On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 3:34 PM, francois bluewin <francois.juigner@bluewin.ch> wrote:

Hi Harry, Hi Ralf,

Thank you for the fast answers.

Harry, in fact you did not quite answer question 1 : do I have to use hdsploader ? Put it another way, would the card be recognized if the firmware is not ok? This firmware question is not clear for me : I fear to corrupt the card's windows firmware if I run hdsploader. Maybe that's completely wrong...

(1) hdsploader has nothing to do with "firmware" although people often use that term. What is loaded is actually configuration data for the Xilinx chip, mostly to set up the matrix mixer

(2) the device driver will load the "firmware" itself automatically. The only time hdsploader is useful these days is when for some odd reason you need/want to force a reload without rebooting.

I agree that using amixer seems to be a horrible way to work, but I could not manage to get anything out of hdspmixer... There is no way to change the routes it loads by default ! clicking on the playback labels doesn't allow to check or uncheck existing boxes.

hdspmixer is modelled on RME's own TotalMix and you should visit their website to read up on how it works (newer versions of TotalMix are a bit different, however). It isn't a particularly intuitive design, but once you understand it things will be much more clear. remembering that clarity can be hard, depending on your age and aptitude.

This is why I wonder if there isn't anything wrong with my setup, namely : would the use of hdsploader change hdspmixer's behaviour ?

no.

and by the way, using amixer is not horrible. I have this little script which i used to use to configure my Digiface. It is really useful and much faster than firing up hdspmixer and loading some preset.

#!/bin/bash

AMIXER="amixer -q"
CARD="-c 1"

if [ x$1 = xon ] ; then
    gain=32768
    verb="route"
else
    gain=0
    verb="mute"
fi

shift;

#input_source : 0-25 (physical channels),
#               26-51 (software playback)
#output_source : 0-25 (physical channels),
#               26-27 (line out)

case $1 in
    play)
    for chn in $(seq 26 51);do
        $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,$(($chn-26)),$gain
    done
    ;;

    thru)
    for input in $(seq 0 25);do
        for output in $(seq 0 25); do
        if [ $input != $output ]; then
            $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain
        fi
        done
    done
    ;;

    thru12)
    $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 0,0,$gain
    $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 1,1,$gain
    ;;

    mon)
    for chn in $(seq 26 51);do
        if [ $(($chn % 2)) -eq 0 ] ; then
        $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,26,$gain
        else
        $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $chn,27,$gain
        fi
    done
    ;;

    all)
    for input in $(seq 0 51); do
        for output in $(seq 0 27); do
        echo -n "."
        if [ $gain = 0 -o $input != $output ]; then
            $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain
        fi
        done
        echo
    done
    ;;

    off)
    for input in $(seq 0 51); do
        for output in $(seq 0 27); do
        echo -n "."
        if [ $gain = 0 -o $input != $output ]; then
            $AMIXER $CARD cset numid=5 $input,$output,$gain
        fi
        done
        echo
    done
    ;;
esac