Hey Michael, thanks for all the info. Being as I'm not ON Linux yet, I'm going to save this for when I am.
Not Realtek, it's Conexant. Prolly about the same. But def not a
driver issue; drivers don't touch the problem whether generic or
not, new or old. It's def something HP and or MS did. I've given
up. Weeks ago I posted the Q on MS tech-whatever, and haven't
heard a peep. The knowledge of how to fix it is buried and
forgotten like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes. And
maybe for the same reason....
I dunno what the high-end people do - well, they use Macs. Don't
need a patchbay, I just demo my stuff living-room style so I have
something to show to other musicians to get the idea of my songs.
But that step is crucially important to me. Today I started
tracking guitar, which I don't really play and couldn't hear, of
course, due to someome's malfeasance. Just have to guess whether
the track is good enough as I go, and then review later, and punch
in if needed.
No doubt Linux makes hardware specs avail better than LOSEdows does; I can't find jack poopie about the soundcard, and I've been through all the LOSEdows info thises and info thats.
When my old Pavilion breaks, I might take that dust-gatherer if its issues aren't too horrible. :-)
- Vara
Interesting, can't say I've ever used sound input hard-switched to output in that capacity, but seems like something that would require a driver, or at least some method of communications to change the hardware. I doubt that's a default behavior, or at least I've never seen it to be, probably more up to the chip, where those like realtek's are known to be quirky anyways. Add in crappy mangled HP oem win builds, and who knows.
How about under linux? If nothing else, try live booting and examine the /proc/asound states of hardware mixing devices if the are even actually capable. It's easier to examine the hardware capabilities than under windoze imho. Try booting Ubuntu Studio live cd and see if that with low-latency kernel + jack can reproduce your i/o requirements with the same hardware.
People do mixing commonly with linux and jack for production it seems, maybe give you back some life expectancy there. I've been watching for a cheap(er) RME HDSPe card to play with as they are known linux friendly and used in mega-production studios for i/o patching across exotic multi-channel pcm transport like madi, raydat, adat, aes, etc. I considered replacing my pioneer receiver with my htpc and a few adat breakout boxes for sound mixing, but even used they aren't *cheap* still. Plus I haven't as I haven't figured out a good way to make my remote switch sources yet, but if you're mixing studio inclined, you'll have a display and mouse anyways to work with the patchbay ui connections.
HP hardware in consumer space is typically crap, particularly the Pavilions (no offense). Every one in my experience in dismantling (which is several) is dying/has already died from a bad power connector as the worst issue, and replacing them is no fun. They generally just fall apart otherwise in general from what I've seen when tearing them apart. I've soldered new power jacks into them grudgingly for friends, they are not fun to work on/in. Same for lcd hinges, fans, trackpads, they're always spindly made and bound to break. Kids with no respect for technology break them in 3-6 months.
Last time someone asked me to look at repairing an HP Pavilion laptop with some mix of said issues, I refused calling it disposable and to treat it as such. It still sits here collecting dust left from my friend.
The enterprise stuff isn't bad though. I actually had an hp elite business laptop myself with docking and such years ago, and it was nice, other than being 10lb to lug about, nothing like the Pavilion lines.
-mb
On 09/28/2016 02:50 PM, Vara La Fey wrote:
I'm typing this on an old HP Pavilion billed as an "entertainment pc". Nearly every laptop in existence has a feature sometimes called "input monitor" that allows sound from the mic or line-in to immediately (without latency) play back through headphones (but not speakers). It's automatic, and is an entirely different (and to a musician recording tracks, it's an incalculably superior) feature to the LOSEdows high-distortion, high-latency "Listen to this device" feature. Laying tracks requires constant quality control: you absolutely have to hear what you're playing exactly when you play it - and some instruments are best recorded "direct-in" with no external amp/monitor (and thus no hassles with mics). Further, if you're laying a track on top of other tracks - say, a bass track for your existing drum track - you have to hear your run-time bass and your recorded drums precisely together without any humanly discernible delay anywhere in the chain.
Guess whether HP inexplicably and inexcusably disabled that feature - which nearly every other computer in existence has. Mine is old and I cannot find the information about which registry keys (allegedly) re-enable it. This HP Pavilion is utterly worthless for the task I bought it to perform, and I have no money to replace it.
Worse even than that, is the kinda heartbreaking thread from a musician who spent hundreds and hundreds on a Pavilion when it was new and then found it was exactly as worthless for him - and found that HP absolutely would not even respond to his repeated requests for help and support even back then. The thread still exists on their own forum where he's practically begging for support.
More than you wanted to know? It's just so that any would-be HP apologists can maybe feel the helpless frustration and rage when a customer-hostile and fraudulent company knowingly sabotages their product and does not state that they have done so. HP makes a habit of it.
Go out of business, HP. The sooner the better.
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