Arch Linux

Skyfrei

Member

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 6

Problem with reaper and firefo

Hello,

I am going through my config with Alsa because i tried a couple of the other sound softwares and they either had delay or wouldn't work for my use case.

I am trying to use reaper to get input from my guitar(using an audiointerface minifuse m2) then output this back into the monitoring of the audio interface. Currently i can hear from multiple sources without reaper, meaning I can hear firefox multiple tabs while listening to aplay commands. However,  opening reaper here just produces nothing, no noise and doesn't take input either.

Vice-Versa if i open reaper I can't hear anything else but reaper works.

Here is my ALSA config currently.

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "monitoring"
}

pcm.monitoring {
    type asym
    playback.pcm{
        type plug
        slave.pcm "minifuse_output"
    }
    capture.pcm{
        type plug
        slave.pcm "minifuse_input"
    }
    
}

pcm.minifuse_output {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    slave {
        pcm "hw:M2"
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 4096
        rate 44100
        channels 2
    }
}

# MiniFuse input configuration
pcm.minifuse_input {
    type dsnoop
    ipc_key 1025
    slave {
        pcm "hw:M2"
        period_time 0
        buffer_size 256
        rate 44100
        channels 2
    }
}

# Set MiniFuse as default control device
ctl.!default {
    type plug
    card M2
}

result of aplay -l:
card 3: M2 [MiniFuse 2], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Last edited by Skyfrei (2025-02-23 14:07:39)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,175

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

Are you picking the "proper" playback device in reaper? If it's directly hw:3 or hw:M2 that will bypass all the config you're setting up here, make sure reaper is set to play from the "default" or "monitoring" pcms.

Firefox in particular is also generally a special case, that will not properly play back via the ALSA API/your config if the default device doesn't show up in an aplay -L listing, to make that so add

 hint {
   show on
   description "My default device (monitoring PCM)"
 }

or so to your !default pcm definition.

If that doesn't clear things up what output do you get from

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

when running into the faulty situation, maybe also terminal output of reaper to see whether it logs what it's doing.

Also please edit your post and use [code][/code]  code tags instead of markdown

Skyfrei

Member

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 6

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

Thanks for your response.

1) Reaper sadly doesn't show up default config it only shows the list as below:
a)hw:M2 Minifuse; Usb Audio - Minifuse (tried selecting this)
b)hw: acp; acp - acp (and this)
c)hw Generic
d)hw Generic 1

2) The sudo command basically either prints out the process of firefox or reaper, depending on which one was first consuming audio.

aplay -L result:

default (My config)
    My default Minifuse 2
sysdefault:CARD=M2 
    MiniFuse 2, USB Audio
    Default Audio Device

Terminal reaper just prints this whether its first or second
[sky@archlinux ~]$ reaper
ALSA: using mmap interleaved
audio: executing pasuspender
ALSA: using mmap interleaved
audio: executing pasuspender

Last edited by Skyfrei (2025-02-23 14:33:26)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,175

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

If reaper only allows to select the direct hw device you're not going to get around this limitation... FWIW many DAWs will generally expect to be able to control the pipeline directly so this might be somewhat expected.

Googling a bit suggests reaper should have a settings window where you can manually type out which PCM should be used and you want to set that to 'default'

Skyfrei

Member

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 6

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

Seems like i can manually just input default in the Input and Output device. Although upon doing this, it doesnt seem like reaper does anything?

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/* 

doesnt show reaper having any process.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,175

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

Do you know whether your config works?

speaker-test -Ddefault -c2

does this give you noise simultaneously with other stuff?

FWIW what were your gripes with sound servers? Specially for music production jack has been somewhat *the* thing to use and pipewire-{pulse,jack,alsa} should make this integration somewhat painless

Skyfrei

Member

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 6

Re: Problem with reaper and firefo

Yes, that command works fine. I can hear a video while simulateniously running the command.

I tried with jack and pipewire and it did work however there was latency which isn't really nice because anything I was playing on the guitar was playing back in my headphones a solid 300-400ms later or so (which isn't the case with ALSA, as the sound comes almost directly). I didn't really like setting up with Jack either because the setup kept changing somehow everytime i unplugged my audio interface.