For us simple folk that have absolutely no idea how to setup “Pro Audio” can we have an option to install it?
Any compatibility reasons why we shouldn’t have it just by default?
Appreciate any help.
Some of us do not even know what that is 
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Here - Professional audio - ArchWiki
I think it has something to do with how you setup the sound server, or defaults you have. On another distro it was setup already on my system, but after trying to set it up I couldn’t figure it out on manjaro.
Basically it allows you to play audio in more ways then possible with the current Manjaro default.
Some people report it was enabled on their system. Not sure what changed - What is pro audio?
I cannot speak for the Manjaro developers with 100% certainty in this regard, but Manjaro is a general-purpose distribution, and that which you are asking for is a very specific use case, which not only requires the inclusion on the install media of professional audio software, but also a very custom configuration of the audio subsystem.
As an example, there is the difference between pulseaudio and pipewire — both of which have their fans, their detractors, and their own technical issues — and then there is jack2.
Possibly, yes — see above. And that’s not even taking into account that a lot more software would need to be included (and preconfigured) on the install media.
If one of the Manjaro developers were a sound engineer with a passion for digital audio workstations and a professional digital recording studio, then such a dedicated release could in theory be put together, but then the question is what user interface to choose, because then strictly speaking, there would have to be such a dedicated edition for all three of the popular desktop environments, and I think that such an endeavor would currently be far beyond the scope of Manjaro as a distribution, and beyond the expertise of the Manjaro Team.
It is always possible of course that a community member decides to create a dedicated audio-focused spin, but I think it’ll probably not appear as an official Manjaro edition any day soon.
That all said, dedicated distributions geared towards professional audio and/or video production do exist, and if you are so inclined, then you can set up your own such workstation on Manjaro because the software is all available from the repositories. But a dedicated official Manjaro release for that purpose is not something I can see happening in the foreseeable future.
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The distro I tested that had it working was opensuse tumbleweed. I don’t know what they had setup differently, but it just had pro audio out of the box.
I don’t know if I can “cheat” some how and steal those configuration setup and bring it over, but I would very much appreciate being able to have those additional options.
I can say this, I am not doing any professional audio work, I am actually just doing something probably a lot of people would want to do. Let me explain, I have 3 monitors and those monitors each have their own speakers which actually sounds good. So what I can do with “Pro Audio” is I can have all of them hooked up via Display Port and still have all 3 sources audio active at once and create a “combined sink” which basically gives me a real 7.1 audio. Pretty awesome.
Windows can’t do this without a 3rd party program and that program doesn’t work very well.
I know it is called “Pro Audio”, but I think it is just not super basic audio.
How, exactly?
Yes.
I tried that. It didn’t work for me.
I don’t know what a good way to have it setup in an easier fashion would be, but currently the barrier of entry on Manjaro is too high for me.
More words are required. Please try again.
I tried the link which I originally posted. The link which is for the Arch wiki. The link you added. That is what “it” refers to. I also asked people who used opensuse tumbleweed what the audio setup was and tried copying it.
Didn’t work for me.
Me, too. I clicked the link and it worked. The webpage opened as expected.
No, I didn’t. I quoted someone else who linked it.
What did they say? What did you actually do?
Please see the following:
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Manjaro includes jack2 for professional audio use. (not suitable for this use-case)
Opensuse Tumbleweed uses Pipewire replacement pipewire-jack to provide a Pro-Audio profile in pipewire-pulse
I suggest install pipewire-jack to replace ‘jack2’ and a patchbay GUI to connect the 3 HDMI outputs
pamac install pipewire-jack qpwgraph
Reboot system and change the Profile of the HDMI audio card(s) to Pro-Audio
Manjaro includes realtime-privileges and user is added to the realtime group. There is also a pro-audio package group to install additional JACK packages. So it is easy to set up Manjaro for audio production, but users still have to learn how to use the new audio tools
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Well I managed to get everything working. It took me awhile because jack2-dbus was installed and it was created this dependency issue for replacing jack2 with pipewire-jack. Then I had my pipewire config that was preventing pipewire systemd service from starting, but after I found all that stuff and reverted it to stock it was able to work. Now I can use my bash script I created from tumbleweed to have all my monitors playing audio in a 7.1 style system.
I tried the qpwgraph program but It is hard for me to understand, but maybe I will figure it out sometime. Thanks for the recommendation.
When I was trying to figure out what the package issue was I noticed pipewire media session isn’t recommend I guess so I installed wireplumber. Not sure if htat is the reason it looks slightly different in KDE Settings.
Here is my pipewire settings I tried that failed horribly.
~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf ✔
context.modules = [
# Other modules...
{ # Combine sink module
name = libpipewire-module-combine-sink
args = {
sink.properties = {
node.name = "combined_monitor_sink"
node.description = "Combined Sink for Monitors"
audio.position = [FL FR FC LFE RL RR] # Adapt this as needed
}
slaves = "alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-3,alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-7,alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-8"
}
}
]
See any problem with it?
My bash script works though and I have no idea why, but hey…its working. Would be better if I could get it working through the pipewire config obviously because I have to run this bash script when I login. Here is the bash script that works.
#!/bin/bash
pactl load-module module-combine-sink sink_name=combined_monitor_sink slaves=alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-7,alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-8,alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.pro-output-3 channels=6 channel_map=front-left,front-right,front-center,rear-left,rear-right,lfe
pactl set-default-sink combined_monitor_sink
# 2 - left
# 3 - center
# 1 - right
Here is the what the recommend GUI looks like to me.
This may be of use to you, made by Unfa
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Pretty good video.
Every time the monitors sleep and then come back on “pro audio” isn’t selected any more.
“combined sink” is still selected, but since pro audio isn’t selected it has no sound. Any way to make it the first item in the drop down or the default option?
Pipewire Wiki has an example configuration to combine 3 stereo sinks into a virtual 5.1 device
Combine sink (selected channels and sinks) - Virtual devices · Wiki · PipeWire
PipeWire can also use module-null-sink to create a virtual aggregate sink instead of using module-combine-sinks
Create an Aggregate sink/source - Virtual devices · Wiki · PipeWire
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That worked well, thanks @nikgnomic
Still haven’t figured out the deal with “Pro Audio” being deselected when monitors come back from suspend, but maybe ill be able to find something in these docs. Thanks.
There are many different ways to implement this kind of audio re-configuration. Pro-Audio has good GUI tools for working out the correct audio connections but it should be possible to use one or more modules in pipewire-pulse for this without additional pipewire-jack server
module-loopback can also be used to create a Remap Sink so surround channels could be remapped to the card’s Aux channels - [ RL FL FC LFE FR RR ] to [ AUX0 AUX1 AUX2 AUX3 AUX4 AUX5 ]
Wiki example for Behringer UMC404HD Speakers/Headphones virtual sinks uses module-loopback to create 2 virtual sinks mapped to Aux channels
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