Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Jonathan Gardner]

I'm a developer who spends most of his time in Python writing web apps
but I know my way around C. I've been using Linux for over 10 years
now and I thought it's time to get serious about making Linux work for
the hardware I use. I'm self-employed now, so I don't have to deal
with any legal departments and can help out to my heart's desire.

Disclaimer: I intend to learn how to help debug these issues and hack
on some fairly low-level pieces of software and get a clear sense of
how hardware really works. Mostly this is a "scratch-my-own-itch"
thing, but it's always bothered me that I've never truly understood
what happens below the KDE interface.

I recently bought a Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 motherboard.
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3412#sp I think
"Realtek ALC892" describes the hardware for audio.

I'm running Fedora 13 with KDE which seems to have alsa 1.0.23 running.

I don't know much about hardware or audio, but I do know that it's not
working 100% for me with this motherboard. There are two issues that
stand out.

First, with my older motherboard, I could control the various output
and input levels of the channels. With this motherboard, I only have
one channel "Internal Audio Analog Stereo". This board is supposed to
support up to Dolby 7.1 surround sound. I want to make this computer
my hub for all my devices. Obviously this isn't possible.

Second, I never really got MIDI working, at least not that I recall in
my 10 years of Linux. I know MIDI is possible, I just don't know what
it takes. I've been playing with musescore which apparently plays the
notes over MIDI so you can hear what you wrote, which would be nice.

RTFM is certainly acceptable advice, if you can show me which FM is
preferred. I'll also write some documentation if it helps.

-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardner@jonathangardner.net

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Jonathan Gardner]

If it helps, http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=0aab8c6c7ffa187cba3e7df168806e936dbf82fb

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Jonathan Gardner
<jgardner@jonathangardner.net> wrote:
> I'm a developer who spends most of his time in Python writing web apps
> but I know my way around C. I've been using Linux for over 10 years
> now and I thought it's time to get serious about making Linux work for
> the hardware I use. I'm self-employed now, so I don't have to deal
> with any legal departments and can help out to my heart's desire.
>
> Disclaimer: I intend to learn how to help debug these issues and hack
> on some fairly low-level pieces of software and get a clear sense of
> how hardware really works. Mostly this is a "scratch-my-own-itch"
> thing, but it's always bothered me that I've never truly understood
> what happens below the KDE interface.
>
> I recently bought a Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 motherboard.
> http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3412#sp I think
> "Realtek ALC892" describes the hardware for audio.
>
> I'm running Fedora 13 with KDE which seems to have alsa 1.0.23 running.
>
> I don't know much about hardware or audio, but I do know that it's not
> working 100% for me with this motherboard. There are two issues that
> stand out.
>
> First, with my older motherboard, I could control the various output
> and input levels of the channels. With this motherboard, I only have
> one channel "Internal Audio Analog Stereo". This board is supposed to
> support up to Dolby 7.1 surround sound. I want to make this computer
> my hub for all my devices. Obviously this isn't possible.
>
> Second, I never really got MIDI working, at least not that I recall in
> my 10 years of Linux. I know MIDI is possible, I just don't know what
> it takes. I've been playing with musescore which apparently plays the
> notes over MIDI so you can hear what you wrote, which would be nice.
>
> RTFM is certainly acceptable advice, if you can show me which FM is
> preferred. I'll also write some documentation if it helps.
>
> --
> Jonathan Gardner
> jgardner@jonathangardner.net
>



-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardner@jonathangardner.net

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Clemens Ladisch]

Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> First, with my older motherboard, I could control the various output
> and input levels of the channels. With this motherboard, I only have
> one channel "Internal Audio Analog Stereo".

This looks like PulseAudio's idea of a user-friendly abstraction.
Try "alsamixer -D hw:0".

> Second, I never really got MIDI working, at least not that I recall in
> my 10 years of Linux. I know MIDI is possible, I just don't know what
> it takes. I've been playing with musescore which apparently plays the
> notes over MIDI so you can hear what you wrote, which would be nice.

Your mainboard doesn't support MIDI, but I guess you don't have any
external MIDI devices anyway.

To play back MIDI data, you need some synthesizer.  Try FluidSynth.


Regards,
Clemens

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Jonathan Gardner]

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 3:52 AM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> wrote:
> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>> First, with my older motherboard, I could control the various output
>> and input levels of the channels. With this motherboard, I only have
>> one channel "Internal Audio Analog Stereo".
>
> This looks like PulseAudio's idea of a user-friendly abstraction.
> Try "alsamixer -D hw:0".
>

Beautiful. That's what I'm looking for.

So should I work with PulseAudio to get their GUI working with my
particular situation?

>> Second, I never really got MIDI working, at least not that I recall in
>> my 10 years of Linux. I know MIDI is possible, I just don't know what
>> it takes. I've been playing with musescore which apparently plays the
>> notes over MIDI so you can hear what you wrote, which would be nice.
>
> Your mainboard doesn't support MIDI, but I guess you don't have any
> external MIDI devices anyway.
>
> To play back MIDI data, you need some synthesizer.  Try FluidSynth.
>

I'm playing around with qsynth and pianobooster. No success with sound
yet, but I'm keeping notes.

-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardner@jonathangardner.net

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Clemens Ladisch]

Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 3:52 AM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> wrote:
>> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>>> First, with my older motherboard, I could control the various output
>>> and input levels of the channels. With this motherboard, I only have
>>> one channel "Internal Audio Analog Stereo".
>>
>> This looks like PulseAudio's idea of a user-friendly abstraction.
>> Try "alsamixer -D hw:0".
> 
> Beautiful. That's what I'm looking for.
> 
> So should I work with PulseAudio to get their GUI working with my
> particular situation?

I'm not sure if your situation is one that PA actually wants to handle.


Regards,
Clemens

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Jonathan Gardner]

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> wrote:
> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 3:52 AM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> This looks like PulseAudio's idea of a user-friendly abstraction.
>>> Try "alsamixer -D hw:0".
>>
>> Beautiful. That's what I'm looking for.
>>
>> So should I work with PulseAudio to get their GUI working with my
>> particular situation?
>
> I'm not sure if your situation is one that PA actually wants to handle.
>

I don't understand what you mean, since I am not familiar with ALSA or
PulseAudio. Could someone clarify? Am I doomed to having a
less-than-functional audio icon in my toolbar because of political or
technical issues? Either way, what do you recommend I can do to
improve my situation, and hopefully the situation of others?

-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardner@jonathangardner.net

Re: Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 MIDI and Dolby 5.1/7.1 issues

[Clemens Ladisch]

Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> wrote:
>> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>>> So should I work with PulseAudio to get their GUI working with my
>>> particular situation?
>>
>> I'm not sure if your situation is one that PA actually wants to handle.
> 
> I don't understand what you mean, since I am not familiar with ALSA or
> PulseAudio. Could someone clarify?

Sorry, my statement seems to imply issues that aren't there.

The problem you have is that PulseAudio does not show all the mixer
controls that you need.  I do not know whether this is because the
driver does not give the correct information about these controls, or
because PulseAudio does not interpret it correctly, or because
PulseAudio does not support this situation.

Try asking on the PA list how to configure your system.


Regards,
Clemens