Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

Hello
I am working on a graphical mixing/routing application for the Emu10k series
of semi-pro soundcards, but I am having trouble figuring out the routing
mechanism of the driver, specially the "Multichannel PCM" part. Is there any
technical documentation on this card I could read (I haven't found any), or
maybe the driver developer can help me out?

Thanks,
Camilo.

Re: Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Ctirad Fertr]

Dne Tuesday 15 of April 2008 10:26:06 Camilo Polymeris napsal(a):

Hello

> I am working on a graphical mixing/routing application for the Emu10k
> series of semi-pro soundcards, 

That is great!  I planned to try to write one, but never have enough time to 
do that. 

> but I am having trouble figuring out the 
> routing mechanism of the driver, specially the "Multichannel PCM" part. Is
> there any technical documentation on this card I could read (I haven't
> found any),

I'm afraid there is no documentation at all. The emu10k1.h and  emumixer.c are 
quite self explanatory, though. Especially the first one.

The basic idea is that we have two chips. One is custom FPGA, where all the  
physical inputs and outpusts are connected. The second chip is the emu10k 
which is conected to FPGA by a bunch of 32bit  buses. There are 32 buses from 
emu10k to FPGA called DSP0 to DSP31 used for playback and 21 buses in other 
direction called DSP0 to DSP15 (hexa numbering!) used for capture. 1 bus = 
one audio channel except for higher sample rates (e.g. 96kHz and 192kHz), 
where multiple buses are used to transfer one channel. The FPGA can assign 
any physical input (or playback DSP channel) to any capture DSP channel and 
same for outputs (see alsamixer). The multichannel capture on hw:0,2 captures 
the first 16 channels (DSP0 to DSPD). The multichannel playback on hw:0,3 is 
routed to DSP0 to DSP15.  
I hope it helps.

>  or maybe the driver developer can help me out?

Well, I'm not quite a driver developer, but I think I know E-mu cards well to 
answer any questions important for mixer appliacation ;)  So please ask. I'd 
like to help you to imporve alsa suport for these excellent cards.

Best Regards,

Ctirad

Re: Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

Hello


> The basic idea is that we have two chips. One is custom FPGA, where all
> the
> physical inputs and outpusts are connected. The second chip is the emu10k
> which is conected to FPGA by a bunch of 32bit  buses. There are 32 buses
> from
> emu10k to FPGA called DSP0 to DSP31 used for playback and 21 buses in
> other
> direction called DSP0 to DSP15 (hexa numbering!) used for capture. 1 bus =
> one audio channel except for higher sample rates (e.g. 96kHz and 192kHz),
> where multiple buses are used to transfer one channel. The FPGA can assign
> any physical input (or playback DSP channel) to any capture DSP channel
> and
> same for outputs (see alsamixer). The multichannel capture on hw:0,2
> captures
> the first 16 channels (DSP0 to DSPD). The multichannel playback on hw:0,3
> is
> routed to DSP0 to DSP15.
> I hope it helps.


That is more or less what I had figured out, but it how are playback_1 to
_16 channels routed to DSP0-15? It seems that it depends on the setting of
Front, Surround, LFE, etc. mixer controls. If they are turned up, I don't
understand what happens, sound to playback channels appears on various DSP
buses, at different levels.
If I turn the Front/Surround/LFE/etc. faders down, I can mix playback
channels to DSP using the "Multichannel PCM Send/Routing/Volume" faders, in
a more or less intuitive way, besides that routing values do not map
directly to DSP buses (i.e. 14-15 map to DSP0-1, but 2-3 map to DSP2-3).
There is also a set of mixer controls called "EMU10k Routing", or similar,
which I haven't even looked at.

>
> >  or maybe the driver developer can help me out?
>
> Well, I'm not quite a driver developer, but I think I know E-mu cards well
> to
> answer any questions important for mixer appliacation ;)  So please ask.
> I'd
> like to help you to imporve alsa suport for these excellent cards.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Ctirad
>
>
Thanks for your help, and sorry everyone for double-posting

Camilo

Re: Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

Hello

> That is more or less what I had figured out, but it how are playback_1 to
> > _16 channels routed to DSP0-15? It seems that it depends on the setting
> of
> > Front, Surround, LFE, etc. mixer controls. If they are turned up, I
> don't
> > understand what happens, sound to playback channels appears on various
> DSP
> > buses, at different levels.
>
> Really? Well, I didn't much experiment with surround mode. In source code,
> I
> can see that there are up to playback 8 channels at hw:0,0 with can be
> controlled by faders in alsamixer. I tried surround40 and surroun51 on my
> emu1616m and it worked as expected. The channles were mapped to first
> couple
> of DSP ports in a correct order. In fact this should work the same as
> audigy
> does, except the result is passed to DSP ports instead of physical
> outputs.
>

On my card, playback channels 1 & 2 (hw:0,3) appear on all DSP busses
associated with surround.
Say you turn up the "Side" fader in alsamixer, channels 1 & 2 will appear at
the relevant DSPs (6-7, I think)
Whatever, for now I am just keeping all surround controls down (that is,
Front, Surround, Center, Side & LFE).


> Anyway, I think if there is another layer of routing done in audigy DSP,
> it
> shouldn't be used in EMU specific application. Or at least not for now.
> The
> most important thing is to provide all the switches and FPGA routing
> scheme
> for each EMU model. Or, to be precise, three routing schemes for each EMU
> model, because for "double speed" (e.g. 96kHz) and "quadro speed" (e.g.
> 192kHz) modes of operation the numebr of both physical and virtual
> channels
> changes.
>

I think the switches and enums for the card models are rather trivial, one
can handle it with a customized version
of qamix (done with a simple XML file), for example. A separate application
would not be necessary for only that.


> > If I turn the Front/Surround/LFE/etc. faders down, I can mix playback
> > channels to DSP using the "Multichannel PCM Send/Routing/Volume" faders,
> in
> > a more or less intuitive way, besides that routing values do not map
> > directly to DSP buses (i.e. 14-15 map to DSP0-1, but 2-3 map to DSP2-3).
>

Handling of this controls motivated me to write the application in the first
place.
No sound at all will appear if I don't set the appropiate controls for each
playback channel: Multichannel PCM Volume (full), Multichannel PCM Send (an
index of 8 controls, the first 4 select the target DSP) & Multichannel PCM
Send Volume (again faders 0-3 of 8)
By the way, only DSP0-7 work in this way. I have no idea how to make DSP8-31
work.

On which card you did tested it? The driver was primary written for the
> 1820M/1212M V1, so some things may not work well on other models and need
> to
> be fixed.


I have a 1212m, don't know which version, but I think it's V1-- it does have
firewire.
I am using driver version 1.0.16.

Thanks,
Camilo.

Re: Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Ctirad Fertr]

Hello.

> On my card, playback channels 1 & 2 (hw:0,3) appear on all DSP busses
> associated with surround.
> Say you turn up the "Side" fader in alsamixer, channels 1 & 2 will appear
> at the relevant DSPs (6-7, I think)
> Whatever, for now I am just keeping all surround controls down (that is,
> Front, Surround, Center, Side & LFE).

I see, you talking hw:0,3. Perhaps this will help: 
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/sound/alsa/Audigy-mixer.txt
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/sound/alsa/emu10k1-jack.txt

> I think the switches and enums for the card models are rather trivial, one
> can handle it with a customized version
> of qamix (done with a simple XML file), for example. A separate application
> would not be necessary for only that.

I disagree. With all the switches, routing, sample rates and several models, 
the EMU is one of the most complex cards. Definitely more complex than 
Envy24, Echo or perhaps even RME/HDSP. All these cards have their 
appliactions in alsa tools. 

> By the way, only DSP0-7 work in this way. I have no idea how to make
> DSP8-31 work.

You cannot do that without a driver modification. There is no any EMU specific 
code for hw:0,3. It somewhat works thanks to DSP code in hw:0,0, which copies 
data from emu10k registers to DSP0 to DSP7 ports. 

Personally, I'd like to have an 8 channel 24bit  playback on hw:0,0 with all 
the fader stuff for consumer playback and then another device (modified 
hw:0,3 or even a new one)  for (at least) 16 channel 24bit playback directly 
passed onto DSP buses. 

Regards,

Ctirad    

Re: Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

Hello,
for those of you not subscribed to LAD, I finally got to write a mixer
application for the EMU 1010 based cards. I tossed out the original
ideas of a full-featured app and went the simple way, just basic
point-to-point routing, no fancy "Multichannel"  features.

It's available here: http://code.google.com/p/emutrix/
Screenshot:
http://www2.udec.cl/~cpolymeris/emutrix/Screenshot-EMutrix-1.png

Be aware that the code is awful, just fast prototyping, but functional.
It may also mess with your mixer levels, if you want to try it. please
make a backup with 'alsactl store'.

Feedback welcome,
Camilo


On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 23:32 +0200, Ctirad Fertr wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> > On my card, playback channels 1 & 2 (hw:0,3) appear on all DSP busses
> > associated with surround.
> > Say you turn up the "Side" fader in alsamixer, channels 1 & 2 will appear
> > at the relevant DSPs (6-7, I think)
> > Whatever, for now I am just keeping all surround controls down (that is,
> > Front, Surround, Center, Side & LFE).
> 
> I see, you talking hw:0,3. Perhaps this will help: 
> http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/sound/alsa/Audigy-mixer.txt
> http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/sound/alsa/emu10k1-jack.txt
> 
> > I think the switches and enums for the card models are rather trivial, one
> > can handle it with a customized version
> > of qamix (done with a simple XML file), for example. A separate application
> > would not be necessary for only that.
> 
> I disagree. With all the switches, routing, sample rates and several models, 
> the EMU is one of the most complex cards. Definitely more complex than 
> Envy24, Echo or perhaps even RME/HDSP. All these cards have their 
> appliactions in alsa tools. 
> 
> > By the way, only DSP0-7 work in this way. I have no idea how to make
> > DSP8-31 work.
> 
> You cannot do that without a driver modification. There is no any EMU specific 
> code for hw:0,3. It somewhat works thanks to DSP code in hw:0,0, which copies 
> data from emu10k registers to DSP0 to DSP7 ports. 
> 
> Personally, I'd like to have an 8 channel 24bit  playback on hw:0,0 with all 
> the fader stuff for consumer playback and then another device (modified 
> hw:0,3 or even a new one)  for (at least) 16 channel 24bit playback directly 
> passed onto DSP buses. 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Ctirad    
> _______________________________________________
> Alsa-devel mailing list
> Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
> http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel

Re: Mixer application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

On Sun, 2010-08-29 at 03:40 -0400, Camilo Polymeris wrote:
> Hello,
> for those of you not subscribed to LAD, I finally got to write a mixer
> application for the EMU 1010 based cards. I tossed out the original
> ideas of a full-featured app and went the simple way, just basic
> point-to-point routing, no fancy "Multichannel"  features.
> 
> It's available here: http://code.google.com/p/emutrix/
> Screenshot:
> http://www2.udec.cl/~cpolymeris/emutrix/Screenshot-EMutrix-1.png
> 
> Be aware that the code is awful, just fast prototyping, but functional.
> It may also mess with your mixer levels, if you want to try it. please
> make a backup with 'alsactl store'.
> 
> Feedback welcome,
> Camilo
> 

While writing this software I realized that the input and output pads
are actually -12dB pads, not -14dB as the driver states. I guess they
are thought as +4dBu/-10dBV (= ~12dB) switches.
Also the driver says SPDIF input is on the 0202 daughter card, but at
least in my card it's on the 1010 main card.
I have a 1212M V1 card. If anyone has one of these cards, can you
confirm that these are true for other/all cards of the series?

Thanks
Camilo

Patchmix-style application for EMU cards

[Camilo Polymeris]

Hello
I am working on a graphical mixing/routing application for the Emu10k series
of semi-pro soundcards, but I am having trouble figuring out the routing
mechanism of the driver, specially the "Multichannel PCM" part. Is there any
technical documentation on this card I could read (I haven't found any), or
maybe the driver developer can help me out?

Thanks,
Camilo.