JackMix:0.2 – "One step back, two ahead"

After almost two years of silence I managed to put together a new release of JackMix. The name explained: Comparing to jackmix:0.1.0 some experimental features are dropped. On the other hand this release is the first to use scons for the buildsystem and qt4 for the toolkit.

Download and installation

Download the source here: jackmix-0.2.tar.gz

After unpacking (tar xzf jackmix-0.2.tar.gz && cd jackmix-0.2) call QTDIR=<path to your qt4-dir> scons configure to configure and afterwards call scons to compile the app. Calling scons install will install the binary in the chosen bin-directory but you will probably test JackMix before doing that...

If your qt4 is installed in /usr/include/qt4 and /usr/lib/qt4 (as it is on gentoo) you need to add qtlibs=/usr/lib/qt4 to the configuration-command above. I will probably change/extend the qt-check in the future but for now this has to be used.

Usage

Be sure to have a jackd running, preferable via qjackctl which also has a nice window to connect inputs and outputs like the back of your rack.

Next start jackmix. If all is well it will present you with a top-row of controls, a big matrix in the middle and some controls on the right. The top controls are the input gain, the right controls are output gain. The matrix in the middle controls the levels sent from the various inputs to the outputs.

If you are tired of the simple potis for each channel and want easier mixing into stereo busses there is help available. Just select the potis you want replaced by using "Select" from the context menu of each control and then use "Replace" in the top-left control you want replaced. If all is working JackMix will choose the biggest possible replacing control (current available controls are mono-to-mono, mono-to-stereo and stereo-to-stereo). You can fill the empty places from the "Edit"-menu.

Adding and removing of input- and output-channels is also done from the "Edit"-menu.

Please note that if no jackd is running, JackMix will start but not show any controls. You can tell JackMix to create new channels, but nothing will happen. Restart JackMix after starting jackd and go on with your work.

Changelog

Changes since 0.1:

  • Using scons instead of autotools/make.
  • Using qt4 instead of qt3.
  • Dropped the potis borrowed from the kde-project. They where hard to port to qt4 and the ones from qsynth are much nicer and where easier to port.
  • The ability to connect faders is dropped. For future releases this will be replaced by VCA-groups similar to bigger mixing-consoles.