like Carla or use your doll as a walking host. 03:35.000 --> 03:40.000 And then connect all your other stuff to it. 03:40.000 --> 03:47.000 Next up is like you have to choose an audio framework. 03:47.000 --> 03:55.000 That you want to use, because like when you use a monolithic approach, you have bit more choice. 03:55.000 --> 03:59.000 Because with a modular approach, you cannot use the driver directly, the driver's deck. 03:59.000 --> 04:01.000 Like the also driver's deck. 04:01.000 --> 04:04.000 So you have to then resort to or resort to. 04:04.000 --> 04:07.000 You can use pipe wire or jack for that in the modular setup. 04:07.000 --> 04:12.000 You can also use jack or pipe wire with the with order or with Reaper. 04:12.000 --> 04:21.000 But most of the time it's like it's when you're using a monolithic setup, 04:21.000 --> 04:25.000 it's easier to use just the driver's deck. 04:25.000 --> 04:30.000 So just click else on and everything should work magically. 04:30.000 --> 04:34.000 Well, not always, but we'll see later. 04:34.000 --> 04:43.000 Next up is if you want to go a little bit further and use a different kernel. 04:43.000 --> 04:47.000 You can use a standard kernel in generic kernel. 04:47.000 --> 04:50.000 It's these days more than kernel like that. 04:50.000 --> 04:52.000 Six, six. 04:52.000 --> 04:53.000 I'm sorry. 04:53.000 --> 04:58.000 The six version is it's pretty good for doing low lights the audio. 04:58.000 --> 05:00.000 So that's already quite okay. 05:00.000 --> 05:03.000 You can also use a specialized kernel. 05:03.000 --> 05:06.000 Like a real time kernel, not really necessary anymore. 05:06.000 --> 05:10.000 These days or something like specialized kernel like the Liquorix. 05:10.000 --> 05:15.000 They offer specialized kernel more or less for gaming and media stuff. 05:15.000 --> 05:21.000 Also does well for audio and music production. 05:21.000 --> 05:27.000 Then of course you have to set your buffers, which is sounds a bit esoteric. 05:27.000 --> 05:36.000 But the buffers is like the some kind of cash between your audio software and your audio interface. 05:36.000 --> 05:44.000 Your operating system has to buffer something before it can receive or send the audio. 05:44.000 --> 05:53.000 And of course you can set your buffers as low as you as low as possible. 05:53.000 --> 06:01.000 But then you have other issues like when you load your plugin or you have a lot of tracks. 06:01.000 --> 06:05.000 Then you can see the load of your system going up. 06:05.000 --> 06:12.000 And you have to find a nice balance, especially when doing mixing for example. 06:12.000 --> 06:16.000 Of the buffer size and the load on your machine. 06:16.000 --> 06:21.000 So for example when you're doing live stuff, you want your buffer size to be as low as possible. 06:21.000 --> 06:27.000 Because when you press a key on the media keyboard, you want it to be output immediately as fast as possible. 06:27.000 --> 06:33.000 But that comes with a drawback that these B load can get high quickly. 06:33.000 --> 06:37.000 If you're on a less performing machine. 06:37.000 --> 06:49.000 But with modern machines you can go quite low and do quite a lot of stuff at the same time at low buffer sizes. 06:49.000 --> 06:54.000 Most people are using USB devices these days. 06:54.000 --> 07:00.000 And on Linux you can configure your buffer size to accommodate for that. 07:00.000 --> 07:15.000 Because the USB protocol uses a kind of also a queue mechanism that takes about 1 millisecond to get the packages from your system to the USB device. 07:15.000 --> 07:29.000 So if you can match your buffer size with that 1 millisecond rule, then you run into less issues with those x runs or glitches or kind of stuff. 07:29.000 --> 07:39.000 But what you also want to know is when starting with machine production is what the round trip latency of your system is. 07:39.000 --> 07:50.000 That means that if you connect that name put an output and use a specialized software or order can do it also. 07:50.000 --> 07:56.000 You can measure the round trip latency how much it takes signal from the output to the inputs. 07:56.000 --> 08:09.000 You can measure that and of course you want an audio device that has the lowest possible around your latency especially when you're doing live stuff of course. 08:09.000 --> 08:12.000 You can compensate for it. 08:12.000 --> 08:19.000 But that's more than you go already into detail for what a dog can do. 08:19.000 --> 08:27.000 I just was shown on a device that runs on Linux that is a base based guitar effects unit. 08:27.000 --> 08:32.000 It has a round trip latency of 1.3 milliseconds which is amazing. 08:32.000 --> 08:38.000 It runs with a buffer of 16 which is one of the lowest buffers you can get. 08:38.000 --> 08:40.000 So that's amazing stuff. 08:40.000 --> 08:47.000 So that is possible but that's really for a live setup. 08:47.000 --> 08:51.000 Then that's really nice to have. 08:51.000 --> 08:54.000 Of course the last thing you need is time. 08:54.000 --> 09:01.000 You have to commit yourself be patient with what's trying to achieve. 09:01.000 --> 09:04.000 And sometimes stuff can go wrong. 09:04.000 --> 09:07.000 You have to get ready for that. 09:07.000 --> 09:13.000 You could lose a session or you could have huge glitches or audio problems. 09:13.000 --> 09:19.000 But there's a lot of help out there so you can always ask. 09:19.000 --> 09:34.000 And you have to find a time to accept that sometimes things do not go the way you want them to. 09:34.000 --> 09:42.000 Next up is how you can improve the performance once you have setup your machine. 09:42.000 --> 09:48.000 Because there are a few steps you can take to get the most out of your machine. 09:48.000 --> 09:53.000 First thing you can do is check the CPU skating governor. 09:53.000 --> 09:58.000 Most of the times it's said to like power save or on demand. 09:58.000 --> 10:03.000 Which means that the CPU is scaling its frequencies. 10:03.000 --> 10:09.000 When the computer is doing nothing it runs at low frequency when the computer has to do a lot. 10:09.000 --> 10:11.000 It runs at high frequency. 10:11.000 --> 10:17.000 What you want to do with when doing audio is to have a constant frequency scale. 10:17.000 --> 10:19.000 And preferably the fastest one. 10:19.000 --> 10:23.000 The highest one so that is in most cases performance. 10:23.000 --> 10:31.000 So you can tell your system to use that governor. 10:31.000 --> 10:34.000 And make sure it runs at governor all the time. 10:34.000 --> 10:37.000 So that the CPU doesn't scale when you're doing audio. 10:37.000 --> 10:42.000 Because when it scales it can happen that an external occurs. 10:42.000 --> 10:46.000 An external is a buffer underrun in the driver stack. 10:46.000 --> 10:48.000 And you don't want that. 10:48.000 --> 10:52.000 So make sure it runs the highest available governor. 10:52.000 --> 10:56.000 Next thing is the simultaneous multi-freading. 10:56.000 --> 10:58.000 Also known as high-preferting. 10:58.000 --> 11:03.000 That means basically means that a chorus means will be split into two. 11:03.000 --> 11:10.000 And different threats are running on the same core simultaneously. 11:10.000 --> 11:14.000 Some audio programs are not very fond of that artist. 11:14.000 --> 11:25.000 So it is best to or you could choose for disabling it. 11:25.000 --> 11:31.000 And then have only your real physical course running. 11:31.000 --> 11:35.000 And have your audio software running on those physical course. 11:35.000 --> 11:38.000 And in some cases like with other. 11:38.000 --> 11:42.000 And probably also with other dollars software. 11:42.000 --> 11:52.000 It can be an option to get less excellence and less buffer underruns. 11:52.000 --> 11:55.000 Another thing is the CPU DMA latency. 11:55.000 --> 12:01.000 Processor wants to go into power saving mode when it doesn't do anything. 12:01.000 --> 12:06.000 And if you set the DMA latency to zero then that doesn't happen. 12:06.000 --> 12:10.000 And you can set it in order for example. 12:10.000 --> 12:16.000 This also makes sure that the CPU doesn't do anything you don't want. 12:16.000 --> 12:23.000 When you're doing audio it just stays at the same power saving mode. 12:23.000 --> 12:28.000 It stays on or active to stay all the time. 12:28.000 --> 12:33.000 This can also help very much in reducing the electrons. 12:34.000 --> 12:38.000 Of course you want a user to set real time priorities. 12:38.000 --> 12:45.000 You can prioritize processes and threats on only the system. 12:45.000 --> 12:51.000 And if you're doing audio the real time priorities is what you want to work with. 12:51.000 --> 12:53.000 That's also an order for example. 12:53.000 --> 12:57.000 It has audio threats and it sets a real time priority for it. 12:57.000 --> 13:12.000 In order to do that you have to give your user the right permissions to set those priorities. 13:12.000 --> 13:23.000 And you could run a specialized kernel or use kernel options to improve the kernel you're already running. 13:23.000 --> 13:35.000 I don't think there are any kernel that like the generic kernels for like Debian or Ubuntu or Arch there are already running in preempt dynamic if I'm correct correct. 13:35.000 --> 13:42.000 So you can set the preemption level but by default it's already full I think so in most cases. 13:42.000 --> 13:47.000 So that means that you have a kernel that is already. 13:47.000 --> 13:55.000 Well it's already very capable doing real time audio stuff. 13:55.000 --> 14:02.000 Yeah that's that's those are the most important things to improve the problems of your Linux system. 14:02.000 --> 14:05.000 There are also some. 14:05.000 --> 14:12.000 There are also some myths and lore going around or of what you can do more to improve the. 14:12.000 --> 14:15.000 The performance of your system. 14:15.000 --> 14:19.000 And that is to change the frequency of the clock source as well. 14:19.000 --> 14:23.000 There are there were someone who said on the internet. 14:23.000 --> 14:30.000 Even recently that software like Rose Garden which is you know sequencer uses the HPEAT clock source. 14:30.000 --> 14:38.000 I grab the source it doesn't do it anymore because it relies on something else now. 14:39.000 --> 14:42.000 Same goes for the kernel time of frequency. 14:42.000 --> 14:53.000 People change it to a thousand hertz because they think that they have less jitter or less or that it sounds better or that they're computers more responsive but. 14:53.000 --> 14:56.000 Most if not all. 14:56.000 --> 14:58.000 Audio software when you. 14:58.000 --> 15:04.000 Start it up and you check the timers if you're system you see a new timer getting added which is the. 15:05.000 --> 15:08.000 Also a high resolution timer. 15:08.000 --> 15:14.000 Which has a resolution of one megahertz so that's lot more than a thousand hertz you can configure with the config. 15:14.000 --> 15:27.000 HZ setting of your kernel so just use that and don't bother with the kernel timer settings. 15:27.000 --> 15:30.000 You can also use threat to the IQs. 15:30.000 --> 15:35.000 That means that every system as I accuse of course to. 15:35.000 --> 15:38.000 Communicate with the peripherals. 15:38.000 --> 15:42.000 You can prioritize those so that they don't get prevented. 15:42.000 --> 15:46.000 But people then add threat your cues to their kernel options. 15:46.000 --> 15:49.000 But then the next thing you do is like they do nothing with it. 15:49.000 --> 15:53.000 They think that already the option alone does magic but it doesn't. 15:53.000 --> 15:59.000 You have to configure it later on. 15:59.000 --> 16:07.000 Well using the real time kernel it's not really necessary anymore because since like September two to two thousand twenty four. 16:07.000 --> 16:14.000 With the six point twelve I think the whole real time pet shed was like merged with the main kernel. 16:14.000 --> 16:15.000 Yep. 16:16.000 --> 16:23.000 And so it's not really necessary to run a real time kernel anymore because you have. 16:23.000 --> 16:28.000 Like I said it's most going to also running in pre and dynamic mode so you can. 16:28.000 --> 16:32.000 Add a kernel option if you really need to. 16:32.000 --> 16:37.000 Re-nice processes it's another thing that people tend to do. 16:37.000 --> 16:40.000 It doesn't really work because this. 16:40.000 --> 16:43.000 The scheduler's thingy for nice is. 16:43.000 --> 16:47.000 Get other while we're in the audio realm. 16:47.000 --> 16:49.000 You work with real time priorities. 16:49.000 --> 16:52.000 Let's get fefo or get our our realm moving. 16:52.000 --> 16:54.000 And. 16:54.000 --> 16:58.000 Well any any process that has been nice will be prevented by a real time. 16:58.000 --> 17:00.000 I prioritize process so. 17:00.000 --> 17:03.000 Doesn't really do anything. 17:03.000 --> 17:08.000 And then there's this I notify max user where to watch is that pops up every time. 17:08.000 --> 17:12.000 On every weeky base that somebody starts up. 17:12.000 --> 17:21.000 It's something something that people Google and then they just put it on their wiki because apparently you have to do this. 17:21.000 --> 17:23.000 But it does really nothing. 17:23.000 --> 17:28.000 The only thing this does is like hiring or raising. 17:28.000 --> 17:32.000 The amount of files a program can watch. 17:32.000 --> 17:35.000 You need it for when you're developing for example. 17:35.000 --> 17:42.000 When you have like an IDE that with a lot of folders open with a lot of source code in there with a lot of. 17:42.000 --> 17:44.000 Subdirectories. 17:44.000 --> 17:48.000 Then you need all those watches because your IDE wants to know what's going on in all the other. 17:48.000 --> 17:49.000 Directors. 17:49.000 --> 17:55.000 But in case of for a doll or doing a modular setup this has really no use. 17:55.000 --> 18:02.000 The tools you can use to. 18:02.000 --> 18:07.000 Check the latest or check your system or improve the system. 18:07.000 --> 18:10.000 I wrote a tool called RTCQS. 18:10.000 --> 18:14.000 So the real time real time configuration quick scan. 18:14.000 --> 18:20.000 It wasn't initially worth my re-boof by Ernest Nengla who did a talk yesterday for the next. 18:20.000 --> 18:26.000 And it wasn't written in Pearl but I reported it to Python. 18:26.000 --> 18:33.000 On top of that somebody built a nice GTK4 or 5 UI even called Miller second. 18:33.000 --> 18:39.000 Which is really nice but under the hood that uses RTCQS. 18:39.000 --> 18:43.000 You can check the DSP load in order or with check. 18:43.000 --> 18:47.000 So you can see how much have room you have left. 18:47.000 --> 18:55.000 If you run a lot of plugins and you're already at like 80% DSP load then you know that you cannot add much more. 18:55.000 --> 19:06.000 But you can also then use the DSP load to balance find a balance here buffer size or try tweaking stuff. 19:06.000 --> 19:11.000 So that the DSP load might decrease. 19:11.000 --> 19:19.000 You can use action counter to that's a little C program written by Ernest Nengla from the GTK3. 19:19.000 --> 19:22.000 It's a bit of a spinoff small project. 19:22.000 --> 19:25.000 You can use it to do stress tests. 19:25.000 --> 19:33.000 It then runs something to erase the DSP load and then at a certain moment it builds up with an x run. 19:33.000 --> 19:40.000 And that gives you kind of a starting point because then you can start comparing on other machines or on your own machine with different settings. 19:40.000 --> 19:45.000 When the first x run occurs at which DSP load. 19:45.000 --> 19:47.000 It's a real fun tool. 19:47.000 --> 19:52.000 I could show it afterwards if you want to. 19:52.000 --> 19:57.000 You can also use the renowned cyclic test. 19:57.000 --> 20:04.000 I was just told that with the device with the 16 frames buffer with 1.3 rounds of latency. 20:04.000 --> 20:09.000 They did cyclic test on it and it had like a 5 millisecond microsecond. 20:09.000 --> 20:11.000 Yeah, microsecond. 20:11.000 --> 20:13.000 So I could test this in microseconds. 20:13.000 --> 20:18.000 I like a system latency of 5 microseconds. 20:18.000 --> 20:26.000 Although my machine I get like between 30 and 60s. 20:26.000 --> 20:32.000 And you could check the IOLAIDC in order that's the round trip latency. 20:32.000 --> 20:42.000 You can you can check or you can use that tool to know your system better. 20:42.000 --> 20:45.000 You could also dive even deeper. 20:45.000 --> 20:49.000 Prior to our prioritize your IRQs. 20:49.000 --> 20:51.000 There are software for that. 20:51.000 --> 20:55.000 You could disable kernel mitigations or use different kernel options. 20:55.000 --> 20:58.000 I want to dive deeper into that because after hurry up a little. 20:58.000 --> 21:00.000 But I'm already at the end of my presentation. 21:00.000 --> 21:02.000 So you can reach me here. 21:02.000 --> 21:05.000 I will be sticking around in this room for the rest of the day. 21:05.000 --> 21:06.000 I think so. 21:06.000 --> 21:11.000 Well, thank you for listening and enjoy the rest of the talks. 21:11.000 --> 21:12.000 Thanks, Jeremy. 21:12.000 --> 21:17.000 Well, what was which presentation? 21:17.000 --> 21:20.000 As if could you come and start switching? 21:20.000 --> 21:25.000 If you have some questions for Jeremy, we have a couple of time for a couple of them. 21:25.000 --> 21:30.000 You can use the mic so that people from home can listen to them too. 21:30.000 --> 21:31.000 Hey. 21:31.000 --> 21:33.000 Thank you for the nice talk. 21:33.000 --> 21:34.000 Thank you. 21:34.000 --> 21:39.000 When you're in a creative space. 21:39.000 --> 21:42.000 When you want to be in a creative space. 21:42.000 --> 21:48.000 And configuring the whole machine kind of gets you out of that flow. 21:48.000 --> 21:52.000 Do you think there should be some kind of a spin that configures everything in the most 21:52.000 --> 21:53.000 effective manner. 21:53.000 --> 21:57.000 And you can just get up and boosts going like music spin of a distro. 21:57.000 --> 21:59.000 Is there something really like that? 21:59.000 --> 22:03.000 Because a piece of software that can configure your machine for you. 22:03.000 --> 22:07.000 Yeah, like a spin, a Linux spin that has all the music. 22:07.000 --> 22:08.000 Okay. 22:08.000 --> 22:09.000 Congratulations. 22:09.000 --> 22:10.000 So yeah, optimally configured. 22:10.000 --> 22:11.000 That you can see. 22:11.000 --> 22:14.000 It's getting a bit busier before changing. 22:14.000 --> 22:20.000 Yeah, I just mean that a Linux spin that has all the essential configurations set everything 22:20.000 --> 22:23.000 that you can just boot up and then get going. 22:23.000 --> 22:28.000 You don't have to muck around with the configs when you want to start making music. 22:28.000 --> 22:29.000 Oh, yeah. 22:29.000 --> 22:32.000 You mean like a spin like a music spin. 22:32.000 --> 22:35.000 Yeah, a customized distribution. 22:35.000 --> 22:36.000 Yeah. 22:36.000 --> 22:40.000 Something like that already exists is called AVL Linux. 22:40.000 --> 22:42.000 So yeah, that's that's possible. 22:42.000 --> 22:45.000 But it's very dependable on your machine. 22:45.000 --> 22:49.000 So you cannot move it to another machine because then probably works less. 22:49.000 --> 22:50.000 Good. 22:50.000 --> 22:51.000 Other questions? 22:51.000 --> 22:52.000 Oh. 22:52.000 --> 22:53.000 It's not so much about question. 22:53.000 --> 22:56.000 It's a comment regarding the tools. 22:56.000 --> 23:02.000 Something coming in next check release. 23:02.000 --> 23:08.000 Because there's currently an issue where you're trying to measure your CPU load or DSP load 23:08.000 --> 23:10.000 in the check graph. 23:10.000 --> 23:14.000 Right now it uses an average which sometimes can look wrong. 23:14.000 --> 23:18.000 So the next release going to support also a maximum value, which is much more useful. 23:18.000 --> 23:21.000 Because of the spikes within the DSP load. 23:21.000 --> 23:22.000 Exactly. 23:22.000 --> 23:27.000 If you have a maximum value is a lot useful for knowing your performance of the system. 23:27.000 --> 23:28.000 Yeah. 23:28.000 --> 23:32.000 Not really a question with the comment for the next stuff to come that we can add in the tools. 23:32.000 --> 23:33.000 Thanks. 23:33.000 --> 23:34.000 Yeah. 23:34.000 --> 23:35.000 Awesome.