[PlanetCCRMA] Pd + PulseAudio?

Tue Mar 23 19:59:05 PDT 2010

On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 22:02 -0400, Peter Kirn wrote:
> Hi Fernando,
> 
> Sorry; I've done some more testing. Here's the current state of affairs:
> 
> FC12.
> 
> pd-extended 0.41.4
> 
> No error messages from JACK.
> 
> Two audio interfaces for testing in this case, the internal Intel
> audio (which I know has caused some issues for folks) and the Native
> Instruments Audio Kontrol 1.
> 
> AK1 + JACK: works fine, loading qjackctl first, then Pd in JACK mode.

Then this one is fine. 

> AK1 + ALSA: causes glitched audio, then the app appears to hang, which
> means I can't click the DIO errors button or close the dialogs; have
> to force-quit.

Hmmm, if you use alsa you are going through pulseaudio. I don't know
what device will pd use if started in plain alsa mode. I personally
would always go through jack, no reason to start in plain alsa mode.
Your usage might be different. 

> Intel + JACK: JACK reports no issue opening the Intel card. Intel
> audio shows up as hw:1, but for the heck of it, I did try hw:1,1
> (though I'm fairly certain that's wrong -- that's the ALC660-VD on
> this Asus laptop). JACK checks out, shows that it correctly creates
> the ALSA driver and sets the correct settings, but pd doesn't make any
> sound -- even though there's no error from pd, either.

Ok then it is probably an alsamixer issue, ie: the mixer controls are
not properly set for the card. Can you get sound from that card in any
other way?

Open up a terminal and start alsamixer:

  alsamixer -c 1

("-c 1" so that it goes directly to the Intel card). 
Experiment with the level settings you will find there... (you can have
jack + pd running with the test window and some noise enabled there). 

What do you see if you do:
  cat /proc/asound/devices
... that should show any subdevices, if there are any. 
I presume that in cat /proc/asound/cards you only see the Intel and the
AK, right?

-- Fernando

> The only thing I note could be unusual: it's defaulting on the Intel
> card to 32bit integer little-endian
> 
> Intel + ALSA (identified in Pd as "HDA Intel (hardware)": No sound. No
> red DIO error light; tried clicking the DIO error button and I just
> see "unknown", plus this message:
> warning: tone-mon: multiply defined
> warning: tone-osc: multiply defined
> 
> Peter
> 
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano
> <nando at ccrma.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 20:10 -0400, Peter Kirn wrote:
> >> Okay... I may have spoken too soon. I think Neils may be right and,
> >> despite the Fedora distro advice (and even what I had heard from Paul
> >> Davis), disabling PulseAudio may be the only sure-fire solution
> >>
> >> I just can't get Pd-extended to properly talk to audio. Sometimes it
> >> works, more often it doesn't.
> >
> > Is this using pd + jack?
> >
> >> Sometimes quitting applications that use
> >> PulseAudio works, sometimes it doesn't.
> >>
> >> Most notably, starting qjackctl first and setting JACK as the audio
> >> system often doesn't work.
> >
> > What distro do you have installed? (fc11? fc12?)
> >
> > What error message do you get from jack? (press the "Messages" button to
> > see what jack is saying).
> >
> > Which jack are you running? ("rpm -q jack-audio-connection-kit" to
> > know).
> >
> > If you are using fc11 or fc12 and the Planet CCRMA jack you should be
> > able to use jack without problems. In both cases jack negotiates with
> > pulseaudio the release of the soundcard. Are you setting the proper
> > "Interface" value for the card in the "Setup" panel of qjackctl? (it
> > should _not_ be "(default)").
> >
> >> I either get a sync error / cannot open audio interface, or ...
> >> nothing. (No error, just no sound, literally.)
> >
> > Could you paste here the complete error messages you get from jack? It
> > is very difficult to know what is happening without the verbatim error
> > messages.
> >
> > A good start would be to check what soundcards the system sees by doing
> > a "cat /proc/asound/cards". Is the first card the one you want to use?
> > If so, you could try, from a command line, to do this:
> >
> > jackd -d alsa -d hw:0
> >
> > That is the simplest invocation and it should work. You should see
> > something printed out that tells you jack is getting the card from
> > pulseaudio (it is best to use the name of the card instead of "0", the
> > name is between "[]" in the output of the cat above, say "hw:M66" for a
> > Delta 66 card). If it does not work please copy the exact errors you
> > see.
> >
> > -- Fernando
> >
> >
> >> I definitely suspect PulseAudio, as I see this behavior consistently
> >> on PA systems.
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >> A good way to temporarily disable PulseAudio to ensure that's the
> >> issue before I remove it completely, just to test this?
> >>
> >> Peter
> >>
> >> On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:29 PM, Niels Mayer <nielsmayer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Forgot to mention gnome-volume-control -- don't use it as it expects
> >> > pulseaudio.
> >> > Instead, create a custom launcher on the panel that runs alsamixer with the
> >> > chosen device e.g.
> >> > "xterm -geometry 160x24 +sb -e alsamixer -c SB" or "envy24control"
> >> > "echomixer" "hdspmixer" "cspctl" etc from package 'alsa-tools'.
> >> > Niels
> >> > http://nielsmayer.com
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 7:27 PM, sonictwin <ruhtranayr at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Everything worked perfectly and now I can play music while jackd is
> >> >> running.
> >> >>
> >> >> However,
> >> >>
> >> >> gnome-volume-control is not to be found in gnome-panel,
> >> >>
> >> >> running 'gnome-volume-control' via alt+f2 i get the popup "Waiting for
> >> >> sound
> >> >> system to respond"
> >> >>
> >> >> and via terminal:
> >> >>
> >> >> $ gnome-volume-control
> >> >>
> >> >> ** (gnome-volume-control:15392): WARNING **: Connection failed,
> >> >> reconnecting...
> >> >>
> >> >> Time to search the web for a different volume-control app
> >> >>
> >> >> Cheers!