Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Sam]

Hi,

I purchased a Delta 44 for playback with my consumer grade Sony ES
receiver.  Installation of ALSA went smoothly, and I can hear music
okay, but it sometimes clips.  I believe this is because the analog
signal level is set inappropriately and there's no way using Linux
software for me to fix it.  Here's an excerpt from the Delta 44 manual:

        The Delta 44 Digital Recording Interface's analog inputs and
        outputs are compatible with a wide variety of audio products.
        The Delta Control Panel software allows you to configure the
        signal levels of each input individually, and all outputs as a
        group.  Signal level settings of +4/Consumer/-10 are available.
        Selecting the +4 radio button configures the channel(s) for use
        with +4dBu signal levels, compatible with most musical
        instruments and professional mixers.  Selecting the -10 setting
        sets up the channel(s) for -10dBV nominal signal levels,
        commonly used with consumer equipment such as CD, MiniDisc,
        cassette tape and DAT players.  The Consumer setting is
        preferred for semi-pro audio equipment and some consumer
        equipment that is too hot for the -10 setting.  The Consumer
        setting offers approximately 6dB more headroom than does the -10
        setting.  Semi-pro and consumer devices signal levels vary from
        manufacturer-to-manufacturer and even product-to-product, so a
        little experimentation between Consumer and -10 settings may be
        required for optimal results.

The screen shot of the Windows driver shows the choices for +4dBu,
Consumer, and -10dbV.  I was unable to find any way of setting these
using Linux software, including envy24control, and don't see any mention
of them in the ice1712 source code.

I'm disappointed because I spent extra money on this card to get good
quality playback for my music.  I would not have purchased it had I
known this is a problem.  Please make it clear on the Known bugs page or
Soundcard Matrix so no one else makes the same mistake.

Thanks,
Sam



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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Sam wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I purchased a Delta 44 for playback with my consumer grade Sony ES
> receiver.  Installation of ALSA went smoothly, and I can hear music
> okay, but it sometimes clips.  I believe this is because the analog
> signal level is set inappropriately and there's no way using Linux
> software for me to fix it.  Here's an excerpt from the Delta 44 manual:
>
>         The Delta 44 Digital Recording Interface's analog inputs and
>         outputs are compatible with a wide variety of audio products.
>         The Delta Control Panel software allows you to configure the
>         signal levels of each input individually, and all outputs as a
>         group.  Signal level settings of +4/Consumer/-10 are available.
>         Selecting the +4 radio button configures the channel(s) for use
>         with +4dBu signal levels, compatible with most musical
>         instruments and professional mixers.  Selecting the -10 setting
>         sets up the channel(s) for -10dBV nominal signal levels,
>         commonly used with consumer equipment such as CD, MiniDisc,
>         cassette tape and DAT players.  The Consumer setting is
>         preferred for semi-pro audio equipment and some consumer
>         equipment that is too hot for the -10 setting.  The Consumer
>         setting offers approximately 6dB more headroom than does the -10
>         setting.  Semi-pro and consumer devices signal levels vary from
>         manufacturer-to-manufacturer and even product-to-product, so a
>         little experimentation between Consumer and -10 settings may be
>         required for optimal results.
>
> The screen shot of the Windows driver shows the choices for +4dBu,
> Consumer, and -10dbV.  I was unable to find any way of setting these
> using Linux software, including envy24control, and don't see any mention
> of them in the ice1712 source code.
>
> I'm disappointed because I spent extra money on this card to get good
> quality playback for my music.  I would not have purchased it had I
> known this is a problem.  Please make it clear on the Known bugs page or
> Soundcard Matrix so no one else makes the same mistake.

I think that your problems are probably caused by underruns (system does
not deliver samples to the DMA buffer for your card in time). The analog
levels can be changed using alsamixer or envy24control (use analog
section). The driver fully supports your hardware and yes, it is difficult
to make reliable sound output for the ICE1712 chip with the standard linux
kernels. Look for lowlatency patches.

						Jaroslav

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


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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 06:07:14PM -0700, Sam wrote:
> I'm disappointed because I spent extra money on this card to get good
> quality playback for my music.  I would not have purchased it had I
> known this is a problem.  Please make it clear on the Known bugs page or
> Soundcard Matrix so no one else makes the same mistake.

This is a feature!

envy24control does a much better job than just three settings - the volume
sliders in the Analog Volume tab lets you set it to any values, not just
three pre-chosen values.  Then, of course, you can mix different routes
with the sliders next to the level meters.  Between these, the volume
with ALSA is far more flexible than with Windows.  It just takes a bit
to get used to it.

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.


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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Sam]

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 10:37, Ross Vandegrift wrote:
> This is a feature!
> 
> envy24control does a much better job than just three settings - the volume
> sliders in the Analog Volume tab lets you set it to any values, not just
> three pre-chosen values.  Then, of course, you can mix different routes
> with the sliders next to the level meters.  Between these, the volume
> with ALSA is far more flexible than with Windows.  It just takes a bit
> to get used to it.

Oh, oh...  oh!  I see!

I was feeling the sinking "I'm getting 90% of functionality with Linux
because hardware companies don't see the light yet, sigh" and now it's
been replaced with the less frequent feeling of "the Linux version does
it better.  Yeah!"

Cool, thanks for setting me straight.  I brought down the analog signal
to 110 (from 127) and it has improved the problem significantly, though
not solved it completely.  I chose 110 by doing A/B comparisons with my
DVD player to try to match the volume.  Unfortunately, there's still a
slight buzzing/clicking sometimes with the Delta 44 that I don't hear
from my Pioneer DVD player playing the same music, and it cost me less
than the Delta 44.  :-(  I also don't hear the problem using the same
source file through a Logitech DAC.

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 00:44, Jaroslav Kysela wrote: 
> I think that your problems are probably caused by underruns (system does
> not deliver samples to the DMA buffer for your card in time). The analog
> levels can be changed using alsamixer or envy24control (use analog
> section). The driver fully supports your hardware and yes, it is difficult
> to make reliable sound output for the ICE1712 chip with the standard linux
> kernels. Look for lowlatency patches.

Thanks for the suggestion; I've already tried both low latency and
preemptible kernel patches.

I noticed that the sound card was sharing an interrupt with three other
devices, so I swapped PCI cards around until the sound card got its own
IRQ.  This didn't help.

The problem is subtle enough that if this were (for example) a Creative
Labs sound card, I'd dismiss it.  It's the fact that I was trying to
purchase my last sound card (get that part of my life "handled", like
the guy in Fight Club with his sofa) that's causing me to be bothered by
this.

Though I'm no expert I'm guessing that because it's so subtle it's not a
driver problem.  Perhaps when I get a paycheck again I'll play roulette
and try a different high-end sound card.

Thanks for your help and suggestions (and for writing these great
drivers).

Sam




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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Paul Davis]

>Oh, oh...  oh!  I see!
>
>I was feeling the sinking "I'm getting 90% of functionality with Linux
>because hardware companies don't see the light yet, sigh" and now it's
>been replaced with the less frequent feeling of "the Linux version does
>it better.  Yeah!"

although it makes me happy to see you feeling this way, i felt
compelled to add that i'm not necessarily sure that the linux way *is*
better. its more flexible, that's true. but the two different
standards for "input maximum signal level" are just that - standards -
and the fader to control this makes it much harder to switch between
the two levels that all of my equipment uses.

i'm just nitpicking really, we all love linux, once we get it
working :)

--p


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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 10 Sep 2003 08:06:59 -0400,
Paul Davis wrote:
> 
> >Oh, oh...  oh!  I see!
> >
> >I was feeling the sinking "I'm getting 90% of functionality with Linux
> >because hardware companies don't see the light yet, sigh" and now it's
> >been replaced with the less frequent feeling of "the Linux version does
> >it better.  Yeah!"
> 
> although it makes me happy to see you feeling this way, i felt
> compelled to add that i'm not necessarily sure that the linux way *is*
> better. its more flexible, that's true. but the two different
> standards for "input maximum signal level" are just that - standards -
> and the fader to control this makes it much harder to switch between
> the two levels that all of my equipment uses.

that's true - but i'd like to say that it's a design problem of mixer
application, not the whole audio infrastructure.

for my eyes, a good-looking, user-friendly and (still) fully
functional mixer is the biggest missing feature on linux audio.

it's quite hard to achieve a perfect "all-purpose" mixer.
there is no such one on windows nor macos.  each hardware vendor
provides their own mixer application to control their cards fully.

> 
> i'm just nitpicking really, we all love linux, once we get it
> working :)

hehe, working how well? :)


Takashi


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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Sam]

On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 05:06, Paul Davis wrote:
> although it makes me happy to see you feeling this way, i felt
> compelled to add that i'm not necessarily sure that the linux way *is*
> better. its more flexible, that's true. but the two different
> standards for "input maximum signal level" are just that - standards -
> and the fader to control this makes it much harder to switch between
> the two levels that all of my equipment uses.

This is a good point.  Maybe my sound problem is only my poor skill at
setting the output signal level appropriately.

Chances are M-Audio put some thought into the +4dBu,
Consumer, and -10dbV presets.  Does anyone know how we could map these
to the corresponding 7 bit values?  I could probably patch envy24control
to add analog signal presets so we could have the best of both features.

Sam




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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Jan Depner]

I get that "overdriven" sound using the Digital Mixer instead of PCM Out
1 and 2.  On the subject of xruns, which IRQ did you end up with???

Jan

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 22:59, Sam wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 10:37, Ross Vandegrift wrote:
> > This is a feature!
> > 
> > envy24control does a much better job than just three settings - the volume
> > sliders in the Analog Volume tab lets you set it to any values, not just
> > three pre-chosen values.  Then, of course, you can mix different routes
> > with the sliders next to the level meters.  Between these, the volume
> > with ALSA is far more flexible than with Windows.  It just takes a bit
> > to get used to it.
> 
> Oh, oh...  oh!  I see!
> 
> I was feeling the sinking "I'm getting 90% of functionality with Linux
> because hardware companies don't see the light yet, sigh" and now it's
> been replaced with the less frequent feeling of "the Linux version does
> it better.  Yeah!"
> 
> Cool, thanks for setting me straight.  I brought down the analog signal
> to 110 (from 127) and it has improved the problem significantly, though
> not solved it completely.  I chose 110 by doing A/B comparisons with my
> DVD player to try to match the volume.  Unfortunately, there's still a
> slight buzzing/clicking sometimes with the Delta 44 that I don't hear
> from my Pioneer DVD player playing the same music, and it cost me less
> than the Delta 44.  :-(  I also don't hear the problem using the same
> source file through a Logitech DAC.
> 
> On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 00:44, Jaroslav Kysela wrote: 
> > I think that your problems are probably caused by underruns (system does
> > not deliver samples to the DMA buffer for your card in time). The analog
> > levels can be changed using alsamixer or envy24control (use analog
> > section). The driver fully supports your hardware and yes, it is difficult
> > to make reliable sound output for the ICE1712 chip with the standard linux
> > kernels. Look for lowlatency patches.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion; I've already tried both low latency and
> preemptible kernel patches.
> 
> I noticed that the sound card was sharing an interrupt with three other
> devices, so I swapped PCI cards around until the sound card got its own
> IRQ.  This didn't help.
> 
> The problem is subtle enough that if this were (for example) a Creative
> Labs sound card, I'd dismiss it.  It's the fact that I was trying to
> purchase my last sound card (get that part of my life "handled", like
> the guy in Fight Club with his sofa) that's causing me to be bothered by
> this.
> 
> Though I'm no expert I'm guessing that because it's so subtle it's not a
> driver problem.  Perhaps when I get a paycheck again I'll play roulette
> and try a different high-end sound card.
> 
> Thanks for your help and suggestions (and for writing these great
> drivers).
> 
> Sam
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[James Courtier-Dutton]

Sam wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 05:06, Paul Davis wrote:
> 
>>although it makes me happy to see you feeling this way, i felt
>>compelled to add that i'm not necessarily sure that the linux way *is*
>>better. its more flexible, that's true. but the two different
>>standards for "input maximum signal level" are just that - standards -
>>and the fader to control this makes it much harder to switch between
>>the two levels that all of my equipment uses.
> 
> 
> This is a good point.  Maybe my sound problem is only my poor skill at
> setting the output signal level appropriately.
> 
> Chances are M-Audio put some thought into the +4dBu,
> Consumer, and -10dbV presets.  Does anyone know how we could map these
> to the corresponding 7 bit values?  I could probably patch envy24control
> to add analog signal presets so we could have the best of both features.
> 
> Sam
> 
I think this highlights a particular problem with the current alsa mixer.
It might have a value from 0 to 100%. Percent of what?
I think that this should all be changed to signed values, with a max and 
a min setting. With a value of 0 being equivalent to no-gain, 
no-attenuation. Each alsa-driver would then convert this signed value 
into a value actually written to the hardware register via a lookup table.

Cheers
James




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Re: Please add snd-ice1712 problem to "Known bugs" page

[Ross Vandegrift]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 01:17:33PM -0700, Sam wrote:
> Chances are M-Audio put some thought into the +4dBu,
> Consumer, and -10dbV presets.  Does anyone know how we could map these
> to the corresponding 7 bit values?  I could probably patch envy24control
> to add analog signal presets so we could have the best of both features.

That would ultimately be the best route - we'd keep maximum flexability,
but people would be able to quickly set to standard values as well.

I'd probably never use it, since I'm already much to used to having a
whole range of values to choose from...

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

A Pope has a Water Cannon.                               It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it.                        It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it.                                 It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it.          It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced.                It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official.       It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive.                                       He shoots them.


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