Docs

[jamesb93]

Hi Skrylar,

Is there any guidance you can provide for simple usage of these bindings? The source code is very clear, but I'd rather not bash my way to something you probably already thought about in interface and implementation already.

[Skrylar]

Apologies for the tardiness.

Upstream has a decent reference manual that groups the individual parts of JACK and documents them: https://jackaudio.org/api/ This wrapper follows the C APIs so the code will be about the same.

But shortly what JACK does: it's like a white board that connects sticky notes (programs and sound cards) to other sticky notes, in such a way individual notes are only concerned with taking noise in and putting noise out another end. Another part of JACK (usually managed by the user) puts lines between these notes to determine where the sound goes. It's much like how VSTs work in the Windows/macOS world, except JACK is the host instead of REAPER and none of the programs involved actually need to know anything about anyone else.

So it comes down to what you are specifically trying to do with JACK. It's usually one or more of:

• Managing time; one process keeps time and others consume that time, used to synchronize video or multiple audio devices. Some people even synchronize real-world eurorack MIDI with computers this way.
• Managing connections; typically patchbay or ardour are used for this, but any JACK client can mess with this graph.
• Handling audio: you optionally consume MIDI, Audio or "something else" (you could for example carry OSC in a jack graph, because custom data types are more than allowed, but I am not aware that anybody does this) and optionaly produce MIDI, Audio or "something else."

[rmt]

I think a small nim example would be most useful - for example, create an output port & register a sample rate & process callback. Jack has excellent documentation, but the gcc errors from nim when trying to use low level bindings aren't so obvious. Thanks!