[PlanetCCRMA] Saffire LE silence: a few, probably dumb, questions

TheOther theother1510 at sbcglobal.net
Sat Apr 11 08:44:33 PDT 2009


Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Saturday 11 April 2009 14:38, sevol wrote:
>> Hi Humans,
>>
>> The list seems a little quiet, so thought I'd take the opportunity to
>> ask a few quuestions.
>>
>> But first, a bit of background hum. I've been trying to get a workable
>> Linux DAW for... oh, it's way too embarrassing to admit in public. The
>> fumbling hasn't all been do to my nearly complete lack of Linux
>> skillz; I've had hardware issue, too, but I think mainly I don't know
>> what I'm doing still.
>>
>> I read mailinglist & google & type stuff in the CLI, & then, I do it
>> all over again. But I've never gotten the audio working where it's
>> actually usable. & with no proper audio, I've forgotten about learning
>> the software that's available with Linux. I don't even try to make
>> music any more. I've almost stopped listening to it. I've lost all the
>> momentum I once had for this. Almost.
>>
>> Now, for the bad news :) I can't seem to just give up.
>>
>> My system:
>> motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H (w/ onboard AMD 780G video &
>> Realtek ALC889A audio chipsets)
>> cpu: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core 5400+
>>
>> I'm running Fedora 10 x64 with this kernel:
>> 2.6.26.8-1.rt16.1.fc10.ccrma.x86_64.rt
>> &
>> jack-audio-connection-kit-1.9.2-1.fc10.ccrma.x86_64
>> &
>> a Focusrite Saffire LE firewire audio card
>> (I switched from fedora 8 to 10 toget this card running with ffado.)
>>
>> After I do:
>> # modprobe raw1394
>> &
>> start jack:
>> 02:21:20.636 JACK is starting...
>> 02:21:20.637 /usr/bin/jackd -R -t15000 -dfirewire -r88200 -p256 -n3
>> 02:21:20.653 JACK was started with PID=5934.
>> no message buffer overruns
>> no message buffer overruns
>> jackdmp 1.9.2
>> Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
>> Copyright 2004-2008 Grame.
>> jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
>> This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
>> under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
>> JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
>> 106076163746:  (ffado.cpp)[  92] ffado_streaming_init: libffado
>> 1.999.40- built Dec 12 2008 16:33:54
>> 02:21:25.473 Server configuration saved to "/home/sevol/.jackdrc".
>>
>> Things seem fine. But testing with a mic & Ardour there's no input
>> showing or any sound output. I might not have it setup right - it's
>> the first time I've tried Ardour. What'd be the simplist method of
>> testing if the card is doing it's job? I mean, what's the simplest
>> program to check for incoming audio signal?
>>
>> Here's some other stuff - might be irrelevant:
>>
>> # cat /proc/asound/devices
>>   2:        : timer
>>   3:        : sequencer
>>   4: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
>>   5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
>>   6: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
>>   7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
>>   8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
>>   9: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
>>  10: [ 0]   : control
>>  11: [ 1- 3]: digital audio playback
>>  12: [ 1- 0]: hardware dependent
>>  13: [ 1]   : control
>>
>> # cat /proc/interrupts
>>            CPU0       CPU1
>>   0:         85          0   IO-APIC-edge      timer
>>   1:       4203       3468   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
>>   4:          0          2   IO-APIC-edge
>>   6:          0          5   IO-APIC-edge      floppy
>>   7:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      parport0
>>   8:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0
>>   9:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
>>  12:     291273       6469   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
>>  14:       3043    1183334   IO-APIC-edge      pata_atiixp
>>  15:          2        526   IO-APIC-edge      pata_atiixp
>>  16:       1241        242   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb3,
>> ohci_hcd:usb4, HDA Intel
>>  17:          0         37   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1
>>  18:     212200         22   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb5,
>> ohci_hcd:usb6, ohci_hcd:usb7, eth0
>>  19:          0         18   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb2, HDA Intel
>>  22:          4   10613474   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ahci, ohci1394
>> NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts
>> LOC:  119331107  120216144   Local timer interrupts
>> RES:   11884641    5514268   Rescheduling interrupts
>> CAL:       1205        207   function call interrupts
>> TLB:       1669       2279   TLB shootdowns
>> TRM:          0          0   Thermal event interrupts
>> THR:          0          0   Threshold APIC interrupts
>> SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts
>> ERR:          0
>>
>> BTW, in ALSA Mixer it shows Card: PulseAudio Chip: PulseAudio - I
>> can't figure out the small interface at all. I'm certain I've
>> overlooked something completely simple. Any pointers? Help!
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -sevol
> 
> When pulseaudio is installed, and enabled, you only see one control when 
> opening alsamixer on the CLI. To see all controls for your soundcard, open 
> alsamixer as below. This assumes you only have one soundcard on the machine.
> 
> alsamixer -D hw:0
> 
> I've just seen you also have a firewire card. I've no experience with 
> firewire, but you could try alsamixer as below, if it's correctly detected as 
> a second soundcard.
> 
> alsamixer -D hw:1
> 
> Post back the output of:  cat /proc/asound/cards
> 
> Pulseaudio, itself, can be a pain in the backside, and can create more 
> problems than it's supposed to be able to resolve. To disable it do the 
> following. You can always re-enable it later, if you want it.
> 
> Using Yum:
> yum remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
> 
> If you also have KDE, this will also remove, kde-settings-pulseaudio.
> 
> Using Apt:
> apt-get remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
> 
> Same as above if you also have KDE installed.
> 
> Nigel.
> 
> btw: sound does work on linux, but sometimes it just takes a bit of time to 
> get it sorted out.

Nigel has offered the best first suggestion.

Here's a second suggestion if you're still having trouble after the 
first suggestion.

PulseAudio is a Dictator/Tyrant.  It does not know how to cooperate 
with other sound cards and sound devices unless they are USB 
connected.  Worse yet, if you try to remove PulseAudio it will take 
down your entire sound system under Linux.  The end result is that if 
you refuse to play with PulseAudio, then you can't make any sounds 
under Linux.  (PulseAudio developers, this is *very bad* 
courtesy/manners on your part.)

But fortunately for us, PulseAudio is a very stupid/idiotic 
Dictator/Tyrant.  It assumes that every computer it will control has a 
motherboard sound chip/device.

You can very easily defeat PulseAudio by going into your BIOS Setup 
during a bootup on your computer and disable your motherboard sound 
chip/device.

Now PulseAudio can't find any sound devices to capture/control.  It's 
still on your Linux system, so sound will work.  But it's no longer in 
your way and so you can use your other sound cards and sound devices 
with no interference from the now powerless, PulseAudio 
Dictator/Tyrant.  If you need sound for applications the Saffire can't 
handle (I don't know this card), then see if there is a plug-in or USB 
sound card/device you can buy.  As long as there is no motherboard 
sound chip/device active, you can bypass PulseAudio.


(Can you tell I really hate PulseAudio, and consider the way it is 
forced on you to be evil.)

Best of luck sevol, getting your Saffire LE going.
Stephen.



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