Renoise Audio - RealTime error; crackling sound only?

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1

Manjaro 6.9.3.3 GNOME
Running Renoise 3.4.4 (purchased), I get the following message window on startup:

Failed to create a RealTime priority thread for ALSA. Will create a non RT thread instead…

It is highly recommended to use RealTime priority audio threads with ALSA AND Jack to get acceptable audio latencies, but you may need admin rights to create RT threads. Please see the Renoise for Linux FAQ on https://www.renoise.com for more details.

What I tried

  • Install from the install.sh script inside the renoise tarball download for Linux (demo version FYI).
  • <[Crackling sounds]>, removed Renoise using the uninstall.sh script…
  • Installed via the renoiseAUR method.
    • via git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/renoise.git; cp rns_344_linux_x86_64.tar.gz renoise/; cd renoise; make; make -i
  • <[Crackling sounds]>

It works on Windows running the same machine (don’t tell anyone I’m also using Windows sometimes).

Research

From this post on the Renoise forum, I know Renoise can work with Manjaro, but that was almost three years ago:

Probably OOB sound settings on Manjaro have changed. From two years ago, Realtime kernels now in the official repositories.

What could cause this?

The message from Renoise wants RealTime with both ALSA and Jack. Manjaro seems to be running PipeWire, as opposed to PuseAudio. So, I don’t want to start out-smarting either Manjaro or Renoise.

What is the right way to get this working?

  • What should I do now, if anything?
  • Should this be considered a “bug” to report somewhere?

Edit: This is partially solved, (viz RealTime). I’m continuing discussion here.

2

Install realtime-privileges and add your user to realtime group, then reboot.

If it doesn’t work, revert the above changes.

You can read more about professional audio on Arch Linux, and see if something helps you there.

1 Like
3

half-solved

I did it just now (realtime-privileges and realtime group membership).

That removed the RealTime error message at application startup.

But, it still makes only crackly sounds just the same. Also tried reboot and remove-reinstall. So, I’m presuming there is more to be done with the audio stack, probably with PipeWire, but I don’t want to guess.

The message itself says it wants “RealTime priority… with ALSA and Jack”. So, probably that isn’t happening, even with proper realtime permissions.

4

Per another discussion here on the forum, could using a RealTime kernel (ie linux66-rt), viz mhwd -i linux61-rt?

5

I installed the linux66-rt kernel and it hasn’t solved it. The question is about how to properly configure the RealTime sound stack with ALSA, PipeWire, and Jack. Should this become a bug report?

6

less -N install.sh
(lists the install.sh file with line numbers in front - here is what I think is relevant and seems to fit your problem description)

    204     echo "Checking audio configuration..."
    205 
    206     if [ -f "/etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf" ] || \
    207        `grep -E "^[^#]+(rtprio).*$" /etc/security/limits.conf > /dev/null`; then
    208 
    209       echo "  OK - PAM seems to be installed and configured for audio applications."
    210       echo "  If you nevertheless have problems with ALSA or Jack (such as crackles \
    211 or too high latencies) take a look at 'https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration#limitsconfaudioconf' \
    212 for help please..."
    213     
    214     else
    215       echo "  PAM seems not to be installed or not configured for audio applications."
    216       echo "  It's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to tweak your system for realtime audio applications to \
    217 get acceptable audio/MIDI latencies with Jack and ALSA. Please have a look at \
    218 'https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration#limitsconfaudioconf' for more information about this topic..."

It seems you don’t have this file - need to create it with the proper content
(of which I know nothing - I haven’t looked at the references given)

It looks like you have looked in the wrong place - and a -rt kernel is also not what is called for.

7

I actually do have that file. Should I install Renoise with that install.sh file only instead of the renoiseAUR helper?

8

I didn’t realize that you got it from AUR - I just downloaded the installable file directly from their site and looked inside to find some clues.
The AUR uses the very same file.

I just tried to see what the installer does and found these comments and hints in there.

so:

no!

You could either look in your pamac cache (or yay or whatever you used) or download the file yourself once more, unpack it and you’ll find that file from which I got these lines and can look at it yourself.

9

I have seen that file and I did have it. It should have been used both in the simple install.sh use and the renoiseAUR package. Basically, the AUR package double checks some dependencies and allows it to be removed with yay -R renoise, rather than uninstall.sh…

Per the instructions linked in install.sh, I created the file:

/etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf :

@audio - rtprio 90       # maximum realtime priority
@audio - memlock unlimited  # maximum locked-in-memory address space (KB)

Upon reboot, I started getting the RealTime startup error window message (from original post) again.

I removed that /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf file and the RealTime error message window stopped coming up at app start.

So, /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf didn’t fix it the crackling audio render.

10

I thought it would - because crackling was mentioned in the installer file - and I don’t have that directory nor any file in it.
I also don’t know what should be in there.
I had hoped that this would help you - sorry that it didn’t.
I know next to nothing when it comes to audio - I just found these hints but didn’t look at them myself.

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11

Those actually were the “proper” troubleshooting steps, which I missed. Still, that page has some type-os and one of the links in that article is broken.

So, it looks more and more like this is a bug.

12

I’m being told on the Renoise forum to fix the audio config with this Git repo: robbert-vdh/dotfiles.

But, that looks very complicated and I’m unsure of whether it will play well with Manjaro.

13

I’d definitely vote against this - but you can look at these files as examples and compare them with what you have.
For instance navigate (on that github site) to the modules/pipewire/pipewire directory and find what is in these sample files.
All of these can be installed in your $HOME, no need to potentially mess your system up by putting them into /etc - Manjaro or not, the Linux variant is largely irrelevant, Manjaro isn’t something special or exotic.
These are just configuration files - revert any changes and have the previous state again.

1 Like
14

Okay. I’m not going to use it. It seemed both too complex for tampering under the hood and too complex to try to implement.

15

After a partial solution (to RealTime), I’m marking this solved and continuing discussion here.

16

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