The Twelfth Tight

You need (lib)mad-devel, to build qtractor with mp3 audio file support:

http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

Can't say its alright, but I've found some Fedora8 packaging from here:

http://dl.atrpms.net/all/libmad0-0.15.1b-3.fc8.i386.rpm
http://dl.atrpms.net/all/libmad-devel-0.15.1b-3.fc8.i386.rpm

This is a decoder-only library. Qtractor has no mp3 encoder support and probably won't ever, unless someone volunteers with the code and the money (see Thomson's patent, mp3licensing.com).

I have no insider information, but it has been told that Pulse Audio has JACK as one of its backends, or at least it has been thought to have one. Maybe with some kind of indirection, like pulseaudio -> gstreamer or xine -> jack sink ? I can't really help you on this. I have no traits for Pulse Audio here, really sorry.

Hint: if Pulse Audio does not have a JACK backend it probably must or should have a native ALSA one. Maybe you can get by messing around with the infamous dmix plugin?

Try this one example as your .asoundrc file:

pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "plugdmix"
}

pcm.plugdmix  {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    slave {
        pcm "hw:0,0"
        period_time 0
        period_size 1024
        buffer_size 4096
        rate 44100
    }
    bindings {
        0 0
        1 1
    }
}

pcm.dsp0
{
    type plug
    slave.pcm "plugdmix"
}

ctl.plugdmix {
    type hw
    card 0
}

and then start JACK with plugdmix as it's device name, like this:

  jackd -R -dalsa -r44100 -p1024 -n2 -D -Chw:0 -Pplugdmix -i2 -o2

Or with equivalent settings in QjackCtl ;)

Server path: jackd
Realtime: yes (-R)
Driver: alsa (-dalsa)
Sample Rate: 44100 (-r44100)
Frames/Period: 1024 (-p1024)
Periods/Buffer: 2 (-n2)
Audio: Duplex (-D)
Input Device: hw:0 (-Chw:0)
Output Device: plugdmix (-Pplugdmix)
Input Channels: 2 (-i2)
Output Channels: 2 (-o2)

Ah, of course, this is assuming your first sound-card in regard to ALSA is the one to take the trouble (hw:0).

Cheers.
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela