M-audio 66 error

[dchurch24]

Hi all,

I finally got my soundcard (m-audio 66), and when it's plugged in I can see the envy24 in the "lspci", but when I open the envy24 Control Utility nothing happens.

If I click the volume control at the bottom of the screen I get the following error pop up:

"No volume control GStreamer plugins and/or devices found"

I am using 64_Studio (the 32 bit version).

(oddly and on a side note, since putting this machine together I have made a few very stupid mistakes - I had the keyboard plugged in the mouse port, and for some reason this stopped the display from working?? I assume I've made another silly mistake with this)

Is anyone able to point me in the right direction please?

[studio32]

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apt-get search gstreamer

?

And install some gstreamer plugins?
You may want to ask this on the 64studio forum/mailinglist..

[thorgal]

lspci is one thing but you also need a kernel module to drive your card

In your case, chances are you need to load 'snd-ice1712'.
You could use alsaconf, it should in principle detect your card and configure the relevant system files for proper booting of your card.
I don't know if alsaconf is installed via the alsa packages but anyway, open a terminal, check that you have no alsa module loaded by typing

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lsmod | grep ice1712

if nothing shows up, check that the module exists nonetheless:

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sudo modinfo snd-ice1712

if nothing pops up, you have a little problem. If a module description is displayed on the screen, then you can eitehr load it manually:

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sudo modprobe snd-ice1712

or use alsaconf

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sudo alsaconf

and let you guided by the utility.

Once the module is loaded, check the last system messages:

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dmesg

and see if things look normal at the bottom of the messages (something related to your card initialization).

Then, open up envy24control again, and you should be in business.

[dchurch24]

Wow - thanks guys.

I have to wait until I get home to try these things out (am at work at the moment - how people manage to hold down a full time job AND have a life is beyond me!).

Will post results - thanks again.

[dchurch24]

Hi - for some reason I don't seem to have alsaconf installed.

I did a apt-get alsa (after doing a search) and it says I have the latest version.

Am stuck.

If I open alsamixer and change the volumes the volumes also change in envy24control which I am taking as a good sign - although I still have no output, and at one point I did have the meters jumping up and down when playing sound - I just didn't have it plugged into an amp at that point. I've come back to it, and now I don't even have that.

Now, I start Jack or (qjack) and then start Hydrogen, hydrogen outputs nothing, and when I click the play button it also does nothing. Then after about 5-10 seconds, jack collapses with several:

cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)
cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)
cannot continue execution of the processing graph (Broken pipe)

etc...

and then of course, Hydrogen just closes with no warning.

Mind you, this stegging PC is giving me anus ache - and for some reason it gets really, really, noisy and then goes quiet after a while. I think the things' just giving up the ghost to be honest.

....I guess I'll get buying another PC.

[mauser]

Buying another PC is a very useless decision when you're encountering a software problem

Have you thought about buying support for 64-Studio? The guys are offering paid support at very low rates. And they're doing a great job at improving the linux audio community.

Ok, but now for your problems..

The package is called "alsa-tools" or something like this, use apt-cache search to get the exact name.
If you run jackd with the alsa backend it is not a great wonder that it works not if alsa isn't set-up correctly

And have you checked that the module is loaded correctly, as thorgal wrote ??

[dchurch24]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

It turns out it was a duff memory chip! Duh! Oh well, at least it's only that.

I reinstalled everything, and yep, the module is loaded and once again I'm in the position where I can see the monitors in Envy24 Control, but have no sound output.

Still, this has cheered me up no end - I was getting really despondent about it all!

Thank

[dchurch24]

Apparently alsaconf has been removed from the packages. Bugger.

[thorgal]

getting desperate won't help you. The envy24 chip is well supported so if the ALSA module is loaded, all you need is to turn up the right faders in envy24control. IIRC, you have ADCs and DACs, the former being input levels, the latter output levels. The alsamixer is a generic mixer app that is not optimal for high-end cards and totally useless in my case (RME HDSP system) so you do need to use the dedicated mixer and stick with it.

About alsaconf, it looks like package managers don't use it or it is in an unusual spot in your your file tree. To make sure, go to packages.debian.org or packages.ubuntu.com depending on your OS and look for it thanks to the search field (for debian, it is http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents). Debian reports that alsaconf belong to the package alsa-utils. Nothing pops up for ubuntu. So YMMV

As for your ouput problems, could it be the card itself ? or the alsa version ? I used to play around with a Delta1010LT 1.5 year ago. It worked without any problem. I know you can specify the card model when you load the alsa module. Just type

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sudo modinfo snd-ice1712

and check what parameters can be passed on at loading time. Maybe something called 'model' or so. I saw a few posts on the ubuntu forums where people mentioned that they passed such a param at module loading time.

[dchurch24]

getting desperate won't help you.
The envy24 chip is well supported so if the ALSA module is loaded, all you need is to turn up the right faders in envy24control.

Hi, the modules were (and have been loaded since I first found you post on how to do it - thanks again )

...and...after all that frustration and despondency, you have hit the nail right on the head.

I found it at about 1.30am this morning - I needed to turn the volume up for analogue number 7.

7??? I was playing with 1,2,3 and 4 and nothing was coming out. In a last ditch attempt, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and was playing with EVERYTHING - I had Hydrogen playing a random pattern and was watching the output in the Envy24 control, and then suddenly, which made me jump so hard I nearly fell out of my seat, I could hear drums!!

So, thanks for putting up with my exhasperated tantrum last night, I do apologise.

Right then....on to getting it recording now.

Incidently, the latency in Jack says it's 48ms - that sounds bad to me.

[thorgal]

hehe, that was a big bummer

anyway, the envy24control will configure itself depending on the card model (number of IOs, etc). As I said, some ppl had to force the model type when loading the kernel module. If you have the right number of channels in the mixer app, then you need not bother with that.

About the latency, the envy chip can do better. Set qjackctl to the following:

number of frames per period: 128
number of periods per buffer: 2
realtime mode: ON
samplerate: 48000 (or 44100 if you prefer)
leave the rest to default.

that should help to decrease the latency. What kernel version do you have ?

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uname -r

[dchurch24]

Hi,

thanks for the reply - I'm not sure which kernel version I have, I will have to wait until I get home from work to find out, but it was the latest RT UbuntuStudio download that wasn't 8.10 - i.e. 8.04, so whichever kernel that is, is the one I have, but will confirm the numbers when I get in.

Thanks again

[studio32]

does the delta 66 only have mono outputs and inputs? I hear only mono

[dchurch24]

Yes, mono only.

If you have a stereo track in say, Ardour though, each channel is set to output to say, 1 & 2 (1 being left and 2 being right) - I had to buy a jack splitter so that I could output both channel 1 and 2 to the left and right of my amp.

I only record each instrument in mono, although I can determine how much of the sound comes out of each speaker.

[thorgal]

isn't there a panning option in envy24control for monitoring ? I cannot recall if there was. On the hdspmixer (for my RME system), you can pan the hardware monitoring of each input mono channel so you end up with a signal in both speakers. This is super useful