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ALSA for audio
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:30:56 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Jim Price wrote: On 14/02/13 22:56, Davey wrote: Indeed. I have no idea what Jack is, but it is there, in /usr/lib64. But what happens otherwise if I remove it? Jack is handy for music production, as you can often use some of the features of your sound card which might not be supported by ALSA alone. I continue to wonder about that. I haven't ever use 'Jack'. Never needed it, despite recording things as well as playing and processing them. But my impression is that it has been developed as a 'user friendly' sic way to do things which its creators *think* people "can't do" with ALSA. However the "can't" may mean "don't know how" rather than "physically impossible" - mainly, perhaps, because making sense of ALSA can be a real struggle. And may involve hand-editing files, etc, which is hardly user-friendly if people want to dump the old image of Linux = "Typing arcane commands into terminals". Plus documentation that only makes sense when you've hacked your way to a solution. ...erm IMHO. Indeed, I keep feeling that people have invented and added extra "sound systems" as an alternative to understanding and documenting (and making programs to ease) doing this using ALSA. The result now seems to be a pile of 'different' sound systems, which can easily interfere with simple user choices that don't fit the auto-magical assumptions of an install. Hence Jack, Pulse, etc, become a PITA for many rather than a solution. And make some people feel it is a hopeless task to do something as simply play music as they prefer. So far as practical, I'd advise people to avoid Jack, Pulse, etc, as they just complicate issues for basic uses. As far as I'm concerned, Pulse is a virus. But as usual, YMMV. ;- 2p ended. :-) Jim As I mentioned partially above, I looked for jack on my PC, and it was listed by Synaptic as not installed, in any guise. Yet I did a 'whereis', and found: jack: /usr/lib/jack /usr/lib64/jack And the terminal tells me that it is not currently installed, just like Synaptic. From this, I deduce that there are some files loaded, but they are not in use. Which leaves me still with the question: What does my Audacity fail message mean? -- Davey. |
ALSA for audio
In article , Davey
wrote: As I mentioned partially above, I looked for jack on my PC, and it was listed by Synaptic as not installed, in any guise. Yet I did a 'whereis', and found: jack: /usr/lib/jack /usr/lib64/jack And the terminal tells me that it is not currently installed, just like Synaptic. From this, I deduce that there are some files loaded, but they are not in use. Which leaves me still with the question: What does my Audacity fail message mean? My *guess* is that Audacity is looking for a device connected with a wrong pcm format. However its not a problem I've encountered, so I can't predict how to cure it. Can you play files with aplay and record them with arecord? If so, your sound system is basically setup OK and the problem is some assumptions that Audacity is making. If Audacity refuses to even run you may have to look at its config files or remove and re-install it if you can't find settings to adjust. If you can get it to run and give you a GUI, you can use that to change what input and output setup it expects to match the reality. But I'm afraid I don't use Audacity much. So can't give more than general suggestions here. snd_pcm_format_linear() is probably called to arrange the pcm format for something by Audacity. The error is probably because the response isn't one it can match. Why, dunno! :-/ Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
ALSA for audio
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:11:17 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Davey wrote: As I mentioned partially above, I looked for jack on my PC, and it was listed by Synaptic as not installed, in any guise. Yet I did a 'whereis', and found: jack: /usr/lib/jack /usr/lib64/jack And the terminal tells me that it is not currently installed, just like Synaptic. From this, I deduce that there are some files loaded, but they are not in use. Which leaves me still with the question: What does my Audacity fail message mean? My *guess* is that Audacity is looking for a device connected with a wrong pcm format. However its not a problem I've encountered, so I can't predict how to cure it. Can you play files with aplay and record them with arecord? If so, your sound system is basically setup OK and the problem is some assumptions that Audacity is making. If Audacity refuses to even run you may have to look at its config files or remove and re-install it if you can't find settings to adjust. aplay works fine, I just checked. Not tried arecord (ever). All that happens is that I get the message I showed. -- Davey. |
ALSA for audio
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:47:17 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: On 15 Feb, wrote: In article , Davey wrote: If Audacity refuses to even run you may have to look at its config files or remove and re-install it if you can't find settings to adjust. Not sure if this will help, but just in case... All help is welcome! You should have something like an .audacity-data directory, inside of which will be an audacity.cfg file. That is the default Audacity will check when it is run. In my main machine's copy it includes [AudioIO] RecordingDevice=HDA Intel PCH: STAC92xx Analog (hw:0,0) Host=ALSA PlaybackDevice=HDA Intel PCH: STAC92xx Analog (hw:0,0) Which tells Audacity what to try and connect to by default when run. It then uses these as the default recording and playing devices. Make a backup copy of the file for safety. Then do an 'aplay -L' and 'arecord -L' to get the details of your soundcard devices. Edit the audacity.cfg file to point at the sound devices you want have have the host as ALSA. That *might* cure the problem. Following advice I found in the Audacity Forums, yesterday I found that file, and deleted everything except the first line, then relaunched Audacity. It is supposed to repopulate the file with info. when it restarts, but it didn't restart. And of course, I didn't make a backup (slaps own wrist!). I might look through my Backup records, though, just in case. But I don't think it's going to work anyway. I have also tried Completely removing, and reinstalling, audacity, already. I'll give arecord a go. -- Davey. |
ALSA for audio
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:30:56 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Jim Price wrote: On 14/02/13 22:56, Davey wrote: Indeed. I have no idea what Jack is, but it is there, in /usr/lib64. But what happens otherwise if I remove it? Jack is handy for music production, as you can often use some of the features of your sound card which might not be supported by ALSA alone. I continue to wonder about that. I haven't ever use 'Jack'. Never needed it, despite recording things as well as playing and processing them. But my impression is that it has been developed as a 'user friendly' sic way to do things which its creators *think* people "can't do" with ALSA. Jack allows you to look at audio links in a totally different way. It uses ALSA to make the physical connections, but (using something like Qjackctl) presents all the information in a sane manner. The problem arises when using something like Audacity, which although very good in it own right, is a bodge when connecting up. I simply could not do much of the composition work I do without jack. I can, and do kick out pulseaudio as a waste of resources, and *never* use Audacity for recording. Timemachine is just so much simpler, reliable and above all routable. -- W J G |
ALSA for audio
In article 20130215203017.02b60dda@debian, Folderol
wrote: On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:30:56 +0000 (GMT) Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Jim Price wrote: On 14/02/13 22:56, Davey wrote: Indeed. I have no idea what Jack is, but it is there, in /usr/lib64. But what happens otherwise if I remove it? Jack is handy for music production, as you can often use some of the features of your sound card which might not be supported by ALSA alone. I continue to wonder about that. I haven't ever use 'Jack'. Never needed it, despite recording things as well as playing and processing them. But my impression is that it has been developed as a 'user friendly' sic way to do things which its creators *think* people "can't do" with ALSA. Jack allows you to look at audio links in a totally different way. It uses ALSA to make the physical connections, but (using something like Qjackctl) presents all the information in a sane manner. In effect, that's a part of my point. Jack is effectively acting as a 'human interface' to ALSA. People use it because they can make sense of how to use Jack, but are baffled by how to get ALSA directly to achieve the same specific task. If Jack (or indeed Pulse, etc) work for you or anyone else, that's fine with me. Matter of personal preference and convenience. However my feeling is that we have got into this situation of having 'many different sound systems' due to a lack of awareness of how to simply use ALSA. That, in turn, is because it can be a real PITA to work out how to get ALSA set up in the way a specific task requires. I've managed by banging rocks together for a few years to sort out the basics of just getting music to play or record using ALSA. I've still not sussed out the more complex requirements. So I can quite understand why people use Jack, etc. The problem in my experience, though, is that sometimes systems like Pulse actually cause problems because they 'nanny' the user and actually stop them getting what they want. Once that happens I feel the user can easily end up in the kind of situation familiar to some Windows/Mac users: Of the system refusing to do what is wanted, and behaviing in an opaque manner which resists the user's attempts to correct its incorrect behaviour. For the sake of my own sanity I gave up fighting Pulse years ago. I just bypass it. But I just need to play or record/capture one stream at a time. If I were trying to do multichannel recordings, mixdowns, etc, I'd probably do something else. Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
ALSA for audio
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:47:52 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: In article 20130215203017.02b60dda@debian, Folderol wrote: On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:30:56 +0000 (GMT) Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , Jim Price wrote: On 14/02/13 22:56, Davey wrote: Indeed. I have no idea what Jack is, but it is there, in /usr/lib64. But what happens otherwise if I remove it? Jack is handy for music production, as you can often use some of the features of your sound card which might not be supported by ALSA alone. I continue to wonder about that. I haven't ever use 'Jack'. Never needed it, despite recording things as well as playing and processing them. But my impression is that it has been developed as a 'user friendly' sic way to do things which its creators *think* people "can't do" with ALSA. Jack allows you to look at audio links in a totally different way. It uses ALSA to make the physical connections, but (using something like Qjackctl) presents all the information in a sane manner. In effect, that's a part of my point. Jack is effectively acting as a 'human interface' to ALSA. People use it because they can make sense of how to use Jack, but are baffled by how to get ALSA directly to achieve the same specific task. If Jack (or indeed Pulse, etc) work for you or anyone else, that's fine with me. Matter of personal preference and convenience. However my feeling is that we have got into this situation of having 'many different sound systems' due to a lack of awareness of how to simply use ALSA. That, in turn, is because it can be a real PITA to work out how to get ALSA set up in the way a specific task requires. I've managed by banging rocks together for a few years to sort out the basics of just getting music to play or record using ALSA. I've still not sussed out the more complex requirements. So I can quite understand why people use Jack, etc. The problem in my experience, though, is that sometimes systems like Pulse actually cause problems because they 'nanny' the user and actually stop them getting what they want. Once that happens I feel the user can easily end up in the kind of situation familiar to some Windows/Mac users: Of the system refusing to do what is wanted, and behaviing in an opaque manner which resists the user's attempts to correct its incorrect behaviour. For the sake of my own sanity I gave up fighting Pulse years ago. I just bypass it. But I just need to play or record/capture one stream at a time. If I were trying to do multichannel recordings, mixdowns, etc, I'd probably do something else. Slainte, Jim That sounds like a sensible viewpoint, from my perspective of very limited experience of this business. If Folderol finds Jack useful, good for him, but since I am struggling getting the basics working, I don't think I'll go there. I did some basic testing yesterday, I'll post the results later on, for your comments. -- Davey. |
ALSA for audio
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:11:17 +0000 (GMT)
Jim Lesurf wrote: arecord Ok, here is what I found out. Bear in mind I have never used arecord, only aplay. Both of my TV encoders work fine with their respective WIN 7 programs, so that is how I use them, I never succeeded in getting either of them to work with Linux. With a lot more time, maybe I would be able to. Maybe. So, still in Ubuntu 10.04, I ran aplay -l and aplay -L, and arecord -l, and arecord -L, before inserting the EZCap into a USB port. aplay -L with the EZCap added the line: iec958:CARD=U0xeb1a0x2861,DEV=0 USB Device 0xeb1a:0x2861, USB Audio IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output arecord -l added: card 2: U0xeb1a0x2861 [USB Device 0xeb1a:0x2861], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 This sounds to me as though the device is being seen and recognised. Volume Control Sound Preferences also shows it as: 2861 / 1 Input / Analog Stereo Input, which is good. alsamixer shows one L R CAPTURE volume bar whether or not the device is plugged in, so it is probably referring to an internal device, such as the internal Intel soundcard. If so, where is the USB device? I now need to work out what arecord instruction to give to record something, but I need to do some reading for that. Just tried a basic arecord, and whatever I do, it returns: arecord: main:608: audio open error: No such file or directory Got other stuff to do, back to this later. -- Davey. |
ALSA for audio
In article , Davey
wrote: On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:11:17 +0000 (GMT) Jim Lesurf wrote: arecord Ok, here is what I found out. Bear in mind I have never used arecord, only aplay. Both of my TV encoders work fine with their respective WIN 7 programs, so that is how I use them, I never succeeded in getting either of them to work with Linux. With a lot more time, maybe I would be able to. Maybe. So, still in Ubuntu 10.04, I ran aplay -l and aplay -L, and arecord -l, and arecord -L, before inserting the EZCap into a USB port. A problem with this is that I have no real idea what "EZCap" is. You'd have to say more about that. aplay -L with the EZCap added the line: iec958:CARD=U0xeb1a0x2861,DEV=0 USB Device 0xeb1a:0x2861, USB Audio IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output How does aplay -l list it? I'd have guessed from its name that it is a 'capture' device so wouldn't appear at all for aplay -l. arecord -l added: card 2: U0xeb1a0x2861 [USB Device 0xeb1a:0x2861], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 That says it is hw:2,0,0 for capture. This sounds to me as though the device is being seen and recognised. Volume Control Sound Preferences also shows it as: 2861 / 1 Input / Analog Stereo Input, which is good. What "Volume Control Sound Preferences" do you mean here? How are you getting that info? alsamixer shows one L R CAPTURE volume bar whether or not the device is plugged in, so it is probably referring to an internal device, such as the internal Intel soundcard. If so, where is the USB device? I now need to work out what arecord instruction to give to record something, but I need to do some reading for that. Just tried a basic arecord, and whatever I do, it returns: arecord: main:608: audio open error: No such file or directory You'd need to say what you mean by a 'basic' arecord. Try something like arecord -D plughw:2,0,0 -f dat -t wav -d 5 fred.wav If it can find the device it should give you a five second long wave file called fred.wav, stereo 48k rate. If not, say what errors it returns. If it works, try arecord -D hw:2,0,0 -f dat -t wav -d 5 fred.wav and if that doesn't work, what errors does it return? Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
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