Linux-audio-user September 2003

linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org

115 participants
118 discussions

[linux-audio-user] [USB audio capture]: "standard" drivers, "mixers" and level controls

by Mannr＠uwaterloo.ca

Dear audio users: Previously I asked about USB capture, eg., to laptop, but I still have some questions: 1. Is there a "standard" USB interface for audio? For example, will newer devices, like "Audiophile", "MobilePre", and "Transit" from Maudio work using some kind of standard interface as the "Duo" and "Quadro"? I've seen references to "ASIO" or somesuch. Does that mean they will all function with standard drivers? 2. What do the [alsa|au|x]mixer controls do? In particular, if I adjust input gain on (analog) line input will that be done before or after the A/D? Note, I may need to adjust line level if I am driving from different sources, like phonograph, cassette tape, or electret microphones. Similary, for mic in, is there a separate control for this, eg., before the mic preamp? I could not find this information, neither in docs from Maudio nor in alsa docs. Please point me to the appropriate place if this is written down somewhere. What I am looking for is a "block diagram" showing where the amps and level controls really are. 3. If mixers do allow level adjustments above, which USB devices have mixers? People have claimed that Edirol UA-1A doesn't have a mixer. How about Edirol UA-3D? What about Maudio Audiophile, MobilePre, Transit? Or, perhaps some devices have mixers, but USB control code is not written? 4. Is it usual to have stereo mic inputs on sound cards? Maudio "Revolution" (and most soundblasters?): *mono* input. Maudio "Transit": claims stereo input Maudio MobilePre, Duo, etc. All naturally have stereo input. 5. Finally, I noticed that many of the Maudio USB products, like Audiophile, Quatro and Duo, need external power. The funny thing is that they need 9 VAC. AC voltage! What's up with that? I was expecting some standard DC voltage, eg., 9 or 12V, suitable for mobile use. Is there a simple way to power these from DC voltage, eg., batteries? I am willing to open one up (and void the warantee) if necessary. Perhaps there is a psu inside and I can just bypass that and give some standard voltage like 5V. Len at Core Sound made a portable Duo. Perhaps he can tell us how he did it... Thanks for all the help. I'm really enjoying this list... Richard

21 years

Re: [linux-audio-user] YMFPCI hardware midi/snd-mp401-uart Problem

by BartonBosch＠aol.com

>The raw device is for externa synth, I believe. >As far as a sequencer goes, it's far better to use a >softsynth than the legacy card synth. With a softsynth, you >will have far better sounds, see for example timidity and the >eawpats sound with your distro. >When timidity is installed and launched (timidity -iA) you >will find it in this MusE box. I wanted to use the wavetable synth, even if it was of lower sound quality, as a tool to listen to work in progress so as to reduce the load on the processor. I have been having some problems with crackling noises which I assume are caused by MusE and or the softsynth overloading the processor when playing back a multitrack midi file. Today I did some experimenting with TiMidity as the softsynth for MusE -- I got it configured with timidity -iA in one terminal and muse -R in another. Then in the midiport configuration it popped up with timidity port 0 for the first midi port. Unfortunately this produced no sounds on testing. I opened the track info number and tried to select a preset, but all that it had was "???" -- no patches to select from. Is there another switch that needs to be thrown to load sounds into TiMidity? Something else? I am running the Planet CCRMA acpi kernel, RH 8.0, with TiMidity++ 2.11.3-4.1, TiMidity midia instruments 2.11.3-4.1, and eawpats 12-1 installed. Thanks, Barton

21 years

Re: [linux-audio-user] YMFPCI hardware midi/snd-mp401-uart

by BartonBosch＠aol.com

In a message dated 9/1/03 12:43:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time, clemens(a)ladisch.de writes: > snd-mpu401-uart is the driver for the external MIDI port (you'd need a > gameport/MIDI adapter for this). snd-rawmidi is an ALSA module > handling device file management and buffering for MIDI ports. > snd-opl3-lib is the driver for the OPL3 FM synth. Thanks, got it. So if I wanted to deal with the FM sound quality I could use the legacy synth? > I guess Muse uses the ALSA sequencer. Run "aconnect -o" to see a list > of output ports. This is the output of aconnect -o when both TiMidity and MusE are running: [barton@localhost barton]$ aconnect -o client 128: 'Client-128' [type=user] 0 'TiMidity port 0 ' 1 'TiMidity port 1 ' client 129: 'MusE Sequencer' [type=user] 0 'MusE Port 0 ' > >Checking /proc/asound/devices does not list any midi devices, > > Did you specifiy the parameters for snd-ymfpci in modules.conf? > (e.g. mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388) No I didn't. So to use alsa with the midi port that is on the motherboard I would need to configure the memory address mpu_port=0x330 in /etcmodules.conf? Does the line need to go in a specific place, and is that the exact syntax? Is this documented somewhere? I have installed alsa manually on this machine before (this time I used the Planet RPMs and alsaconf) and I don't remember seeing anything that referrred to memory addresses for the midi ports. Thanks, Barton

21 years

[linux-audio-user] YMFPCI hardware midi/snd-mp401-uart

by BartonBosch＠aol.com

I am trying to use the hardware wavetable midi synth on my YMF 740C sound "card" onboard my motherboard with ALSA and MusE. I have been searching through the various sources of documentation trying to solve the mystery but I am stumped. # lsmod lists snd-mp401-uart, snd-rawmidi, and snd-opl3-lib among the sound related modules. Can someone give me a definitive answer as to what these modules are? I am pretty sure that snd-mp401-uart is the wavetable midi synth, and am guessing that snd-opl3-lib are the patches for the legacy FM synth that is also on the card, but I don't have any idea what the snd-rawmidi module is for. And why is there no snd-opl3 module itself? Is the legacy FM synth not supported under ALSA? I checked /proc/modules, so these three modules are loaded, but I can't figure out how to access them generally or through MusE. Checking /proc/asound/devices does not list any midi devices, (see below): [root@localhost root]# cat /proc/asound/devices 0: [0- 0]: ctl 27: [0- 3]: digital audio capture 18: [0- 2]: digital audio playback 17: [0- 1]: digital audio playback 16: [0- 0]: digital audio playback 24: [0- 0]: digital audio capture 1: : sequencer 33: : timer As far as MusE goes, I have gone through the configuration section fairly thoroughly but without finding a way to access mp401-uart. The closest thing that I found was under the midiport configuration table->other raw devices, which brought up a context dialog box which had a choice of raw midi, pipe, or something else which I can't seem to remember at the moment. I tried entering /dev/midiC0D0 as the path for the raw midi device but that didn't configure a valid midi output for the device. I want the option to use my hardware synth, as well as the software synths, with MusE and generally under ALSA/Linux. Does anyone see something I missed? Thanks, Barton

21 years

[linux-audio-user] [ANN] AlsaModularSynth 1.5.12

by Matthias Nagorni

Hello, ams-1.5.12 is a major update for AlsaModularSynth. There is now a "Parameter View" dialog where you can group any parameter from any module and create your own GUI for your patches. Values for the parameters in "Parameter View" can be stored as presets and restored via MIDI program change. There is a new tutorial on modular synthesis (commented patches) and documentation has been updated as well. See http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net Have fun ! Matthias -- Dr. Matthias Nagorni SuSE Linux AG Deutschherrnstr. 15-19 phone: +49 911 74053375 D - 90429 Nuernberg fax : +49 911 74053483

21 years

[linux-audio-user] Best sound card

by ed orphan

I need advice on getting a very good PCI soundcard. I hope to use it for recording my own multi-track sounds using Linux Audacity with Red Hat 9. Guitars and bass mostly. Maybe a DX100 keyboard My system has an Athlon CPU, Asus A7N8X motherboard with a gig of DDR I'll be useing a Eurorack UB802 mixer for input. Could someone tell me a good choice for a sound card? I expect to spend about $250. ( I being optimistic! ) Any advice would be most welcome!

21 years

[linux-audio-user] Fwd: Re: DJCJ: LAD pro support & contacts database

by Patrick Shirkey

janinerich(a)verizon.net wrote: > > Patrick, > I know you are very busy and I hate to bother you but I have been > trying for long time to get my soundcard (Santa Cruz aka Cirrus Logic CS4297A rev 4 as > listed in AlsaMixer) to record it's output into various audio apps. For > example it has a cancun drum wave table and I want to record the midi output to wave. > I've been experimenting with the mixer: enabling the capture, pcm out etc. to no avail. > I know this can be done in windows with the soundcard's GUI. If you > have the time I could use a few suggestions. Thank you. > Sincerely, > Richard O'Donnell > I have forwarded this to the lau list as there should be someone there who can help more. Are you having trouble with capturing the audio or getting the sound of the drums? I'm not very well versed on midi issues but I suggest trying muse, seq24 or rosegarden. They are very capable apps for working with midi. The basic problem is making sure the onboard wavetable is being accessed. If you are sure this is working the above apps will be able to capture the sound relatively easily. -- Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd. Http://www.boosthardware.com Http://www.djcj.org - The Linux Audio Users guide ======================================== Being on stage with the band in front of crowds shouting, "Get off! No! We want normal music!", I think that was more like acting than anything I've ever done. Goldie, 8 Nov, 2002 The Scotsman

21 years

[linux-audio-user] Record from PCM source

by Alexandre Dery

Hi, I know my way around my linux box (kernel compiles et all), and I'm inches away from dumping windows completly. Still I've got problems with sound recording on linux. I need help trying to record from Windows Media ASF streams on the net. I currently use MPlayer to play those streams, and it plays just fine. I tried to record from it. I'm using KDE so I fired up KMix and found that MPlayer plays through the PCM device (that's what KMix calls it). But I can't set PCM as a recording device, so I can't record from it. And since MPlayer doesn't play through the KDE sound daemon, can't use that stuff either... So how should I go about this ? Thanks, Alex... _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

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Linux-audio-user September 2003