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Wako
n00b
Joined: 13 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
Location: Chandler, AZ USA
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 Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 11:24 pm Post subject: Alsa sounds like crap |
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I finally got Alsa installed with my SBLive card, but both it and the OSS drivers sound like crap using XMMS. There is an Esound Output Plugin option as well, but while this seems to work, no sounds comes out ( I assume its muted or somesuch somewhere and I just don't know how to fix it.). Esd sounded good on RedHat, so how can I either:
Unmute esd
Fix Alsa to sound better.
Thanks. |
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reverius42
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 166
Location: Tucson, AZ
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| Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 11:26 pm Post subject: Re: Alsa sounds like crap |
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| Wako wrote: | I finally got Alsa installed with my SBLive card, but both it and the OSS drivers sound like crap using XMMS. There is an Esound Output Plugin option as well, but while this seems to work, no sounds comes out ( I assume its muted or somesuch somewhere and I just don't know how to fix it.). Esd sounded good on RedHat, so how can I either:
Unmute esd
Fix Alsa to sound better.
Thanks. |
Can you say specifically how it sounds like crap? What sounds bad about it?
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Wako
n00b
Joined: 13 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
Location: Chandler, AZ USA
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| Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| There is a lot of fuzziness/noise when local bass or volume is higher in a song than the baseline (and this occurs even on relatively calm songs like Jimmy Buffett). I don't know if the bass is set too high or something else is messed. But both Alsa and OSS have this problem, and esd under RedHat did not have it. I am wondering if there are some better settings for Alsa or something. |
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reverius42
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 166
Location: Tucson, AZ
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| Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2002 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Wako wrote: | | There is a lot of fuzziness/noise when local bass or volume is higher in a song than the baseline (and this occurs even on relatively calm songs like Jimmy Buffett). I don't know if the bass is set too high or something else is messed. But both Alsa and OSS have this problem, and esd under RedHat did not have it. I am wondering if there are some better settings for Alsa or something. |
Hmm... are you sure you have your speakers plugged into the right output on the sound card? 
My SB-Live did this to me when I plugged speakers into the subwoofer output... the one you need to use should be called "line output" and be colored lime green.
Possibly, Windows and/or Redhat's esd set up the subwoofer output to be a regular output by default. That might explain it. Unless I'm not getting the thing about the fuzziness/noise.
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rommel
Veteran
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 1145
Location: Williamsburg Virginia
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| Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 12:58 am Post subject: |
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this is no help will bump the thread.
why does anyone use alsa...i have always just installed the driver for my sound card (santa cruz) and its always worked great...no configuration problems....everything see it, xine xmms blah blah blah all work without issue.
what does alsa allow you to do that you otherwise couldnt? |
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Wako
n00b
Joined: 13 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
Location: Chandler, AZ USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 1:23 am Post subject: |
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| I've got it plugged in the right spot. It just sounds very poor compared to esd and RedHat (or Windows for that matter). |
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Wako
n00b
Joined: 13 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
Location: Chandler, AZ USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I figured out a way to make it sound less like crap in XMMS. Turn on the graphic equalizer and then turn it on and on auto. It will drastically decrease the volume, but you can turn your speakers up, and it makes the sound a lot better.
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huz
n00b
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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no helas I got the same problem I have got a lot of distorsion but I really don't manage to know where it is coming from ....
It is worst my I escape to the bios functions of my laptop !
Really strange .... |
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pgray
n00b
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 51
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| Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 6:21 pm Post subject: xmms-alsa |
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I believe there is an ebuild for the ALSA output plugin for XMMS, I have an SBLive! Platinum edition and with this plugin it sounds amazing. Try something like
And search the output for the ALSA plugin. Cheers.
pgray
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Krookednek
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 78
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:15 am Post subject: |
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Try running alsamixer, scrolling all the way to the right until you see the channels ADC and DAC. Turn those down a bit, and the sound quality should increase. Just bump other volumes up to offset the decrease in volume.
It worked for me just fine, hopefully it will for you too 
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modal
Apprentice
Joined: 02 Oct 2002
Posts: 277
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:57 am Post subject: |
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| When I first installed ALSA, it sounded like "crap" too. But, then I just changed the PCM volume to 55, and all was well with the world. If you have the PCM volume to 100, it WILL sound like "crap" |
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huz
n00b
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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i tried to tune my PCM,
I wanted to tune ADC and DAC channels but i haven't those
I tried to do a make clean in my /usr/src/linux and emerge alsa again
I already had the xmms alsa plugin
but It always sound crappy ....
'hate that |
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nerdbert
l33t
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Posts: 981
Location: Berlin
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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it seems that setting the pcm level to 100 (as suggested in the alsa howto doc) is much too high.
I own a sb Audigy Gamer, which definately sounds cprappy when setting the level to 100. A good way to find a reasonable value is to compare its output with hifi components (your soundcard should be as loud as your cd-player when connected to an amp). |
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pablored
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 01 May 2002
Posts: 96
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I always set PCM and Master to 80. |
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huz
n00b
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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my Master is 52 at and my PCM at 23 and i aways heard this fuzzy sound.
I have to look somewhere else, I am not sur this is actually comming from this.
thx anyway all, an if you have other ideas, just dump them here! |
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Elm0
Apprentice
Joined: 24 Nov 2002
Posts: 281
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| I found this using my mobo-based via8233 card with alsa rc7. I downgraded to rc6 and this solved any distortion problems. |
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dbezona
n00b
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Posts: 68
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| Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Wako wrote: | | There is a lot of fuzziness/noise when local bass or volume is higher in a song than the baseline (and this occurs even on relatively calm songs like Jimmy Buffett). I don't know if the bass is set too high or something else is messed. But both Alsa and OSS have this problem, and esd under RedHat did not have it. I am wondering if there are some better settings for Alsa or something. |
Since this happens using both Alsa and OSS, my bet is your PCM and Vol. levels are up too high - bringing them down a couple of notches should clear up the distortion.
One thing to keep in mind is that OSS and Alsa are totally different animals than ESD. Alsa and OSS are low level drivers, whereas ESD is a sound server that simply runs over the top of the sound drivers to supply extra features, like software sound mixing and so forth. So, ESD won't solve your problem, since you will still be using OSS or Alsa underneath it anyway. |
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Krookednek
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 78
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| Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 1:06 am Post subject: |
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| huz wrote: | i tried to tune my PCM,
I wanted to tune ADC and DAC channels but i haven't those
I tried to do a make clean in my /usr/src/linux and emerge alsa again
I already had the xmms alsa plugin
but It always sound crappy ....
'hate that |
You should have ADC and DAC channels, you're going to have to scroll over to the right because they are no initially visible. Just keep hitting the right arrow and moving over channels until they become visible, then lower them to 50% or so, that should help.
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