problems with the mixer (fwd)

problems with the mixer (fwd)

[Aner Gusic]

Hi!

I didn't get any answer on alsa-user list so I try here.


I have a Hoontech NX card with outputs for front and rear speakers.
Volume settings for these I would like to set independently of each
other, and this worked just fine while I was running ALSA 0.5.x.
However, a couple of days ago I upgraded to ALSA 1.0.3.

Now, there are two possibilities for controling volume settings on
speakers, one with "Sigmatel 4-speaker stereo" off and another with
this switch turned on.

The second posibility (4-s s on), has following setup:
  - "Master" controls front speakers
  - "PCM" controls both front and rear speakers

Sigmatel 4-speaker stereo off is almost what I want:
  - "Master", "PCM", "PCM Front" control front speakers
  - "Surrownd", "PCM Reverb" control rear speakers

However, PCM Front and PCM Reverb are set to 100% resp. 0% each time
/dev/dsp is opened.  This works perfectly for front speakers since
they can be controled with Master or PCM controls, but rear speakers
are muted each time a new song starts.

Is this a bug? (I hope it is.)  Is it a known bug, or is it some kind
of feature I can hope to be able to go around in future release of
trident driver?

Regards,

-- 
Aner Gusic,
Linköping
Sweden


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Re: problems with the mixer (fwd)

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sat, 8 May 2004 16:37:06 +0200,
Aner Gusic wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I didn't get any answer on alsa-user list so I try here.
> 
> 
> I have a Hoontech NX card with outputs for front and rear speakers.
> Volume settings for these I would like to set independently of each
> other, and this worked just fine while I was running ALSA 0.5.x.
> However, a couple of days ago I upgraded to ALSA 1.0.3.
> 
> Now, there are two possibilities for controling volume settings on
> speakers, one with "Sigmatel 4-speaker stereo" off and another with
> this switch turned on.
> 
> The second posibility (4-s s on), has following setup:
>   - "Master" controls front speakers
>   - "PCM" controls both front and rear speakers
> 
> Sigmatel 4-speaker stereo off is almost what I want:
>   - "Master", "PCM", "PCM Front" control front speakers
>   - "Surrownd", "PCM Reverb" control rear speakers
> 
> However, PCM Front and PCM Reverb are set to 100% resp. 0% each time
> /dev/dsp is opened.  This works perfectly for front speakers since
> they can be controled with Master or PCM controls, but rear speakers
> are muted each time a new song starts.
> 
> Is this a bug? (I hope it is.)  Is it a known bug, or is it some kind
> of feature I can hope to be able to go around in future release of
> trident driver?

you can use "front", "rear" and "surround40" PCMs.
then the volumes and the route should be initialized properly.


--
Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>		ALSA Developer - www.alsa-project.org


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Re: problems with the mixer

[Aner Gusic]

* Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:

> you can use "front", "rear" and "surround40" PCMs.
> then the volumes and the route should be initialized properly.

I've tryed playing some samples with aplay combined with -D parameter,
e.g. "aplay -Dfront foo.wav".  However, what I want is to play a
sample on both front and rear speakers, but control the sound level
independently, so what remains is the surround40-pcm.

When I try this (-Dsurround40) I get the following message:
aplay: set_params:837: Channels count non available

I've tried reading documentation in alsa-driver source-tree, but it is
sparse.  No documentation on the homepage that I found covers what I
am having problems with. :/  Any suggestions to where I should look?
Mostly, it should cover pcm:s, this "routing stuff" and such.

Thanks for your help,
/A

-- 
Aner Gusic,
LiTH
Sweden


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Re: problems with the mixer

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 14 May 2004 20:05:09 +0200,
Aner Gusic wrote:
> 
> * Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:
> 
> > you can use "front", "rear" and "surround40" PCMs.
> > then the volumes and the route should be initialized properly.
> 
> I've tryed playing some samples with aplay combined with -D parameter,
> e.g. "aplay -Dfront foo.wav".  However, what I want is to play a
> sample on both front and rear speakers, but control the sound level
> independently, so what remains is the surround40-pcm.
> 
> When I try this (-Dsurround40) I get the following message:
> aplay: set_params:837: Channels count non available
 
did you play a 4-channel sample file?

> I've tried reading documentation in alsa-driver source-tree, but it is
> sparse.  No documentation on the homepage that I found covers what I
> am having problems with. :/  Any suggestions to where I should look?
> Mostly, it should cover pcm:s, this "routing stuff" and such.

it's not the scope of the driver but the library.
you might find some useful info in ALSA wiki page...


Takashi


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Re: problems with the mixer

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 18 May 2004 17:24:54 +0200,
Aner Gusic wrote:
> 
> * Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:
> 
> > did you play a 4-channel sample file?
> 
> Ah, no I didn't.  What I want is to play 2-channel samples on both
> front and rear speakers and to be able to control the volume
> independently. 

doesn't it work like below?

	% aplay -Dfront some-2ch.wav
	% aplay -Drear some-2ch.wav


Takashi


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Re: problems with the mixer

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 19 May 2004 00:13:58 +0200,
Aner Gusic wrote:
> 
> * Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:
> 
> > doesn't it work like below?
> > 
> > 	% aplay -Dfront some-2ch.wav
> > 	% aplay -Drear some-2ch.wav
> 
> You missunderstood me, I want to use one player to play regular mp3's
> and be able to hear it on both front and rear speakers.  Even if I
> could sync that thing above it would be a very ugly solution to my
> problem. 
> 
> Så, "aplay some-2ch.wav" works fine, except for the fact that rear
> volume is initialized to 0.  I can get some other routing channels
> with a swich so rear volume isn't used, but then rear and front volume
> aren't independent (se my first mail for details)  :/ .

ok, then you need something similar like below:

pcm.dup4ch {
	type hooks
	slave.pcm {
		type hw
		card 0
		device 0
	}
	hooks.0 {
		type ctl_elems
		hook_args [
			{
				name "Rear Path"
				preserve true
				value true
			}
			{
				name "PCM Reverb Playback Volume"
				index { @func private_pcm_subdevice }
				preserve true
				value 127
			}
		]
	}
}	


then run "aplay -Ddup4ch some-2ch.wav"


Takashi


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Re: problems with the mixer

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 19 May 2004 16:26:48 +0200,
Aner Gusic wrote:
> 
> * Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>:
> 
> > ok, then you need something similar like below:
> > 
> > pcm.dup4ch {
> 
> Finally! Thanks a lot.
> 
> Is it possible to make this pcm the default one?

define like the following:

pcm.!default {
	...
}


Takashi


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