-----Original Message----- From: pd-list-admin@iem.at [mailto:pd-list-admin@iem.at] On Behalf Of derek holzer Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 5:11 PM To: pd-list@iem.at Cc: Tim Blechmann Subject: Re: [PD] [ot] rme hammerfall

Hi Tim,

So, you ready for the HDSP challenge? ;-)

I've been fighting with mine for a good time now, so maybe I have a

few

words or other concerns to bring up here:

1. I don't know the status of this firmware problem that Johannes T.

brings up. Supposedly, newer versions of the card's firmware aren't supported. I have an older card which I downgraded the firmware on anyway, but it might be good to ask on the ALSA list about this if you are buying a brand-spanking-new one.

I perhaps can shed some light on this one, even though I've not used HDSP in Linux extensively. From what I understand is that the new firmware versions of HDSP use perhaps a different ID for the card that is not being detected by the existing soundcard's driver. It may be that a simple addition to the driver's card ID description is what is needed (someone please correct me here if I am wrong). If you are looking for assistance on this matter on the Alsa list please make sure to include all the relevant info, i.e. firmware revision, and the Card ID as it is detected by your system (i.e. lspci) so that the people who know how to fix the driver can do so.

2. I couldn't get my PCMCIA bridge [laptop= ASUS L7 series] to work at

all with Mandrake or Red Hat. This means it is sketchy at best to use the cardbus interface [for me, with my hardware and these distros.] Debian and Gentoo work fine, however. Weird. What distro do you use?

This is most likely due to the way kernel and its modules have been compiled. Even if you happen to have these problems a simple recompile of the PCMCIA module, overwriting the kernel-installed ones should do the trick. As a rule of thumb individual modules for particular hardware are always more up-to-date than the ones found in the official "stable" kernels.

3. Right now, with ALSA 0.9.8 packages from Gentoo, I can only use the

HDSP+Alsa via Jack. Otherwise, I get errors about non-interleaved mode which I didn't get using older versions of Alsa under Debian, and

which

I don't get with new Alsa versions using the PCI card under Red Hat/Planet CCRMA. Go figure! But it performs quite well with Jack!

Jack

can handle the 8x2 analog channels, plus more if you feel like having lots of internal routing [i.e. virtual ports to record in Rezound or Ardour, FX sends + returns to Jack-Rack]. This is my favorite thing about Jack!

This is because more of this kind of stuff is now part of the asoundrc file where you can declare virtual devices which present you with various configurations and or I/O formats. Granted, asoundrc has been having the sketchiest documentation I've ever seen in the OSS community, but things have been improving rather rapidly lately.

4. Alsa has some nice utilities for the HDSP, such as hdspmixer or

hdspconf, and also tools you will NEED to run the card, such as hdsploader!

Best wishes,

Ivica Ico Bukvic, composer & multimedia sculptor http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico

-----Original Message----- From: pd-list-admin@iem.at [mailto:pd-list-admin@iem.at] On Behalf Of Frank Barknecht Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 6:50 PM To: pd-list@iem.at Subject: Re: [PD] [ot] rme hammerfall

Hallo, Ivica Bukvic hat gesagt: // Ivica Bukvic wrote:

...

This is because more of this kind of stuff is now part of the

asoundrc

...

file where you can declare virtual devices which present you with various configurations and or I/O formats. Granted, asoundrc has

been

...

having the sketchiest documentation I've ever seen in the OSS

community,

...

but things have been improving rather rapidly lately.

Unfourtunatly Pd does not make use of any asoundrc definitions and thus bypasses one important feature of ALSA. But then, probably Jack is the way to go, anyway. If I only wouldn't feel a bit left behind by Jack as a USB-audio user, who cannot afford (nor do I want to, because I only need 4 channel out) more than a thousand bucks for the RME system.

Completely understandable, but I am wondering can't you specify which Alsa device you are using in Pd? If so, there you should be able to specify a virtual device as it is defined in asoundrc? Sorry, been away from Pd for a while :-(. Otherwise the ball may be in Pd's court? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Best wishes,

Ivica Ico Bukvic, composer & multimedia sculptor http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico

In theory you could use the alsa-lib api to look up card names through card numbers. I think you can "scan" through the asoundrc this way. The documentation in alsa-lib is pretty much non-existant.

Since the Alsa code in pd was pretty sloppy, the last time I looked, maybe the whole alsa part should be redone. OTOH if portaudio works, why maintain the ALSA part?

Gerard

On Saturday 06 December 2003 08:52, Frank Barknecht wrote:

Hallo,

Ivica Bukvic hat gesagt: // Ivica Bukvic wrote:

...

Completely understandable, but I am wondering can't you specify which Alsa device you are using in Pd?

You could, but you cannot anymore. In Pd (version devel_0_37 from CVS, the official doesn't do ALSA at all anymore, I guess, but I'd have to look it up) ALSA is treated just like any other soundsystem like OSS, in that you can only specify a card number. Above that the Media menu allows to specify, if "hw:X" or "plughw:X" is to be used.

Both do not allow customized PCMs, that are defined in an asoundrc. For my laptop, I resorted to hardcode my PCM names in the Pd source.

I wonder, if the ALSA backend of PortAudio allows selection of asoundrc-defined PCMs in general? I also saw card-counting in the source...

ciao

Completely understandable, but I am wondering can't you specify which Alsa device you are using in Pd? If so, there you should be able to specify a virtual device as it is defined in asoundrc? Sorry, been away from Pd for a while :-(. Otherwise the ball may be in Pd's court? Please correct me if I am wrong.

this was working with 0.36. but pd's use of the alsa api changed that way, that you can only access hw:X or plughw:X. it's not possible to acces devices, defined in asoundrc any more ... the oss layer, that could be used, too, has been changed, too, so it's at least not working with the quattro any more...

take care...

Tim mailto:TimBlechmann@gmx.de ICQ: 96771783 http://www.nyds-exp-discogs.tk -- The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" Jack Kerouac

...

the oss layer, that could be used, too, has been changed, too, so it's at least not working with the quattro any more...

I never tried, but it might be worth it, to try running Pd under aoss.

i already tried this, but without success ... i used /dev/dsp1 and /dev/adsp1 with a symlink to /dev/dsp2, so that i had 2 different independent devices. this worked fine with devel_0_36...

with 0.37 there are 2 different problems. the first is, that there are problems to get a proper test sound (i'll have to check it again, but i think i somehow solved that problem). the second problem is, that it seems that input and output channels are getting the same signals. that means, that the sound that i send to the output is captured from the input device, and the input sound is send to the output immediately...

i can't check it right now, but afaik this was the main problem... you won't be able to process sounds with a setup like this...

take care...

Tim mailto:TimBlechmann@gmx.de ICQ: 96771783 http://www.nyds-exp-discogs.tk -- The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" Jack Kerouac

Hallo, Miller Puckette hat gesagt: // Miller Puckette wrote:

I'll add a "-alsaadd" flag to let you add ALSA device names to the list... Hop to get this out early next week (in source at least.)

Thank you,cool. I think, this is a good idea.

ciao

Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__