Ardour alsa pipewire question

[Gps]

I seem to have a weird issue. At least its weird to me.

Opensuse tumbleweed, pipewire.

Ardour is set to use ALSA.

When I quit Ardour something on my system seems to decide, I then want to use the audio part of my video card.

Could this be because hdmi is set as default 0 in Alsa mixer?

Should I change this ? so my usb audio device will be default 0 ?

[autostatic]

You can set your USB interface as device 0 in either /etc/modprobe/alsa-base.conf or in its own file, i.e. /etc/modprobe.d/scarlett.conf :

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# Focusrite Scarlett Solo
options snd-usb-audio index=0 vid=0x1235 pid=0x8211

Assuming this is about a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd gen. Otherwise there's a list of pid's here: https://github.com/geoffreybennett/scar ... /tag/v5.14

It might be necessary to do this for your HDMI interface too and give it its own fixed index. By default the ALSA configuration indexes USB audio interfaces as -2 which means that it doesn't get a fixed index. IIRC it even increments the index if you hot unplug and plug in the device.

[Gps]

Thank you, I will give it a go.

Alsa mixer shows after I hit F6, 3 default

HDMI is defailt 0
Onboard sound default 1
The focus default 2

So it seems I am on the right path.

[sunrat]

Pipewire is still a layer on top of ALSA and sometimes ALSA config is needed. I had HDMI showing as card0 so had to make 2 files for my M2496 PCI card:
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

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options snd_ice1712 index=0
options snd_hda_intel index=2

/etc/modprobe.d/snd_hda_codec_hdmi_blacklist.conf

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blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi

I don't recall if the blacklist file was essential or if it even does anything, but now I have:

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aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: M2496 [M Audio Audiophile 24/96], device 0: ICE1712 multi [ICE1712 multi]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1

Sound now always defaults to M2496.

[Gps]

Interesting

I made a txt file, called 10-sound.conf.txt, in etc/modprobe.d with the text:

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options snd_usb_audio index=0

And that does not help.

Still hdmi is listed as default 0

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 cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfce60000 irq 76
 1 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xfcd00000 irq 78
 2 [USB            ]: USB-Audio - Scarlett Solo USB
                      Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB at usb-0000:02:00.0-9, high speed

Maybe your on to something, and I might also have to change the hda intel part from my amd video card.

While typing this, I am starting to wonder. that .txt part, lets see what happens if I take the.txt part off.

[sunrat]

Interesting

I made a txt file, called 10-sound.conf.txt, in etc/modprobe.d with the text:

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options snd_usb_audio index=0

The file name must end in ".conf" . Rest of the filename doesn't matter, but anything but .conf suffix will be ignored.

[Impostor]

My situation:

Originally HDMI audio was card 0, while onboard chip was card 1. I added:

options snd_hda_intel enable=0,1

to the blacklist file, which got rid of HDMI audio completely. Now my onboard chip is card 0. And still works :)
Maybe you need to change 0,1 into 0,1,1 if you have an extra card? Or 0,0,1? Or 0,2?

[Gps]

We have a winner.

I first made a mistake, I had only one line in the config file.

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options snd_usb_audio index=0

Then my usb sound device was gone, I suspect because I created a conflict. (two index0 devices)

With help from the openSUSE forum, who pointed me to a post on the Arch forum.
It now says:

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options snd_usb_audio index=0
options snd_hda_intel index=1,2

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cat /proc/asound/cards
 0 [USB            ]: USB-Audio - Scarlett Solo USB
                      Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB at usb-0000:02:00.0-9, high speed
 1 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfce60000 irq 77
 2 [Generic        ]: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
                      HD-Audio Generic at 0xfcd00000 irq 79

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cat /proc/asound/modules
 0 snd_usb_audio
 1 snd_hda_intel
 2 snd_hda_intel

The topic on the Arch forum:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=224241

I do not fully understand, how that line with intel index 1,2 works, but Linux does understand it, which is more important.
I was expecting I had to type two lines, one for intel hdmi one for intel generic.

To make this even more fun, did you guys know the sound chip on my AMD vid card is made by intel ?

I swear, computers are made to confuse and annoy us.

[autostatic]

You can check with sudo modinfo snd-hda-intel what the different options do. The index option can take an array, in this case a list of numbers separated by comma's, and will assign those indices to any sound card using the snd-hda-intel driver.

[sunrat]

To make this even more fun, did you guys know the sound chip on my AMD vid card is made by intel ?

Doubtful, it just uses the snd_hda_intel driver module. Similar to how kernels use architecture amd64, even the Intel ones.

[Gps]

To make this even more fun, did you guys know the sound chip on my AMD vid card is made by intel ?

Doubtful, it just uses the snd_hda_intel driver module. Similar to how kernels use architecture amd64, even the Intel ones.

Now it makes sense to me thank you.

[Gps]

It seems it has worked.

Now when I quit Ardour, my Linux (opensuse tumbleweed) does go "back" to the usb sound card.

KDE calls it Headphones (scarlett solo)

When I have Ardour running, kde uses a different name, for this device.

This does proof my point, that computers are made to annoys us.

[tseaver]

@Gps

computers are made to annoys us.

"... as the sparks fly upward."