I have my doubts that Soundtrap, or ChromeOS, in general - can achieve roundtrip latencies < 10ms. If you were using any real serious DAW (Reaper, Ardour/Harrison Mixbus, Bigwig Studio), the above would be a requirement.
I also suspect that had your interface's driver module been loaded - jackd could've used it no problem.
That all aside - I suspect to really get the best performance out of the device you would really require Jack Audio connection kit + using threaded interrupts in the linux kernel (and putting the device's IRQ at a very high RT priority). I'm not sure why your linux laptop wouldn't have seen it? Maybe your distro's kernel maintainer didn't build it's driver, by default or something? this isn't some feat of chromeOS, really. This device has been supported by mainline linux since 2015/16. You've done what no OS has managed to do in quite some time.Īs a fellow audiophile - and one that only uses linux (10+yrs), I can tell you It's quite rare I'm truly surprised by the OS I am running, so Thanks Chrome OS. Output seemed clear (no digital tearing). Latency, and audio quality itself seemed good, across all 8 channels. Found myself a Chrome OS compatible DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) so in this case I used SoundTrap to run a few tests. By now you've probably guesesd that it did indeed work. But my innate pessimism told me not to be too surprised until it actually worked. (Zoom R16).Īlright, I thought, I'm impressed, my Linux laptop has never found it or had any idea what it was. My Pixelbook, Running Chrome OS, detected my outboard audio equipment as a viable audio source & output.
I plugged in my USB-C dongle from my windows PC and forgot to disconnect my audio equipment (none of it was on so no damage done). Now, This morning I thought, I'm going to make myself do some one of my home projects on the Pixelbook. At home, I have my Gaming rig - Windows - which doubles as my studio rig for the odd bits of work that float my way (I don't advertise, it's not, and never will be my main job), a Linux laptop for work and a Pixelbook (i7). Very familiar with driver issues (although Linux has come a long way in that regard), I'm also a Studio Engineer (music) and very occasionally my 2 worlds meet. I'm a web developer, work in Linux 85% of the time. I'll prefix this with a few things about me for context. TL DR Chrome OS has really good external audio connectivity.