Re: Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

Re: Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
> at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
> implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
> 

Really?  This is certainly news to me.  Why did you remove it?  What's
this "better way" you speak of?  And what's wrong with doing it in the
DSP?

I wish you had said something sooner.  Users have been complaining
vociferously about this as long as I have been involved with ALSA (not
as long as some people, but long enough ;-).

Personally I never thought this was a big deal.  I don't use the Audigy
master volume anyway, I just adjust the volume inside the app.  It seems
broken to me for a program like mplayer to grab the master volume
control anyway.  Shouldn't it just attenuate the PCM samples it's
generating?

Lee



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Ilia Mirkin]

The way that most (OSS at least) applications work is that they grab the
PCM volume control and use that instead of actually adjusting the
amplitude of the PCM samples. The problem that I was originally having
is that the Wave Surround level is not effected by the PCM level,
whereas the Master output is.

i.e. I have headphones plugged into master, aka "front" and a stereo
plugged into Wave Surround, aka "back", and the PCM control only adjusts
the volume of the "front" and not the "back". This is frustrating, since
that means that I can't easily adjust the volume coming out of my
stereo.

---
Ilia Mirkin
imirkin@mit.edu

On Sat, 2005-02-05 at 18:20 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> > I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
> > at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
> > implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
> > 
> 
> Really?  This is certainly news to me.  Why did you remove it?  What's
> this "better way" you speak of?  And what's wrong with doing it in the
> DSP?
> 
> I wish you had said something sooner.  Users have been complaining
> vociferously about this as long as I have been involved with ALSA (not
> as long as some people, but long enough ;-).
> 
> Personally I never thought this was a big deal.  I don't use the Audigy
> master volume anyway, I just adjust the volume inside the app.  It seems
> broken to me for a program like mplayer to grab the master volume
> control anyway.  Shouldn't it just attenuate the PCM samples it's
> generating?
> 
> Lee
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Lee Revell]

On Sat, 2005-02-05 at 20:34 -0500, Ilia Mirkin wrote:
> The way that most (OSS at least) applications work is that they grab the
> PCM volume control and use that instead of actually adjusting the
> amplitude of the PCM samples. The problem that I was originally having
> is that the Wave Surround level is not effected by the PCM level,
> whereas the Master output is.

How do they know which control to use?  Just blithely grabbing the
master seems boneheaded.  What if another application is playing sound
at the same time?  I certainly don't want or expect the volume control
in mplayer to affect the output levels of other applications.  For
example a configuration that uses the front and rear speakers as
indepenent stereo PCMs.  Lowering the volume in the app A that's playing
to the front speakers should NOT affect the volume in app B that's
playing to the rear speakers.

The emu10k1 has a per PCM volume control ("EMU10K1 PCM Volume") that
does the Right Thing in this situation.

Lee



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Ilia Mirkin]

:) It's not perfect. However if the app were to scale it internally,
you'd run into all sorts of integer crappiness problems (rounding, low
resolution for small values, etc). It does only affect software
applications, and not stuff like direct CD audio and so on. However I
guarantee that on my setup, the PCM volume control, ALSA or OSS, has 0
effect on the volume coming out of the thing controlled by "Wave
Surround".

In theory you are right, every application should be able to tell the
mixer how to mix in ITS contribution to the audio, but it is a little
presumptuous to have to ask everyone to rewrite their applications to
work with some new interface. OSS has been standard for a while, and I
feel that there should be support in ALSA for "the old way" (which there
is, except that the mixer controls don't behave as I might expect).

I have an SB Live! 5.1 card

00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev
07)

or if you want the exact PCI id:

00:09.0 Class 0401: 1102:0002 (rev 07)

I haven't been able to get ld10k1 to work - it dies with something about
being unable to peek. This could be because I run the ALSA that comes
with the 2.6.10 kernel (claims to be 1.0.6). It could be because I don't
have an Audigy card, though it sounds like SB Live! users have been able
to run it.

I'm also not sure what you refer to when you say "EMU10K1 PCM Volume"...
I just have something called "PCM" in alsamixer, along with a dozen
other controls. "Wave Surround" is the only one that does anything to
the volume being played out of the rear jack on the card.

And while I agree that A and B should be able to be independent, I also
feel that there should be a way for them to behave just as they do in
the OSS driver, i.e. mirrored, with independent relative level controls,
but both controlled by the PCM volume.

I'm glad that I started this whole discussion, and it sounds like a lot
of users have problems similar to mine. There should probably be a
couple of "default" configurations, e.g. mirrored, independent,
surround, that load up the proper DSP code automatically, and then if
someone has a REALLY weird setup, then they can screw around with ld10k1
and so on.

---
Ilia Mirkin
imirkin@mit.edu

On Sat, 2005-02-05 at 20:52 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-02-05 at 20:34 -0500, Ilia Mirkin wrote:
> > The way that most (OSS at least) applications work is that they grab the
> > PCM volume control and use that instead of actually adjusting the
> > amplitude of the PCM samples. The problem that I was originally having
> > is that the Wave Surround level is not effected by the PCM level,
> > whereas the Master output is.
> 
> How do they know which control to use?  Just blithely grabbing the
> master seems boneheaded.  What if another application is playing sound
> at the same time?  I certainly don't want or expect the volume control
> in mplayer to affect the output levels of other applications.  For
> example a configuration that uses the front and rear speakers as
> indepenent stereo PCMs.  Lowering the volume in the app A that's playing
> to the front speakers should NOT affect the volume in app B that's
> playing to the rear speakers.
> 
> The emu10k1 has a per PCM volume control ("EMU10K1 PCM Volume") that
> does the Right Thing in this situation.
> 
> Lee
> 



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Adam K Kirchhoff]

Lee Revell wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>  
>
>>I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
>>at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
>>implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Really?  This is certainly news to me.  Why did you remove it?  What's
>this "better way" you speak of?  And what's wrong with doing it in the
>DSP?
>
>I wish you had said something sooner.  Users have been complaining
>vociferously about this as long as I have been involved with ALSA (not
>as long as some people, but long enough ;-).
>
>Personally I never thought this was a big deal.  I don't use the Audigy
>master volume anyway, I just adjust the volume inside the app.  It seems
>broken to me for a program like mplayer to grab the master volume
>control anyway.  Shouldn't it just attenuate the PCM samples it's
>generating?
>
>Lee
>
>
>  
>

So was there any sort of decision made regarding this?  Not having a 
Master volume control for the Live! just seems broken, and will surely 
just continue to generate bug reports.

Adam




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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Takashi Iwai]

At Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:38:17 -0500,
Adam K Kirchhoff wrote:
> 
> Lee Revell wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
> >>at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
> >>implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Really?  This is certainly news to me.  Why did you remove it?  What's
> >this "better way" you speak of?  And what's wrong with doing it in the
> >DSP?
> >
> >I wish you had said something sooner.  Users have been complaining
> >vociferously about this as long as I have been involved with ALSA (not
> >as long as some people, but long enough ;-).
> >
> >Personally I never thought this was a big deal.  I don't use the Audigy
> >master volume anyway, I just adjust the volume inside the app.  It seems
> >broken to me for a program like mplayer to grab the master volume
> >control anyway.  Shouldn't it just attenuate the PCM samples it's
> >generating?
> >
> >Lee
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> So was there any sort of decision made regarding this?  Not having a 
> Master volume control for the Live! just seems broken, and will surely 
> just continue to generate bug reports.

IMO, a "Master" volume should control all volumes as it name stands.
If it doesn't control all channels, it should be renmaed at least as
"Front".


Takashi


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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> IMO, a "Master" volume should control all volumes as it name stands.
> If it doesn't control all channels, it should be renmaed at least as
> "Front".

Yes, renaming is appropriate. I don't like to have some "abstraction" 
code in the kernel. In case of SB Live! you must take care about AC97 and 
DSP setup which is easy to do from the user space and there is a way to
do it now (via the user space controls).

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project, SUSE Labs


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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:05:40 +0100 (CET),
Jaroslav wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> 
> > IMO, a "Master" volume should control all volumes as it name stands.
> > If it doesn't control all channels, it should be renmaed at least as
> > "Front".
> 
> Yes, renaming is appropriate. I don't like to have some "abstraction" 
> code in the kernel. In case of SB Live! you must take care about AC97 and 
> DSP setup which is easy to do from the user space and there is a way to
> do it now (via the user space controls).

I'm afraid that just renaming wouldn't be enough from the perspecitve
of compatibility.  Some apps expect that the master control is
available.  If a small additional DSP code can support the consistent
volume control over all channels, it will make 99% users happy.


Takashi


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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Thierry Vignaud]

Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> writes:

> > > IMO, a "Master" volume should control all volumes as it name
> > > stands.  If it doesn't control all channels, it should be
> > > renmaed at least as "Front".
> > 
> > Yes, renaming is appropriate. I don't like to have some
> > "abstraction" code in the kernel. In case of SB Live! you must
> > take care about AC97 and DSP setup which is easy to do from the
> > user space and there is a way to do it now (via the user space
> > controls).
> 
> I'm afraid that just renaming wouldn't be enough from the
> perspecitve of compatibility.  Some apps expect that the master
> control is available.  If a small additional DSP code can support
> the consistent volume control over all channels, it will make 99%
> users happy.

indeed.
on the second hands, such apps will usually be able to use the OSS
emulation layer.
where is redirected the OSS'main level in this case?



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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 11 Feb 2005 18:08:24 +0100,
Thierry Vignaud wrote:
> 
> Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> writes:
> 
> > > > IMO, a "Master" volume should control all volumes as it name
> > > > stands.  If it doesn't control all channels, it should be
> > > > renmaed at least as "Front".
> > > 
> > > Yes, renaming is appropriate. I don't like to have some
> > > "abstraction" code in the kernel. In case of SB Live! you must
> > > take care about AC97 and DSP setup which is easy to do from the
> > > user space and there is a way to do it now (via the user space
> > > controls).
> > 
> > I'm afraid that just renaming wouldn't be enough from the
> > perspecitve of compatibility.  Some apps expect that the master
> > control is available.  If a small additional DSP code can support
> > the consistent volume control over all channels, it will make 99%
> > users happy.
> 
> indeed.
> on the second hands, such apps will usually be able to use the OSS
> emulation layer.
> where is redirected the OSS'main level in this case?

OSS emulation will try "Front" control if no "Master" is available.
So, it should work.


Takashi


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Re: Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
> at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
> implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
> 

James, can you please elaborate on this a bit?  If you have a better way
then I don't want to waste time doing it in the DSP.

Lee



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> 
>>I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
>>at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
>>implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
>>
> 
> 
> James, can you please elaborate on this a bit?  If you have a better way
> then I don't want to waste time doing it in the DSP.
> 
> Lee
> 

This should instead be supported in the alsa-lib mixer abstraction 
layer, that unfortunately, has not been completed yet.
Then, the DSP would have 3 stereo controls for front, rear, center/lfe 
and the mixer lisp config would add a "virtual" Master control, that 
would present a single "Master" control to the user application, but 
alsa-lib would convert that to control messages to all 3 stereo controls.

I think your time would be better spent completing the mixer abstraction 
layer that other alsa developers have already started.

Another point, I personally did not remove the Master control, but it 
disappeared due to lack of SB Live DSP GPR registers.

James


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Re: [Alsa-devel] Re: Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 19:01 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 22:35 +0000, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> > 
> >>I think it is unwise to implement a Master volume control for the SBLive 
> >>at this time. We had to remove it some time ago, and it can be 
> >>implemented in a better way that in the DSP code.
> >>
> > 
> > 
> > James, can you please elaborate on this a bit?  If you have a better way
> > then I don't want to waste time doing it in the DSP.
> > 
> > Lee
> > 
> 
> This should instead be supported in the alsa-lib mixer abstraction 
> layer, that unfortunately, has not been completed yet.
> Then, the DSP would have 3 stereo controls for front, rear, center/lfe 
> and the mixer lisp config would add a "virtual" Master control, that 
> would present a single "Master" control to the user application, but 
> alsa-lib would convert that to control messages to all 3 stereo controls.
> 
> I think your time would be better spent completing the mixer abstraction 
> layer that other alsa developers have already started.
> 

Sorry but I just don't have the bandwidth to work on alsa-lib.  There is
enough wrong with the emu10k1 driver.

> Another point, I personally did not remove the Master control, but it 
> disappeared due to lack of SB Live DSP GPR registers.

There is something gravely wrong with the default SBLive DSP config if
we don't have enough extra GPRs to implement a master volume.  The kX
driver does everything we do plus a chorus, reverb, and FX mixer.

Lee




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Re: Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Re: SB Live! PCM control

[Peter Zubaj]

Some GPRs are wasted for mute switches. ALSA uses tone controls for all 
channels (kx only for front), ...

Lee Revell wrote:

>There is something gravely wrong with the default SBLive DSP config if
>we don't have enough extra GPRs to implement a master volume.  The kX
>driver does everything we do plus a chorus, reverb, and FX mixer.
>
>Lee
>
>  
>


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