I’m experimenting with using alsa only but I’ve noticed that it isn’t possible to use any other sound source when renoise is using alsa. When not using renoise I can use multiple sound sources using dmix but renoise behaves differently and blocks everything else. It also can’t connect to the soundcard if there is something else already open.
Is it possible to make it use dmix?
I don’t know why specifically Renoise doesn’t like dmix (talks only to real HW devices maybe?).
But last I remember dmix is not something you want to use for serious audio work - it is roughly the ugly ancestor of pulse audio: crappy resampler, half a millisecond latency, etc…
I second this.
IMO dmix is more than good enough for doing rough work where sound quality isn’t important (i.e. just composing stuff). It should probably be disabled by default and come with a warning about what it can do to quality/latency though.
Getting a card with hardware mixing is the way to go, though (unless you’re using a laptop and don’t want to carry an external card everywhere – my cheap Sound Blaster from 18 years ago does hardware mixing, yet the onboard sound in even the most high-end of laptops still can’t do it ffs!).
Thanks for the info, I’ll carry on using jack I think.