/alsa-scarlett-gui

alsa-scarlett-gui is a Gtk4 GUI for the ALSA controls presented by the Linux kernel Focusrite Scarlett2 Mixer Driver

Primary LanguageC

ALSA Scarlett2 Control Panel (alsa-scarlett-gui)

alsa-scarlett-gui is a Gtk4 GUI for the ALSA controls presented by the Linux kernel Focusrite Scarlett2 USB Protocol Mixer Driver.

Supported interfaces:

  • Scarlett 2nd Gen 6i6, 18i8, 18i20 (the smaller interfaces are controlled with physical buttons only)
  • Scarlett 3rd Gen Solo, 2i2, 4i4, 8i6, 18i8, 18i20
  • Clarett 2Pre, 4Pre, 8Pre USB
  • Clarett+ 2Pre, 4Pre, 8Pre

About

The Focusrite USB audio interfaces are class compliant meaning that they work “out of the box” on Linux as audio and MIDI interfaces (although on Gen 3/4 you need to disable MSD mode first for full functionality). However, except for some of the smallest models, they have a bunch of proprietary functionality that required a kernel driver to be written specifically for those devices.

Linux kernel support (the “ALSA Focusrite Scarlett2 USB Protocol Mixer Driver”) for the proprietary functionality was first added in:

  • Scarlett Gen 2: Linux 5.4 (bugs fixed in Linux 5.14)
  • Scarlett Gen 3: Linux 5.14
  • Clarett+ 8Pre: Linux 6.1
  • Clarett 2Pre/4Pre/8Pre USB, Clarett+ 2Pre/4Pre: Linux 6.7

Unfortunately, actually using this functionality used to be quite an awful experience. The existing applications like alsamixer and qasmixer become completely user-hostile with the hundreds of controls presented for the Gen 3 18i20. Even the smallest Gen 3 4i4 interface at last count had 84 ALSA controls.

Announcing the ALSA Scarlett Gen 2/3 (and Clarett USB/Clarett+!) Control Panel!

Demonstration

The GUI supports all features presented by the driver (if not, please report a bug).

Documentation

Refer to INSTALL.md for prerequisites, how to build, install, and run.

Refer to USAGE.md for usage information and known issues.

Donations

This program is Free Software, developed using my personal resources, over hundreds of hours.

If you like this software, please consider a donation to say thank you as it was expensive to purchase one of each model for development and testing! Any donation is appreciated.

Scarlett Gen 4 Support

Focusrite recently released 3 new “Generation 4” interfaces: Solo, 2i2, and 4i4. The first draft of kernel support is available here: https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scarlett-gen2/releases/tag/v6.5.11-g4.1

Please contact me by email if you would like to help test.

Vocaster Support

Vocaster One and Two support will be coming once I've completed the Scarlett 4th Gen support.

License

Copyright 2022-2023 Geoffrey D. Bennett

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Disclaimer Third Parties

Focusrite, Scarlett, Clarett, and Vocaster are trademarks or registered trademarks of Focusrite Audio Engineering Limited in England, USA, and/or other countries. Use of these trademarks does not imply any affiliation or endorsement of this software.