I hate Alsa
Debian Testing up to date as of yesterday.
Kernel 2.6.22
Sound from on-board Intel (snd_hda_intel)
Kmix as the mixer
When I used OSS I had no audio problems at all - everything (playback
and recording) just worked but since I went over to Alsa (about a year
ago) I've had trouble getting recording to work.
Normally I find that playback gives no problems and I did for a short
period get playback and recording working properly then after a Debian
upgrade the recording stopped working properly again.
If I try to record (arecord) using a microphone I cannot move the
recording volume slider above 70% otherwise I start getting extremely
distorted sound on playback (aplay) and although the recording volume
is adequate there is a loud background hum. If I reduce the recording
volume to about 60% the loud hum changes to a noticeable hiss but the
recorded voice is too low.
I have to use the 'Digital' slider on the Kmix input tab to control
microphone volume - none of the other sliders seem to do anything. I
also have to have the first capture slider on (un-muted) to get any
sound at all but it makes no difference whether that slider is at the
bottom or not - it does not affect the volume.
I also have a record deck with a USB connection which I last used under
OSS. The setup was working then and, as I remember, it was pretty
straightforward to set up. Since that time there have been many
Debian updates and I'm almost certainly using a later kernel and I'm
now using Alsa.
When I came to use it this time in conjunction with Audacity, which I
was using last time, I can't get a peep out of it.
I have tried various inputs without success. The appropriate modules
are loaded including snd_usb_audio.
When the USB lead is plugged in I get this in the logs:
kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address
6
kernel: usb 1-7.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
kernel: input: Burr-Brown from TI
USB Audio CODEC as /class/input/input4
kernel: input: USB HID v1.00 Device [Burr-Brown from TI
USB Audio CODEC ] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-7.1
kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
a little further on in the log I see:
kernel: cannot submit datapipe for urb 0, error -28: not enough
bandwidth
Originally I got this in the log:
kernel: cannot submit datapipe for urb 0, error -38: enable
CONFIG_USB_EHCI_SPLIT_ISO to play through a hub
so I enabled that in the kernel and recompiled although I'm not using a
USB hub and then got the 'not enough bandwidth' error.
As you may have gathered I'm beginning to take a dislike to Alsa.
Can anyone suggest some fault tracing procedures please?
--
Barry Samuels
http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk
The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain
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