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I successfully configured PulseAudio to run ontop of JACK by following this surprisingly easy description.

Now I wonder if there is a way (at first I was certain of it) to have multiple sinks between JACK and PulseAudio, for example to record two PulseAudio applications seperately at once. I tried for example changing load-module module-jackdbus-detect channels=2 in /etc/pulse/default.pa to 4 channels - but then PulseAudio won't even start.

The JACK routing has only one stereo source and sink from and to PulseAudio

Also, I'd really like to use this feature to reduce the volume of the JACK output before playback because I don't want to blow my ears. I also thought of creating virtual streams in PulseAudio and I may try to figure that out next, though I don't know wether I will find use for it. If I have had an idea, I already forgot. ;-) Tell me if you know already.

[EDIT]

Also think about my related question about JACK Audio muting Speakers but not playing through Headphones, please!

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  • Can you please describe how you configured jack, or how you want to configure jack. Not really sure what pulseaudio has to do with it. Jack can run w or w/o pulse and it is not clear what you are doing with either jack or pulse.
    – Panther
    Oct 2, 2015 at 15:15
  • @bodhi.zazen There you go. One sink and one source to and from PulseAudio. No idea how to create more. It should be possible.
    – Peter Nerlich
    Oct 2, 2015 at 15:42

1 Answer 1

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Multiple pulseaudio sinks/sources are available from pulseaudio v6.0 and later. As Ubuntu uses it's own version numbering, check true version number with:

  pulseaudio --version

Extra sinks/sources can be loaded by terminal command, or using QJackCtl Option 'Execute script after Startup' commands or bash script

pactl load-module module-jack-sink client_name=pulse_sink_2 connect=yes
pactl load-module module-jack-source client_name=pulse_source_2 connect=no

without client_name option additional sinks/sources have number suffix 01, 02 etc

connect option (default is yes) using no stops connection to JACK system capture/playback

There is also a channels option (default 'channels=2')

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5
  • As my question is not too recent anymore I won't try your suggestion immediately, but even if I forget to, let me say that I really appreciate this! I'll probably run into this problem again in the future anyway.
    – Peter Nerlich
    Sep 9, 2016 at 22:34
  • 1
    WTF, stumbled over my own question again without realizing it. I'm now on Elementary OS 0.4 Loki, pulse audio version here is pulseaudio 8.0. I tried your two commands and — it works! Thank's for this, even if it's been half a year since then!
    – Peter Nerlich
    Mar 5, 2017 at 11:08
  • Ah, yes, this is still here as well. Seems like I am returning to this every year or so from now on. I plan on playing around with Arch in the following month, so I'll need this once more. My annual greetings to you and the future me as well!
    – Peter Nerlich
    Jul 4, 2018 at 12:17
  • this is awesome. It allowed me to create multiple jack aware sinks/sources so I can route my applications through them and have individual effects in jack applied to each. For cadence users, I was able to incorporate this into /usr/share/cadence/pulse2jack/play+rec.pa and automatically create the pulse-jack sink/sources on startup.
    – Mark Fisher
    Oct 29, 2018 at 20:27
  • Does this approach allow materializing this scenario just as well?
    – matanster
    Aug 23, 2020 at 11:35

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