[PlanetCCRMA] Tascam 428

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 11:56, Eric Princen wrote:
> I made the mix a bit more complicated. I re-enabled my onboard audio and
> set it to card 1. I can easily turn it back off. I thought maybe having
> it there would cause the subsystem to recognize a valid playback device.
> 
> On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 10:22 -0700, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> > There is usually more stuff when you plug in a usb card. Strange. I
> > can't remember but things like registering it with snd-usb-audio and so
> > on. 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > Strange again. I would guess that for some reason the firmware was not
> > loaded. Alsa does recognize the device but there are no audio streams
> > available. What happens if you try to load the firmware manually? I
> > imagine that it would be something like:
> >   /usr/bin/usx2yloader
> 
> That could be something... I ran it. This is now what I get:
> 
> [root at studio asound]# cat pcm
> 00-00: US-X2Y Audio : US-X2Y Audio #0 : playback 1 : capture 1
> 00-01: US-X2Y Audio : US-X2Y Audio #1 : capture 1
> 01-00: Intel ICH : Intel ICH5 : playback 1 : capture 1
> 01-01: Intel ICH - MIC ADC : Intel ICH5 - MIC ADC : capture 1
> 01-02: Intel ICH - MIC2 ADC : Intel ICH5 - MIC2 ADC : capture 1
> 01-03: Intel ICH - ADC2 : Intel ICH5 - ADC2 : capture 1
> 01-04: Intel ICH - IEC958 : Intel ICH5 - IEC958 : playback 1
> 02-00: Bt87x Digital : Bt87x Digital : capture 1
> 02-01: Bt87x Analog : Bt87x Analog : capture 1

You're in bussiness, I think, see what you get in /proc/devices at this
point. 

> > Come to think of it, that must be the problem. I see above that hotplug
> > runs /usr/bin/us428control, instead of usx2yloader. I don't know why
> > that would be.
> 
> us428control does not run until I manually run usx2yloader. Interesting.

Well, the card needs the firmware to work at all. If the firmware is not
loaded it will do nothing. 

> That said, audio still does not work. :-) If I run kmix, it only sees
> the Intel ICH and Bt878. It doesn't see the 428 at all.

Most usb soundcards don't have a mixer at all so that is not surprising.
Did you try to send anything to the outputs? 

> If at this time, I do this:
> 
> [root at studio asound]# /etc/init.d/alsasound restart
> Shutting down sound driverERROR: Module snd is in use
>                                                            [  OK  ]
> ALSA driver already running
> Starting sound driver snd-usb-audio                        [  OK  ]
> Starting sequencer                                         [  OK  ]
> Starting sequencer driver snd-seq-oss                      [  OK  ]
> Restoring sound driver settings /usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1236: No
> soundcards found...
>                                                            [FAILED]
> 
> Then the card links disappear in /proc/asound and the files look like
> this:
> 
> [root at studio asound]# ls
> cards  devices  hwdep  meminfo  modules  oss  pcm  seq  timers  version
> [root at studio asound]# cat pcm
> [root at studio asound]# cd ..
> [root at studio proc]# cd asound/
> [root at studio asound]# ls
> cards  devices  hwdep  meminfo  modules  oss  pcm  seq  timers  version
> [root at studio asound]# cat pcm
> [root at studio asound]# cat cards
> --- no soundcards ---
> [root at studio asound]# cat devices
>   1:       : sequencer
>  33:       : timer
> [root at studio asound]# cat hwdep
> [root at studio asound]# cat modules
> [root at studio asound]#           
> 
> /var/log/messages says:
> 
> Aug 18 12:52:09 studio kernel: usbcore: deregistering driver
> snd-usb-usx2y
> Aug 18 12:52:09 studio kernel:
> ALSA /usr/src/rpm/BUILD/alsa-driver-1.0.9b/usb/usbmidi.c:178: urb status
> -108
> Aug 18 12:52:09 studio kernel:
> ALSA /usr/src/rpm/BUILD/alsa-driver-1.0.9b/usb/usbmidi.c:163:
> usb_submit_urb: -90

Oh wait, this is usbmidi, the OSS midi subsystem. Make sure you
blacklist it in /etc/hostplug/blacklist (you don't want it to load
instead of the ALSA one). Add two lines, one saying "usbmidi" and
another saying "audio" (just in case, I seem to remember that is the
name of the OSS usb audio driver).

> Aug 18 12:52:09 studio kernel: usbcore: deregistering driver
> snd-usb-audio
> Aug 18 12:52:10 studio kernel: usbcore: registered new driver
> snd-usb-audio
> 
> Question about /etc/modprobe.conf:
> 
> Should it read
> 
> alias snd-card-0 snd-usb-audio
> options snd-usb-audio index=0
> 
> or should it read
> 
> alias snd-card-0 snd-usb-usx2y
> options snd-usb-usx2y index=0
> 
> ???

The second one is the right one, I think. You want the Tascam specific
driver, not the generic usb driver. Maybe that's the origin of the whole
confusion. 

-- Fernando