Studio Controls

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Studio Controls is the easiest and best way to configure your Linux-based audio installation for real-time audio. Studio Controls has several key features that make it unique:

  • Adjusts the CPU Governor for higher processing power as required
  • Adds the user to the Audio group for real-time permissions if needed
  • Gives control over the JACK Audio Connection Kit
  • Bridges ALSA MIDI and PulseAudio to JACK if needed
  • Allows for multiple, custom-named PulseAudio Bridges
  • Adds USB Devices to JACK when they are plugged in
  • Allows multiple audio devices to use JACK at once
  • Switches Firewire drivers between ALSA and FFADO
  • Shows the status of JACK
  • Settings persist between reboots, including JACK's running state

Obtaining Studio Controls

Your distribution may already have a package you can install. Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch are known to have a package.

Ubuntu

Studio Controls is installed in Ubuntu Studio by default. Prior to 20.10, Studio Controls was known as Ubuntu Studio Controls. The version covered in this page is only part of Ubuntu Studio 20.10 and higher, or any supported Ubuntu Studio version with the backports PPA.

To obtain this newest version, add the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA

If you are running a different official flavor of Ubuntu than Ubuntu Studio, Studio Controls installs with the Ubuntu Studio Installer.

If not already installed, open a terminal and type:
sudo apt install studio-controls

Fedora

Studio Controls is installed in Fedora Jam (33 and higher) by default and is available in Fedora 31 and higher.

To install, open a terminal and type:
sudo dnf install studio-controls

Tar Ball Package

A tarball or zipped package can be downloaded from GitHub.

To install:

  1. open a terminal
  2. cd to the directory where the package was downloaded to
  3. extract the contents of the tar ball
  4. cd into the directory the extraction created
  5. type:
    sudo make install

Using Studio Controls

For many people the use of Studio Controls is straight forward. However, if JACK is new to you or you want to go deeper, there is an online manual.

Warning!

If Cadence (another program that controls JACK) has been used on your system (even if you have removed it) Studio Controls may not work for you. Cadence adds system files that removing the software does not remove. These files will interfere with running Studio Controls. In particular, PulseAudio may no longer work correctly.

Bugs?

Well we hope not but there probably are.

Bugs and feature requests should be submitted to issues.

Support the project

Bug reports, feature requests and comments are probably the best support we could ask for. However, financial support would also be welcome. This would be used to buy hardware needed for further testing. For example to buy a USB 2.0 audio device. I have currently done all testing with cheap (under $10) USB 1.1 devices. Firewire support has only been made possible by the kind donation of a firewire device.

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