[linux-audio-user] more about HDSP 9652/jack/ardour/hdspmixer

Aaron Trumm aaron at nquit.com
Thu Oct 2 01:15:00 EDT 2003


Hello again - I hope this is the right list for this topic (so far I can only 
get subscribed to two and I keep bouncing back and forth between them...)

first off, may I say thank you to the list members for bearing me, and extra 
thank you still to those who take the time to respond - amazing gentlemen and 
ladies you all are; I realize I have written what amounts to several novels 
worth of emails in the past couple weeks! :)

well I started a couple threads earlier about strangeness (or what I think was 
strangeness) with compiling and installing hdspmixer and such...the questions 
I had I didn't figure out, but somehow hdspmixer was able to run - whether 
it's ACTUALLY working, I don't know for sure sure...

THAT having been said,
I only know of a couple people who are using the HDSP 9652, along with a 
couple who've developed for it - Mark K, Thomas, Kevin, et al - does any of 
this sound familiar? :

--
a) I've been doing a lot of back and forth and reading but I'm a bit confused 
as to what hdspmixer is DOING (which makes it harder to tell if it's working 
:) )

b) my goal, as I may have said on other threads, is to be running ardour with 
my HDSP 9652, sending each of 24 individual adat optical channels out to 1 
channel input in my behringer ddx3216 (outfitted with adat i/o).  An earlier 
thread I started was solved by me adding -d hw:0 to my jackd command line 
(duh), where I wasn't seeing 24 (actually 26) possible outputs when I clicked 
on "output" in the mixer in ardour

now I'm able to see the outputs, and assign them as they should be, meanwhile 
in hdspmixer i've picked the preset which assigns ins, out and "playback" 
(what would be the difference between "out" and "playback" I wonder) to adat 
outputs, etc:

--
first I used hdspconf to change the HDSP to 44.1 for purposes of these tests
next I ran hdspmixer

I kept hdspmixer running, then started jack from a terminal using:
su
jackd -R -d alsa -d hw:0 -r 44100 -p 2048

then started ardour from a terminal:
su
ardour -n  <--- that's so no splash screen will appear

but what was showing up at the board wasn't what I was expecting *laugh*  if I 
routed a track to channel 1, then it showd up a 3 db too quiet at channel 1 
on the mixer, and at the right volume on channel 2 (I was using a -12 1khz 
test tone that I generated with the board and was able to record to ardour - 
ardour indeed is playing it at -12.1 - I think the point 1 is explanable but 
I'll skip that 'cause it doesn't matter just now)   if I routed the track to 
channel 2, it didn't show up anywhere.  odd numbered tracks after that seemed 
to be showing up on 1-2 just like 1 did (although I can't confirm the 
consistancy of this)

I experimented with opening up qjackconnect, which was the only one of the 
many patch bay programs from planet that showed 24 capture and playback 
channels and connecting captures to playbacks.  this didn't seem to do 
anything, which made me wonder just what qjackconnect was for.

then I closed all, closed the hdspmixer program, and started just jack and 
ardour.  the results from that are:

routed to channel 1, it shows up at channel 1, 3 db quiet, channels 3, 7, 9, 
11, 17, 19 and 23  at 30 db quiet and channels 5, 13 and 21 at 12 dbs quiet - 
wha?

routed to channel 2, it shows up only at channel 2! 3 dbs under - actually, 
this 3 dbs may be a non-problem issue in the board, so possibly it can be 
ignored

routed to channel 3, it shows up on 1, 2, 3 and 4 and some other channels at 
half volume - wha wha?

channel 4, nothing

channel 5 --> 4, 5, 6 and others

ok you get the picture.  randomness.  a weird mess.


I don't know if this is a driver problem, a HDSP 9652/alsa driver patch 
problem, an hdspmixer problem (I did, as I mentioned, have oddities on 
compiling that program), a jack issue, an alsa issue, a bug in ardour, a bug 
in alsa drivers, etc. etc. etc.

I only know of a couple people who are using the HDSP 9652 - Mark K, does any 
of this sound familiar?

clearly there are thousands of details - anyone who wants to talk about this 
and wants other info, as usual, ask and ye shall receive :)  (although in 
some cases, a request for details may yield first the question "how do I find 
that?" :) )

thanks and I hope this is interesting and stimulating, maybe even 
educational!!! :)


-- 
--------------
Aaron Trumm
NQuit
www.nquit.com
--------------



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