Boss Micro BR-80

[singforme]

Hi everyone!

Has anybody managed to get this device working as a Linux soundcard? It's being recognised and displayed but neither jack nor ALSA seem to be able to use it.

Cheers, Ben

[Linuxmusician01]

It needs a driver in Windows as well as in MacOS. Probably not a class compliant audio device. What does lsusb say 'bout this device? I read on the website of Boss:

USB Functions:

• 24-bit/44.1 kHz USB-AUDIO (Hi-Speed USB)
• USB Mass Storage Class (Hi-Speed USB)
• BUS Power operation

So it might be recognized by Linux as a mass storage device, not as an audio device.

[singforme]

Hi!
Actually it can be run in USB storage and in USB-Audio mode.

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benjamin@microlab:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0582:0130 Roland Corp. MICRO BR BR-80

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│┌─────────────────────────── /proc/asound/cards ────────────────────────────┐ │
││ 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel                                │ │
││                      HDA Intel at 0xfc020000 irq 32                       │ │
││ 1 [BR80AUDIO      ]: USB-Audio - BR-80(AUDIO)                             │ │
││                      Roland BR-80(AUDIO) at usb-0000:00:1d.7-2, high speed│ │
││ 3 [Loopback       ]: Loopback - Loopback                                  │ │
││                      Loopback 1                                           │ │
│└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 

[Linuxmusician01]

I am no ALSA expert, but ALsa seems to have recognised it. What does the following command result in?

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alsamixer -c 1

Because /proc/asound/cards says that the Boss is soundcard number 1 (0 = HDA-Intel). Maybe you need to unmute things? How do you start Jack? I start it in a console like so:

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jackd -d alsa --device hw:1

(again: remember that the Boss is soundcard number 1, not 0) Good luck!

[singforme]

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┌────────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.1.3 ──────────────────────────────┐
│   Gerät: BR-80(AUDIO)                              F1:  Hilfe                │
│    Chip:                                           F2:  System-Informationen │
│ Ansicht: F3:[Wiedergabe] F4: Aufnahme  F5: Alle    F6:  Soundkarte auswählen │
│ Element: MIDI Input Mode [Light Load]              Esc: Beenden              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                  Light Load                                  │
│                              <MIDI Input Mode >                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
│                                                                              │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

If I run Jack from the Terminal i get:

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jackd -d alsa --device hw:1
jackdmp 1.9.11
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2016 Grame.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
no message buffer overruns
no message buffer overruns
no message buffer overruns
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
audio_reservation_init
Acquire audio card Audio1
creating alsa driver ... hw:1|hw:1|1024|2|48000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
Using ALSA driver USB-Audio running on card 1 - Roland BR-80(AUDIO) at usb-0000:00:1d.7-2, high speed
configuring for 48000Hz, period = 1024 frames (21.3 ms), buffer = 2 periods
ALSA: final selected sample format for capture: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for capture
ALSA: final selected sample format for playback: 32bit integer little-endian
ALSA: use 2 periods for playback
ALSA: poll time out, polled for 34828045 usecs
JackAudioDriver::ProcessAsync: read error, stopping...
^@^CJack main caught signal 2
Released audio card Audio1
audio_reservation_finish

jack will start but quickly shut down again.

[Linuxmusician01]

Can you get Jack to work w/ another audio card? If not then PulseAudio might be your problem. Then try:

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pulseaudio --kill

To restart:

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pulseaudio --start -v

Te error message you get from Jack is "JackAudioDriver::ProcessAsync: read error, stopping...". I've googled but I can't find a specific problem that causes this error. Might even be something as trivial as you not being a member of the group "audio" (see here).

The forum member named Autostatic knows a whole lotta more than I do. Pray that he replies.

[neilnardlenoo]

Hello there.

I'll be very little help, but thought I'd share my experience on this subject, given the coincidental timing.
I can say that the BR-80 can work as a USB audio interface on Linux, as well as an external storage device - I used it with Fedora 17 (3.9.10-100, I believe) for a while, very successfully (once I'd figured out what this jack lark was all about - all new to me at the time). Since that OS was creaking with its age, I took the decision to upgrade to 25 (4.11.8-200) just a couple of weeks ago, after finishing a project, so I could take advantage of the newer versions of all the software I'm running and since then, I'm rather gutted to say, I've not been able to get the thing working again.

I know I had some problems on Fedora 17, initially but I'm sure that was mainly around jack (it's a long time ago). Once I had a working config for that I thought I'd be set. lsusb shows the br-80, as does "aplay -l" and "amidi -l" and alsamixer (though there are no controls listed in there for it, I can't remember if there were previously).

But whatever I try I get nothing out of the thing (even tried updating to the latest firmware on the BR-80 itself). Normal, internal soundcard is fine with or without jack. pulseaudio killed and not killed, makes no difference. I use Ardour and the latest version of that lists it in the jack setup but then fails to open it. aplay ... doesn't play, also despite seeing it - just gives an i/o errors after a while, so I'm thinking it's not just my jack ignorance rearing up again.

I get a bit of this...
kernel: usb 1-1.4: Unable to change format on ep #8e: already in use
and the same "JackAudiDriver:: ProcessAsync: read error, stopping...." mentioned above and lsusb -v give a few "UNRECOGNIZED" settings/parameters which don't look encouraging.

Despite that I'm used to fedora and want to stick with it and despite the effort of getting it installed and set up for everything else I use it for, I'm considering switching to AVLinux or KXStudio and seeing if they're any better.

You've probably seen it but this chap seems to be having the same issue with another Boss device....
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17180&p=82065&hilit ... 300#p82065
Worth keeping an eye on in case he gets anywhere.

If by some fluke I get any progress I'll let you know.

thanks.

[Linuxmusician01]

@neilnardlenoo Your post speaks volumes and it is very helpful! If it worked w/ one kernel and it doesn't w/ another then its a driver problem! I've had the same thing in the (ancient) past w/ a nice wireless PCMCIA network card that I owned. I always explain this sort of thing as follows (I might be wrong or stating it the other way around): ALL drivers for hardware (even hardware that you do not own) are in the kernel. If you change kernel (like w/ an updated distro) the drivers usually do not change because old hardware does not need an "updated" driver. But in my experience drivers break from kernel to kernel. It's just like updating Windows: sometimes your drivers don't work any more then and you must hope and pray that your hardware manufacturer updates their driver for your old (and unsupported) hardware. In the case of Linux your driver "manufacturer" is ALSA (Jack and PulseAdio are just layers (or servers) on ALSA).

In short: this sucks big time. You might not be able to use the Boss ever again.

By the way: always be careful when updating firmware. The Behringer 404HD reported itseld under a different name to the Linux OS after a firmware update. This resulted in the OS not being able to find the right driver for it and it didn't work any more. "If it aint broke don't try to fix it"

I always thought that Linux wasn't this sensitive to an OS upgrades. If a driver works, it works. The ALSA developers are your only hope now I'm afraid.

[rghvdberg]

Ok something wonky with USB audio going on here.
IRC user reported the same thing with a maudio card.
It ran fine on Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 and totally froze the pc on 17.04.
Dunno the exact kernel versions but there is a pattern here.
Older kernel ok, newer kernel broken.

I suggest a bug report at your distro to start with or maybe at https://bugzilla.kernel.org/

[Drumfix]

Unfortunately the support for USB Boss/Roland devices that use the Roland "vendor", i.e. non class compliant, driver is completely broken.
It can be temporarily fixed by applying a patch to the kernel similar to the one i posted for the JD-Xi here

https://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopi ... 3&start=15

with the parameters adjusted to the values given by lsusb -v for the device in question.

I wouldn't count on the alsa developers to fix the bug any time soon, since they know it exists for years.

[neilnardlenoo]

Drumfix,

Thanks for the post - despite the prediction about the lack of possibility of a fix from the dev.s, I'd be happy just to get things working, so a patch would be fine by me.

The only problem is, I don't have permissions to see the attachment in that post if anyone can help a noob out?

Is this a quirks.h thing? I'd (presumably wrongly) thought that wasn't the issue given that a lot of the info I'd seen around quirks was about just getting the device seen, where the OS in my case looks to be able to see it without issue which diverted me away from that.
One I've seen previously (posted 5 years ago) was this:
http://org0ne.livejournal.com/29979.html
which is actually already for the br-80 so might be worth me trying directly after all.

Thanks again.

[Drumfix]

You can see attachments only when you are logged in.

And yes, its just a quirk, that need to be attached. Just replace the relevant parts in my patch with the data of your Boss device and it should work.

[singforme]

Hi Drumfix! This sounds like some hope on the horizon. I'd really love to be able to use this device on Linux because as a recording card it would do just what I need over the next months as I'll be on the move a lot.

I'd there anyone at ALSA to bribe?

I've never really modded a kernel or something of that sort. Is it easy to do?

[Linuxmusician01]

I've never really modded a kernel or something of that sort. Is it easy to do?

No.

[Drumfix]

As far as i can see there has been a quirk for the BR-80 until it has been removed by this commit

author Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> 2013-02-07 22:45:16 +0100
committer Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de> 2013-06-27 21:59:49 +0200
commit 8e5ced83dd1c3090c96c4e0614703f0f2a5ba2f4 (patch)
tree 5e816279b6bdd79d38f978cf6b52a43b47ff5404 /sound/usb/quirks-table.h
parent a968782e27f1c5144919edbbaf6f10e8b437ab3e (diff)
download linux-stable-8e5ced83dd1c3090c96c4e0614703f0f2a5ba2f4.tar.gz
ALSA: usb-audio: remove superfluous Roland quirks
Remove all quirks that are no longer needed now that the generic Roland
quirks can handle the vendor-specific descriptors correctly.

Signed-off-by: Clemens Ladisch <clemens@ladisch.de>

Unfortuately that "generic Roland quirk" just doesn't work for some unidentified reason.

So no need to bribe anyone at alsa, post the above to the alsa developer mailing list and request to revert the commit.