[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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