ALSA: No Bass

fletschge · n00b Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 14

Hey Guys

Just got set up my AC'97 Onbord-Soundcard (00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)). I can listen to music but it sounds like a 70 year old radio cause there is no bass. i tried to adjust the settings with alsamixer but i cant set bass or treble.

1) Is this normal with "default" settings?
2) Will I hear more bass if I use ALSA as alsa-driver instead of kernel alsa?
3) any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help! :wink:

fuzzythebear · Guru Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 317

Note : 70 yo radios used to be real bassy

had a Lindsay Airline radio with 78 rpm only turntable
built in and that thing was all bass

As to your problem : i got no bass treble either
with my card.Have to use the eq's provided by the player
to get any tonal control.

You aint alone.
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fletschge · n00b Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 14

Hehe 70 yrs old speakers are pretty expensive arent they?

The EQ from amarok and xmms sounds like theyre at 100% alredy (means that when i enable EQ the sound volume decreases about 50%. When i put Bass at 100%, then its like EQ wouldnt be enaled).

does anybody know if this driver may be corrput or are there any settings in kernel that should be avtivated?

dia · n00b Joined: 19 Jul 2006 Posts: 19

There is something in ALSA mixer that I had to enable to get bass out of my 5.1 speaker. I'm pretty sure it was LFE which really should be obvious. I think it is muted by default so you may want to check that.

Unfortunately, that is the extent of my knowledge.

gerard27 · Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:43 pm Post subject:

I use kmix instead of alsamixer.
It has 3 tabs: one is called switches.
I had to enable 'tone' to make the tonecontrol work.
Without that I didn't get any bass either.
G

Dominique_71 · Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:49 pm Post subject:

xmms use a plugin system for both input formats and outputs. You can choose which plugin to use in the prefs, but those preferences will be changed by xmms in some cases. As exemple, if I want to play a *.mpc file with the jack output, xmms with use the mplayer plugin on my system to play those files and by default, it will not appear in jack, the mixer will not work, but I will hear the sound. I have to configure in xmms prefs the mplayer plugin so at it use the same device as the one used by jack in qjackctl.

I use mainly jack with xmms because it is so at the mixer react and work best.

With alsa as sound output, the mixer work on my system, but it is a very big latency (a few seconds) between the change of a mixer control and the corresponding change in the sound output.

So you have to check the preferences for all the plugins at first. And maybe try different combinaisons.

For the alsamixer, I have a switch for the tone control with my sound card (not an AC97), and I must first unmute the tone with the "m" key.
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fletschge · n00b Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 14

Thanks for your suggestions!

Problem: I dont got any Pitch which has the label tone or some kind of that...

Dominique_71 · Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject:

Hare you using the right driver for your chipset? I suggest you to read this on the alsa website:http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/index.php?vendor=vendor-VIA#matrix

It is also an user's wiki at http://alsa.opensrc.org/via8233, but you must trust the official alsa website alsa-project.org at the first place. According to the alsa developpers, it is even many things they are wrong on the wiki.
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fletschge · n00b Joined: 21 Aug 2006 Posts: 14