Music Hardware Boundary

Riffmaw does not own ALSA, PipeWire, a microphone, interface, driver, or workstation. It owns the musical reason an exact route is armed, the take and performance records created from it, and the judgment that admits resulting material into music. The shared Audio Hardware and Host Routes page owns the replaceable Linux/device candidate map; Audio owns capture, custody, transport, interruption, and uncertain-playback law.

Admit a musical route

riffmaw.capture_take@2 begins only after the operator visibly arms an exact input and musical purpose. The request pins device and channel identity, driver and graph revisions, sample format and rate, clock epoch, latency and monitoring path, dry/processed split, performer authority, retention, stop/cancel behavior, and byte/duration ceilings. Opening a DAW, plugging in a guitar, or pairing a transmitter grants none of those facts.

One interface may carry channels with different owners. A spoken channel intended for dialogue or transcription enters Echo and, when part of a timed edition, Language Edition. A sung, rapped, instrumental, or musical-spoken-word channel may enter Riffmaw. Shared PCM format and simultaneous capture do not merge consent, custody, session, or acceptance.

Instrument and vocal tracking

An eligible two-input USB interface can place a microphone on input 1 and guitar or bass on input 2. Keep 48 V off for a dynamic microphone and instrument input, use INST/Hi-Z for guitar or bass, begin at low gain, and retain clip/xrun observations. Exact model compatibility still needs a host receipt; a USB connector or vendor page is not Linux evidence.

For amp simulation, monitor through Guitarix or another admitted Linux effect chain and disable direct monitoring when it would double dry and processed paths. For clean practice or a latency-sensitive take, direct monitoring may remain enabled. Riffmaw retains dry DI separately from the amp/cabinet print so a later mix can repair the tone without inventing the source.

TWS microphone profiles, motherboard line input for a passive instrument, anonymous microphone kits, and unmeasured Bluetooth routes are weak primary music-capture candidates. They may enter only after the same exact format, latency, stability, reconnect, and failure bake as any preferred device.

Records and proof

One bounded capture returns PerformanceTake@1, retaining immutable raw audio or MIDI plus the device, clock, channel, consent, discontinuity, and transform facts. A live jam may aggregate several takes and routes inside MusicalPerformanceSession@1; a single take is not silently relabeled as a jam.

The first hardware proof is one network-disabled dry guitar or bass take and one musical-vocal take through a real desktop PipeWire session. Exercise channel swap, clip, xrun, device removal, clock change, processed-monitor failure, cancellation, crash reconciliation, and deterministic export. It proves the musical capture boundary and measured host route—not a general speech path, Language Edition edition, live jam, voice-cloning grant, or hardware compatibility beyond the exact receipt.