Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

[Posted September 6, 2013 by n8willis]

Libre Graphics World takes a look at the just-announced Patchfield audio server for Android. "In a nutshell, Patchfield reuses the cornerstone idea of JACK — creating standalone applications for audio generation and/or processing and connecting them in a patchbay." The fact that Patchfield brings advanced audio-processing capabilities to Android sounds like a plus in many ways, but there are evidently detractors who do not regard JACK's design as something to be closely emulated.

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

Posted Sep 9, 2013 5:48 UTC (Mon) by prokoudine (guest, #41788) [Link] (1 responses)

I wouldn't call it an audio server :)

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

Posted Sep 9, 2013 12:38 UTC (Mon) by granquet (guest, #60931) [Link]

hmmm ... what would you call it then?
an audio dispatcher server ?

who do not regard JACK's design as something to be closely emulated.

Posted Sep 10, 2013 15:42 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

Depends ...

What Jack attempts to do is to provide minimal latency, iirc.

I remember a long thread here on LWN where it was clear that some of the posters had no clue about real-time constraints on audio processing and mixing.

That said, I am puzzled as to what the use-case of Jack on Android is. If all you're doing is playback, you only need consistent latency. And if you're doing audio processing, surely you want a far more powerful system that Android is likely to run on.

That said, "because it's there" seems to be a powerful motivating force :-)

Cheers,
Wol

who do not regard JACK's design as something to be closely emulated.

Posted Sep 10, 2013 17:09 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (1 responses)

The shorter your device's consistent latency, the easier it is to use as an instrument in a live performance.

who do not regard JACK's design as something to be closely emulated.

Posted Sep 11, 2013 1:01 UTC (Wed) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

Yes... The big audio latency on Android is widely cited as a reason why audio gadgets like the iRig cannot work for Android (they tried to port the applications and ran into serious problems)

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

Posted Sep 11, 2013 6:02 UTC (Wed) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (1 responses)

I wanted to read about the Patchfield server, but the link goes to some sort of content-free monstrosity instead of a webpage. Seems likely the rest of the project is just as shoddy.

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

Posted Sep 11, 2013 15:25 UTC (Wed) by prokoudine (guest, #41788) [Link]

Which page are you referring to? :)

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android (Libre Graphics World)

Posted Sep 11, 2013 7:45 UTC (Wed) by oever (guest, #987) [Link]

There is a very insightful talk about high performance audio on Android by two Google engineers.