LinuxMusicians

Hi all,
I'm running Ubuntu Studio on an old Dell XPS 8900. I've used the Presonus Audiobox USB 96 for about 18 months and it has worked fine. I've upgraded the OS regularly. However, yesterday I upgraded from Ubuntu Studio 22.0 to 22.04 and I'm observing the following problems:

• As soon as I connect the presonus capture ports to system playback 1 and 2 via Carla, I immediately hear a loud hiss. This occurs even if the presonus inputs are turned to -10db.
• Sound is distorted unless I speak quietly through my Shure SM 58 mic, or turn the gain on my alessis nitro drums, or my PRS guitar almost to zero. This occurs even if the presonus inputs are turned to -10db.

Troubleshooting:

• Research indicates the presonus device is a class compliant USB, so should work out of the box.
• I can replicate the issues with the presonus plugged into any USB 2.0 port on the PC
• I saw a suggestion to try disabling the XHCI driver but can't do that in my BIOS setup

What do you suggest I do for troubleshooting?
TIA.

Indeed, the website says Class Compliant. But they also say that you need "Universal Control 3.4.2" software... Maybe to change settings?

Are there any controls in alsamixer? Type into a terminal and see if there are any controls. Quite often there aren't with class compliant devices, but worth a try.

@Linuxmusician01 - Thanks for the feedback. There isn't a universal control available for Linux, likely because it's not officially supported. However the presonus worked up to the point that I upgraded without a universal control.

@merlyn - Thanks for the feedback. alsamixer reports: "This sound device does not have any controls.".

muzician wrote: ↑Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:11 pm @Linuxmusician01 - Thanks for the feedback. There isn't a universal control available for Linux, likely because it's not officially supported. However the presonus worked up to the point that I upgraded without a universal control.

You might want to give it a try anyway. I've heard that some audio devices need some sort of setting via Windows software before working without it. Maybe somebody who owns this device give more info.

Maybe the latest driver (= kernel module) in the new kernel that you use is the culprit. Do you have an older (Linux) computer to test it with? Probably not, but it might help.

Good luck trouble shooting and let us hear what the solution was!

If it was working before and then stopped working with the upgrade then you'll likely want to file a bug report with ALSA devel.

@Linuxmusician01 - Thank you for the feedback. I have wine installed, so I attempted to install the windows universal controller, but the application install failed because portcls.sys wasn't available. Per feedback on the wine forums: "sys files are hardware drivers, and Windows hardware drivers don't work in Wine", so I think that's a dead end.

@bluzee - Thank you for the feedback. I've submitted a bug report to the alsa project.

So it sounds like an internal setting on the Audiobox has increased the input gain. To get something working you could try going back to the kernel you had on 22.0, if you're confident doing that.

WINE is not going to work with the Audiobox control app, as you've discovered. When I've had to use a Windows control app, I have used a Windows virtual machine with USB passthrough, if that's something you could manage. Alternatively find a Windows machine you could use, e.g. a friend's.

muzician wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 2:25 pm

@Linuxmusician01 - Thank you for the feedback. I have wine installed, so I attempted to install the windows universal controller, but the application install failed because portcls.sys wasn't available. Per feedback on the wine forums: "sys files are hardware drivers, and Windows hardware drivers don't work in Wine", so I think that's a dead end.

@bluzee - Thank you for the feedback. I've submitted a bug report to the alsa project.

As you've discovered, WINE will not operate with the Audiobox control app. I've had to use a Windows control software on occasion.