Focusrite scarlett 2i2 linux

LinuxMusicians

It is not overly technical, and is definitely aimed at newbies. Enjoy!

Pablo Established Member Posts: 1274 Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:57 pm Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by Pablo » Wed Sep 06, 2017 8:38 pm

A suggestion if you don’t have speakers connected to the Focusrite,
so you want to capture with the Focusrite and, at the same time,
hear through the computer speakers.

I have recorded lately in a similar situation. What I do is choosing the
USB card as the Interface in the Parameters tab. Then, in the advanced
tab, I select «Capture only» in the Audio field. No need to define
the input and output device fields as you have already selected the interface
in the other tab.

For the computer speakers to work, I then use «alsa_out» like this:

Setup —> Options tab: Execute script after start up:

Now, jack and ardour will see «alsa out: playback» ports, which are the computer speakers.

For a technical background on this, see:
http://jackaudio.org/faq/multiple_devices.html
You mention using solution number 4 but
«this approach will not do any clock drift correction, so as the two devices drift over time, you may get glitches in the audio stream. Nevertheless, it can be an easy if unreliable way to set up JACK so that, for example, it records from a USB microphone and plays back via a builtin audio device».

The solution I described above is the number 1: «If you are using JACK on Linux and want to use additional devices that have ALSA driver support (i.e. most PCI, USB and Bluetooth devices), then this is the best option».

For editing and mixing with the computer speakers, when I don’t need the USB card, I prefer to start jack with the interface PCH (the onboard audio card) in «playback only mode» and, of course, disable the «script after startup».

Sure, it is better to connect an amplifier and a pair of speakers to the USB card. In this case, I just start jack the simple way; Interface: hw:USB in Duplex audio mode (again, there is no need for choosing input and output devices separately in the advanced tab)

milo Established Member Posts: 1241 Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:55 am Location: Southern Utah, USA Has thanked: 275 times Been thanked: 217 times Contact:

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by milo » Tue Sep 12, 2017 4:25 pm

Thank you for the reference. I will play with that tonight and see if I can get option #1 working. If so then I will revise the article.

But in my case of using the same device as input and output, isn’t that using the same clock? How can I get clock drift using my setup?

Pablo Established Member Posts: 1274 Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:57 pm Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by Pablo » Wed Sep 13, 2017 6:53 pm

You are right. There is not clock drifting if you use the same device for input and output. That said, just using hw:USB in the interface field (and the default audio dúplex mode) should be enough to get the USB card ready for input and output.

Also, now that I have read your blog post again and understood better, you just need to use alsa_out for your laptop speakers to work. There is no need to restart jack with another configuration. alsa_out will add the laptop speakers as a new jack client.

As a first time test, once your USB device is up and running (input and output, of course), type in a terminal:
alsa_out -dhw:PCH
and then connect ardour master outputs to both system playbacks and alsa_out playbacks

Next time, you can add said command (with an ampersand in the end, just in case) to qjackctl’s options

milo Established Member Posts: 1241 Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:55 am Location: Southern Utah, USA Has thanked: 275 times Been thanked: 217 times Contact:

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by milo » Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:42 am

The alsa_out command definitely works from the command line, and that will be very useful. Thanks for showing that to me.

Strangely, the «Interface» field on the qjackctl settings window is greyed out. That is why I had to dig deeper and find the Output Device and Input Device settings on the Advanced tab. Maybe it’s a configuration issue, but I guess I don’t really care as long as my setup is working.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by b4ne1 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:27 pm

I’ve tried this and I can’t get it to work. I am a newbie to Linux but am determined to make it work. I will not go back to Windows!
Thanks for any help or replies.

milo Established Member Posts: 1241 Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:55 am Location: Southern Utah, USA Has thanked: 275 times Been thanked: 217 times Contact:

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by milo » Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:25 pm

Is this a new device you’ve recently purchased? The blog post was written about a 2nd gen device, and I haven’t tested a 3rd gen device.

What specifically are you trying to do, and at what point are you stuck?

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by kc8oye » Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:30 am

i have had my Scarlett 2i2 working under windows 10.. but i can’t get my linux Mint laptop to recognize it.. (2i2 connection like flickers a lot, but never comes on solid) any ideas?
73 de kc8oye
—tim

Re: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on Linux

Post by kc8oye » Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:28 am

update: it was a bad USB cable. switched to the original, but too short cable and it worked just fine.
one small problem, I’m using the 2nd input for better cable routing.. and under linux, if I set audacity to one channel mono recording, it will only record from the 1st input.. whereas windows will switch to whichever port i’m using.. oh well I can live with that.

milo Established Member Posts: 1241 Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:55 am Location: Southern Utah, USA Has thanked: 275 times Been thanked: 217 times Contact:

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Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 working flawlessly on Ubuntu with JACK

I needed a new sound card for Ubuntu that would allow me to do some recording and playback easily. After a bit of searching and testing, I figured I would go with the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, which is a USB sound card with 2 XLR + jack inputs, stereo monitor output and a headphone jack. It also supports +48V phantom power if you need to connect a condenser microphone.

In addition it appears to be well-tested on Linux, with several user reporting that the device just works.

Popping trouble

However, the device seemed to have some trouble with PulseAudio, which is the default audio library used in Ubuntu. Everything works, meaning that any audio application was able to output sound, and recording in Audacity gave good sound quality, but whenever I started playback or recording after switching between applications, the sound card would hang for 2 seconds and make 4 popping sounds before returning to normal operation.

The solution: JACK + PulseAudio JACK Sink

If you are going to do any serious recording in Ubuntu, or Linux in general, you should get to know JACK. It is an awesome audio library for Ubuntu that aims to make life easy for musicians, audio engineers or the occasional amateur that wants to do recordings. It runs on top of ALSA, meaning it will support almost any sound card you can think of, but does so in a way that gives you extremely low latency and doesn’t mess with sound quality. The downside? JACK doesn’t allow PulseAudio to play side-by-side with it. And every Ubuntu application tries to play through PulseAudio by default.

The solution is to install the pulseaudio-module-jack package, which will allow applications to connect to JACK, even when they have no support for JACK:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-jack 

In addition, you should install a nice GUI that will allow you to control JACK easily. This is named QjackCtl:

sudo apt-get install qjackctl 

After installing, just run QjackCtl from the command line or the Dash and start + connect to the JACK server.

After this is done, you may check the Connect window to see if PulseAudio JACK Sink is also running, which it should do by default.

Then you may open Ubuntu’s Sound Settings and set PulseAudio JACK Sink to be your Output device. From now on, all applications should work even though JACK is running.

If you wish to, you may change QjackCtl’s settings to make JACK start whenever QjackCtl is started, and afterwards add QjackCtl to your Startup Applications in Ubuntu. This way JACK will start whenever you start your computer.

No more popping

After installing PulseAudio JACK Sink and QjackCtl, I no longer experience any popping, and the FocusRite Scarlett 2i2 works flawlessly. The sound quality is great and the latency minimal, so I would definitely recommend this sound card to any Linux user wanting to do some recording at home or on the go.

Even though I wish it would work right out of the box, installing two packages to get everything perfect is that much work, and I assume that someone figures out a good solution to merge PulseAudio and JACK in a way similar to the one I use by default sometime in the future.

Sharing code and thoughts

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Focusrite scarlett 2i2 linux

Note this is not an official Focusrite sub. This is for community support for questions, comments, tips, tricks and so on for Focusrite audio products.

Hi guys, after using focusrite scarlett 2i2 for more than 1 year in windows, I tried Focusrite Drivers, ASIO Driver,the most stable thing I achieved, was with voice meeter , I always had problems like random crack and popping sounds, discord issues, and much more.

Now reading at focusrite support page: They says that focusrite on linux runs as driver compliant and no low latency and other stuff is supported by focusrite company on LINUX. Ok FINE!

Now I migrated to linux because I’m web dev. Searching through linux forums they suggested me to use JACK(*+ALSA) DRIVER to manage Focusrite usb interface.

You can configure settings and see real-time latency,

and an extra feature! Jack does not suffer from «audio exclusivity» programs, like rocksmith 2014 remastered, so you can have your input/output being listened and at same time use DISCORD or other PROGRAMS! AND YOU CAN EVEN USE MIDI TOGETHER LOL!

THE PLUS I NEVER HAD ANY ISSUE OF POPPING / CRACKLING AUDIO AGAIN! NEVER! my interface is working fine for weeeks!

Please focusrite, explain to me, how you support only windows and fail at it? Ignore and don’t give linux support and linux still becomes even better?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT? LINUX KERNEL 5.8 INTRODUCED FEW FIXES TO FOCUSRITE USB INTERFACES LIKE FOCUSRITE 2i18.

you guys must support linux more with partnership with JACK guys that improved your interface A-LOT

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