Hammerfall configuration

Hammerfall configuration

[patrick reardon]

i have an AI-3 connected to the hammerfall's optical in/outs.  the converter will slave to
any clock, but when it's the master clock it only operates at 48K.  when i use "arecord -f
cd <file>" this seems to cause arecord to write 44.1k headers even though the data is at
48K.  "aplay" has no  problem with this (files play back at normal speed), but it seems to
cause problems with other software such as "cdrecord" which burns the files to disk about
2-3 half steps too low.  i tried resampling down to 44.1k with "sox" but it didn't seem to
help (i'm guessing it's also fooled by the 44.1k headers).

i'd like to use the hammerfall's internal clock as the master and let the AI-3 slave to
it, but am having trouble changing the configuration of the card.  i've looked for
documentation about this but so far haven't found any.  i tried editing asound.state 

-----------snip------------
        control.7 {
                comment.access 'read write'
                comment.type ENUMERATED
                comment.item.0 AutoSync
                comment.item.1 Master
                comment.item.2 'Word Clock'
                iface PCM
                name 'Sync Mode'
                value AutoSync
        }
        control.8 {
                comment.access 'read write'
                comment.type ENUMERATED
                comment.item.0 'IEC958 In'
                comment.item.1 'ADAT1 In'
                comment.item.2 'ADAT2 In'
                iface PCM
                name 'Preferred Sync Source'
                value 'ADAT1 In'
------------snip------------

by hand, changing the 'Sync Mode'  value from AutoSync to Master (should these values be
in quotes?), ran "alsactl store hammerfall", unloaded then reloaded the alsa modules, then
ran "alsactl restore hammerfall.  ("hammerfall" is the card's id.)  but asound.state 
still indicates Sync Mode is set to AutoSync.  "vi /proc/asound/hammerfall/rme9652" reads

--------------snip----------------
Latency: 8192 samples (2 periods of 32768 bytes)
Hardware pointer (frames): 0
Passthru: no
Clock mode: autosync
Pref. sync source: ADAT1

IEC958 input: Coaxial
IEC958 output: Coaxial only
IEC958 quality: Consumer
IEC958 emphasis: off
IEC958 Dolby: off
IEC958 sample rate: error flag set

ADAT Sample rate: 48000Hz
ADAT1: No Lock
ADAT2: No Lock
ADAT3: No Lock
--------------snip-----------------



i'm also curious if the "IEC958 sample rate: error flag set" is normal and if not, what to
look at to fix it.  asound.state says

----------snip-----------
        control.10 {
                comment.access read
                comment.type INTEGER
                comment.range '0 - 96000'
                iface PCM
                name 'IEC958 Sample Rate'
                value -1
----------snip-----------


changing the configuration must be a simple affair (i think) but i'm out of ideas.  any
suggestions or a pointer to relevant documentation would be appreciated.  also, if there's
no  documentation on this issue, i'd be glad to write some once i figure it out.  

tia, 
patrick


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Re: Hammerfall configuration

[Paul Davis]

>by hand, changing the 'Sync Mode' value from AutoSync to Master
>(should these values be in quotes?), ran "alsactl store hammerfall",
>unloaded then reloaded the alsa m odules, then ran "alsactl restore
>hammerfall.  ("hammerfall" is the card's id.)  but asound .state
>still indicates Sync Mode is set to AutoSync.  "vi
>/proc/asound/hammerfall/rme 9652" reads

you got the process wrong.

1) alsactl store hammerfall 
2) edit file
3) alsactl restore hammerfall

no driver unload/load is needed. each time you reload the module
without the 3rd step, you get back to the driver's own default
settings.

>i'm also curious if the "IEC958 sample rate: error flag set" is normal and if 
>not, what to
>look at to fix it.  asound.state says

it means you have no s/pdif input.

--p


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Re: Hammerfall configuration

[patrick reardon]

it works!  disks burn correctly now.  thanks to everyone who helped me get this
straightened out, especially paul davis and joerg shilling.  in case it might help someone
else, i'm running a redhat based system and load the hammerfall modules at boot time with
this line added to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit: 

action "Loading ALSA Hammerfall driver" modprobe snd-rme9652

/etc/modules.conf is set to load soundcore and snd-rme9652-mem before snd-rme9652, so this
takes care of it.  to automatically set the hammerfall's internal clock as master (or use
any non-default configuration) , the line

action "Setting Hammerfall as master clock" alsactl restore snd-rme9652

can be added after the modprobe command.

patrick



Paul Davis wrote:
> 
> >by hand, changing the 'Sync Mode' value from AutoSync to Master
> >(should these values be in quotes?), ran "alsactl store hammerfall",
> >unloaded then reloaded the alsa m odules, then ran "alsactl restore
> >hammerfall.  ("hammerfall" is the card's id.)  but asound .state
> >still indicates Sync Mode is set to AutoSync.  "vi
> >/proc/asound/hammerfall/rme 9652" reads
> 
> you got the process wrong.
> 
> 1) alsactl store hammerfall
> 2) edit file
> 3) alsactl restore hammerfall
> 
> no driver unload/load is needed. each time you reload the module
> without the 3rd step, you get back to the driver's own default
> settings.
> 
> >i'm also curious if the "IEC958 sample rate: error flag set" is normal and if
> >not, what to
> >look at to fix it.  asound.state says
> 
> it means you have no s/pdif input.
> 
> --p


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Re: Hammerfall configuration

[Paul Davis]

>it works!  disks burn correctly now.  thanks to everyone who helped
>me get thi s straightened out, especially paul davis and joerg
>shilling.  in case it might help someone else, i'm running a redhat
>based system and load the hammerfall modules at boo t time with this
>line added to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:
>
>action "Loading ALSA Hammerfall driver" modprobe snd-rme9652
>
>/etc/modules.conf is set to load soundcore and snd-rme9652-mem before
>snd-rme9 652, so this takes care of it.

this is not quite right. rc.sysint should load just
snd-rme9652-mem. it will work the way you have it, but there is no
reason to load snd-rme9652 in rc.sysinit - this (unlike
snd-rme9652-mem) will require loading of all of the ALSA
infrastructure as well. 

>action "Setting Hammerfall as master clock" alsactl restore snd-rme9652
>
>can be added after the modprobe command.

this will happen anyway if /etc/asound.state contains the relevant
setting for the card. that is, if you've set it to master, and ALSA is
shutdown normally, then /etc/asound.state will be used to reset the
state when the alsasound init script runs.

--p


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Re: Hammerfall configuration

[patrick reardon]

Paul Davis wrote:
> 
> >line added to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:
> >
> >action "Loading ALSA Hammerfall driver" modprobe snd-rme9652
> >
> >/etc/modules.conf is set to load soundcore and snd-rme9652-mem before
> >snd-rme9 652, so this takes care of it.
> 
> this is not quite right. rc.sysint should load just
> snd-rme9652-mem. it will work the way you have it, but there is no
> reason to load snd-rme9652 in rc.sysinit - this (unlike
> snd-rme9652-mem) will require loading of all of the ALSA
> infrastructure as well.

i go ahead and do it anyway so i don't have to bother with it later, but i see your
point.  the *-mem module is the only one that really needs to be loaded early.

> 
> >action "Setting Hammerfall as master clock" alsactl restore snd-rme9652
> >
> >can be added after the modprobe command.
> 
> this will happen anyway if /etc/asound.state contains the relevant
> setting for the card. that is, if you've set it to master, and ALSA is
> shutdown normally, then /etc/asound.state will be used to reset the
> state when the alsasound init script runs.

ah.  a few days ago i removed the alsasound init script and just did everything by hand
trying to debug this problem.  guess i should put it back :-[

patrick


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