Comment by louthy
2 years ago
O/T: Can anyone recommend a decent PCI based pro sound card with Linux (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian) support?
I’m trying to de-Windows myself, but my pro-audio setup is the gap I can’t seem to fill.
I currently have an RME HDSPe MADI FX [1] which allows me to bring in 96 channels of 96khz audio via 3 MADI connections. They connect to my AD/DA convertors [2].
I found source for a driver [3], but couldn’t get the thing working, and it doesn’t seem particularly well supported/documented.
Moving toward Dante or AES67 is also an option (because my AD/DA convertors support those formats) if there’s any software solution that can support those formats, but there’s minimal online info. So if anyone’s gone this route I’d love to know how you got everything working!
[1] https://www.rme-audio.de/hdspe-madi-fx.html
[2] https://www.ferrofish.com/portfolio/a32pro-dante-converter-m...
Why do you want/need a PCI based card? Most audio interfaces run off USB these days and Linux supports almost all USB audio class-compliant cards.. Personally I use NI Komplete Audio 1 and Behringer UMC 1820 (yes, on Linux with pipewire and Bitwig you can use multiple cards!)
> Why do you want/need a PCI based card?
Because I don’t know of any USB device that can do 96 channels of pro IO. Also, it always seemed preferable to me to avoid the issue of ‘yet another wire’ and ‘yet another source of latency’.
Being attached to the PCI bus always felt like the most robust approach to getting audio in with the lowest latency (which it is on Windows).
I’d probably prefer to look at Dante/AES67 before USB, unless there’s a compelling reason not to. Mostly because it gives room for future expansion where a fixed soundcard doesn’t.
> yes, on Linux with pipewire and Bitwig you can use multiple cards
How are you clocking the cards? If they don’t share a single clock then you’re gonna get phase issues. The idea of going back to a word-clock does not appeal to me! I’d much prefer a single device with one clock. The fewer moving parts, the better.
> Because I don’t know of any USB device that can do 96 channels of pro IO
Holy crap, that's a lot of input channels, didn't know it was possible. I also have a Behringer ADA8200 that connect to the 1820 (ADAT) which gives me 16 inputs. I'll admit it's not enough to run all of my gear in at once and this is just a home studio. I can imagine 96 channels is very useful. Maybe 6x my setup would work = 96 inputs ;)
> How are you clocking the cards?
You are obviously more advanced than me, not sure what you mean here. I'm using the NI card basically just for the output and the Behringer for inputs, 24/48. When recording, if there is a latency (which normally Bitwig can "fix") it's just a matter of moving the audio a couple of ms.
> PCI
I've had earlier problems with PCI cards, in that they pick up a lot of internal noise from the motherboard, so I've stayed away from that after firewire/usb cards became available
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