Following a hint on the Lines forum I installed the Liquorix Kernel with a fresh Bunsenlabs on my Lenovo x230. It seems that I now have an excellent performance running Tidal Cycles. So this might also be an option for others running Tidal on Linux.
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Very interesting. I use x230 too 
and now I am curious to try it. Did u use some benchmarks or everything just became more responsive? So far with default kernel only problems I encountered were some "late messages" with big patterns especially with fix functions.
Hi,
I did not use any benchmarks. And the laptop wasn't slow at all before (it has an i7 and 16 GB RAM; I also use a Focusrite Scarlett USB interface), but: I did try some quite complex patterns and I am pretty sure that with the former kernel (It was Pop!_OS 20.04, Linux Kernel 5.4) xruns would have been occurred xruns much earlier. It also seems to me that even with complex things going on the DSP load is quite low.
Let me know if you can confirm that in case you will try out Liquorix Kernel.
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So I tried zen kernel which is very similar to Liquorix (by same developers) and it was in official repo with binaries while Liquorix was not (would have needed to compile for hours and hours).
Tried to calculate xruns in 100 sec running some intense (but not too much) synth patterns. Strangely with mainline I got 15 xruns while with zen - 100. Don't know why it performed so bad. My x230 is a bit weaker with i5 and 8GB ram. Also maybe Liquorix does something magical that zen doesn't.
Out of topic but can interfaces like Focusrite Scarlett USB interface be used to connect hardware synth which has only audio out and read signal into supercollider or daw?
Mmh... I still have the standard Debian 10 Kernel (I guess 5.4). I will check and compare the two kernels and report back. Not sure when but sometime during the next days.
Concerning the interface: yes, I am pretty sure. Mine has a stereo input (micro or line). I think I did record my Waldorf Blofeld (sold now) and I also plugged in my guitar for recoding. You can than route the inputs via Jack into your DAW or Supercollider. (As a side note: if I was to buy a new one I'd go for an USB interface which also has a Midi in, which the 2i2 does not have.)
PS.: The external interface makes a huge difference in terms of performance. Though obviously this does not explain your results, because both Kernels should profit from this...
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Also I didint mention but my audio setup is using Cadence with PulseAudio JACK bridge and Kernel version was 5.12.