How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-11-12 at 18:07 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> 
>>This patch is still missing a few things, like dynamic voice allocation
>>and correctly setting the send routing, but it does work with JACK, and
>>should not interfere with the operation of the other devices.   I tested
>>it like so:
> 
> 
> Here is a patch that adds the mixer controls for this device.  This
> includes the previous patches (add multichannel support and add register
> dump to /proc)  Unfortunately this adds 16 x 3 mixer controls... people
> complain enough about the emu10k1 mixer already, so this might not be
> well received in some circles.  I am not sure what to do about this.
> The kX mixer probably has hundreds of controls, but they are arranged in
> a tree structure.
> 

I have similar problems with the mixer controls. If I add 
p16v(24bit/96khz etc.) support to the emu10k1 driver, it will add a load 
more controls. For example, the volume controls for the 96khz channel 
are separate from the volume controls for emu10k1 48khz channels.
Maybe we need to start discussing ways to separate out mixer controls 
better.
E.g.
Global controls.
Controls specific to a pcm device.
Controls specific to a particular section of DSP code.

And be able to graphically display the mixer, so users can understand 
what is connected to what.
With the emu10k1, users can actually modify the connections between 
elements in the mixer, so the graphical display of the mixer will also 
have to be dynamic where the sound card hardware permits.

My theory is that if we can graphically display the emu10k1 mixer, we 
can use the same graphical display to display all other sound cards, 
because the emu10k1 seems to be one of the most complicated ones around.

The current qlo10k1  ( http://ld10k1.sf.net )  does a very good job so far.
Maybe we can expand the qlo10k1 to be able to handle all sound cards.

James


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Re: How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

[Lee Revell]

On Sun, 2004-11-14 at 11:36 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> > Here is a patch that adds the mixer controls for this device.  This
> > includes the previous patches (add multichannel support and add register
> > dump to /proc)  Unfortunately this adds 16 x 3 mixer controls... people
> > complain enough about the emu10k1 mixer already, so this might not be
> > well received in some circles.  I am not sure what to do about this.
> > The kX mixer probably has hundreds of controls, but they are arranged in
> > a tree structure.
> > 
> 
> I have similar problems with the mixer controls. If I add 
> p16v(24bit/96khz etc.) support to the emu10k1 driver, it will add a load 
> more controls. For example, the volume controls for the 96khz channel 
> are separate from the volume controls for emu10k1 48khz channels.
> Maybe we need to start discussing ways to separate out mixer controls 
> better.
> E.g.
> Global controls.
> Controls specific to a pcm device.
> Controls specific to a particular section of DSP code.

I don't think you need anything really fancy (for now), it would be
sufficient to be able to nest mixer controls.  This would be the
simplest possible change that would solve the problem.  You can have
hundreds of mixer controls if you like, you just display the 8-10 that
the user is most likely to want, then make them drill down to get the
rest.  For example all of the controls for my device would live under
"multichannel PCM" and for yours "P16" or "24/96 controls".

The flat mixer space has hit the limits of what it can do.  We are at
the point where improving the low level drivers requires something to be
done about it.

Lee

Lee  



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Re: How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

[Peter Zubaj]

> .....

emu10k1 is only one chip with complex mixer without own mixer app.

Peter Zubaj



____________________________________
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Re: How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

[Lee Revell]

On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 14:49 +0100, Peter Zubaj wrote:
> > .....
> 
> emu10k1 is only one chip with complex mixer without own mixer app.
> 

Yeah this was going to be my other suggestion.  But, if there are plans
to improve the ALSA mixer API in the near future, this might be wasted
effort.  Maybe it is not possible to have a powerful enough mixer API to
work for any card.

If the ALSA mixer API is not intended to be enough for complex devices,
then this is fine. we can write an emumixer app.  This seems to be how
it works on Windows - simple devices just use the generic Windows mixer,
others have their own custom mixer app.  For example every ASIO driver
is required to implement a control panel.

Anyway since we need hwdep apps like the DSP loader and soundfont stuff
anyway, maybe it would just be easiest to subsume the emu10k1 mixer into
qlo10k1 like the kX driver does.

That being said I still think containers for mixer elements would be an
easy and useful enhancement to the mixer API.  We could at least
eliminate confusion by distinguishing 'Advanced' from 'Standard'
controls and stuffing the former in the 'Advanced' menu.  Most users
only touch 3 or 4 mixer elements, ever.

Lee



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Re: How to display mixer controls to the user? was:Re: [PATCH/RFC] emu10k1 multichannel PCM

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sun, 14 Nov 2004 11:36:30 +0000,
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Fri, 2004-11-12 at 18:07 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> > 
> >>This patch is still missing a few things, like dynamic voice allocation
> >>and correctly setting the send routing, but it does work with JACK, and
> >>should not interfere with the operation of the other devices.   I tested
> >>it like so:
> > 
> > 
> > Here is a patch that adds the mixer controls for this device.  This
> > includes the previous patches (add multichannel support and add register
> > dump to /proc)  Unfortunately this adds 16 x 3 mixer controls... people
> > complain enough about the emu10k1 mixer already, so this might not be
> > well received in some circles.  I am not sure what to do about this.
> > The kX mixer probably has hundreds of controls, but they are arranged in
> > a tree structure.
> > 
> 
> I have similar problems with the mixer controls. If I add 
> p16v(24bit/96khz etc.) support to the emu10k1 driver, it will add a load 
> more controls. For example, the volume controls for the 96khz channel 
> are separate from the volume controls for emu10k1 48khz channels.
> Maybe we need to start discussing ways to separate out mixer controls 
> better.
> E.g.
> Global controls.
> Controls specific to a pcm device.
> Controls specific to a particular section of DSP code.

They can be specified via different iface values.  For example, the
above cases can be distinct with IFACE_MIXER, IFACE_PCM and IFACE_CARD
(or HWDEP), respectively.

IMO, the emu10k1 routing should go to IFACE_PCM instead of
IFACE_MIXER.  (Who wants to change it on the mixer?)
Well, we have to be still careful about the compatibility, though...


Takashi


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