configuring alsa sound

[hudsonhauck]

Victory! (well, not quite yet)
I got my sound to work, somewhat. I got sound to come out of 1 speaker (I have 4.1). How do I config alsa so that I can utilize all speakers, have the sound not be statiky (is that a word ?), and be able to control the volume with my externel volume control thing. Thanks!

PS I have an audigy
_________________
Matthew Hauck
http://matthauck.blogspot.com/

[hudsonhauck]

Cmon!! Out of 43 people viewing this, not 1 has had this problem!! I find that hard to believe... If you need more information, I can provide it, just tell me.
_________________
Matthew Hauck
http://matthauck.blogspot.com/

[jacky]

How about setting the volume on more things? I seem to recall being able to use the tools to list all the possible devices ("Main Output", "BLAH Output", ...) and could then adjust the volume on each. Perhaps yours has more of these or different names than in the install docs.

[pjp]

Well, I had sound out of 1 speaker because of the sound card. I'd switched, so assumed it was working properly under Windows. Someone suggested that it was the card (something about outputs). I checked under windows, and only under 1 speaker (while playing CDs). I don't have an audigy either, so that explains why I didn't post. Good luck.

[hudsonhauck]

Ok, I got the audio to work out of all 4 speakers, but I had to go Mono, and analog output (not digital ). However, even though sound is coming out, it sounds terrible. Really, really scratchy. Also, every time I try to change the volume, it tells me this: " ** WARNING **: oss_set_volume(): Failed to open mixer device (/dev/mixer): No such file or directory". I have a feeling it shouldn't be doing that...
_________________
Matthew Hauck
http://matthauck.blogspot.com/

[Guest]

I have an audigy too although I have only two desktop speakers connected.

I too suffer from a terrible scratchy audio quality. But only when using the alsa api. When I configure software to use the OSS layer everything is fine.

Try for example:
mpg321 -o alsa09 my_favourite_mp_song.mp3
and
mpg321 -o oss my_favourite_mp_song.mp3
With oss the sound is clear and fine. With alsa09 scratchy.

To be able to use the oss layer of alsa you'll have to load the modules
snd-seq-oss
snd-pcm-oss
snd-mixer-oss
Then devfsd will create the /dev/dsp device. I've put them into /etc/modules.autoload so that they get loaded every boot time. The modules are part of the alsa-oss ebuild.

Regarding the speaker/digital/analog config, I think you have to play with the snd_extin/snd_extout options of the alsa emu10k1 module. See /usr/share/doc/alsa-driver-*/INSTALL.gz for a brief description. Surely the alsa user mailing list can be of help here.

There is also an patched emu10k1 oss driver (non alsa) for the audigy available. They have also some comandline tools to configure the soundcard. ASAIK they have a sourceforge website.

Cheers,
A.