GUS anti-noise hack

GUS anti-noise hack

[Karel Kulhavy]

The linux GUS driver sometimes begins to make a white noise in right or left
channel. It is very annoying because it is very remarkable and is there for
every mp3 you listen to.

I have developped a hack how to get rid of it when it happens.

a:

cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp and wait for an audible chirp in the bad
channel. Then try to play some mp3. If noise persists, goto a;

It has worked for me already for two times and I spared myself two reboots :)

-- 
Karel 'Clock' Kulhavy

Re: GUS anti-noise hack

[Simon Kirby]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 06:21:34PM +0200, Karel Kulhavy wrote:

> The linux GUS driver sometimes begins to make a white noise in right or left
> channel. It is very annoying because it is very remarkable and is there for
> every mp3 you listen to.
> 
> I have developped a hack how to get rid of it when it happens.
> 
> a:
> 
> cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp and wait for an audible chirp in the bad
> channel. Then try to play some mp3. If noise persists, goto a;
> 
> It has worked for me already for two times and I spared myself two reboots :)

Is this the ALSA driver?  I may be having the same problem.

With the OSS driver it mostly works, but changing mixer settings during
lpayback causes stereo timing skewing, which is extremely noticeable with
headphones even after changing the volume two or three times.  (The
music sounds like it's moving to one side.)

With the ALSA driver, about 25% of the time after starting MP3 playback,
the right channel (right channel only) will start playing an incorrect
part of the GUS memory and sound like old data or uninitialized memory. 
Stopping and starting playback usually fixes this (stopping and starting
will eventually always fix it).  Quite annoying. :)

(Also, multiple open in the GUS driver is completely broken and freezes
my machine right now.  A few years back it used to work properly.)

Simon-

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