Arch Linux

oliland

Member

Registered: 2011-01-31

Posts: 4

ALSA & USB sound card woes

Fellow Archers,

Having somehow fried my onboard soundcard, I'm trying to get a very generic "Trust" USB sound device to work. It works on different PC's and the speakers are fine.

However, something seems wrong with the way I've set up alsa; *any* sound played (via aplay or flash player or catting random things to /dev/audio) is played at a very low frequency - like a very old record or a tin can telephone.

I've combed through https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA and followed it's advice, all of my gains are set to 0 but the sound is still terrible. Any ideas for what I can try next?

[oliland@olidesktop ~]$ lsmod | grep '^snd'
snd_seq_dummy           1455  0 
snd_seq_oss            28052  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      5332  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                48705  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_usb_audio          84746  0 
snd_pcm_oss            37890  0 
snd_mixer_oss          14851  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                71032  2 snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              18992  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          7017  1 snd_pcm
snd_hwdep               6134  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_usbmidi_lib        17889  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            18826  1 snd_usbmidi_lib
snd_seq_device          5100  4 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd                    55132  11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_usb_audio,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwdep,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device

[oliland@olidesktop ~]$ ls -l /dev/snd
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root       60 May  2 23:47 by-id
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root       60 May  2 23:47 by-path
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  4 May  2 23:47 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  3 May  2 23:47 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  2 May  3 00:07 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116,  1 May  2 23:47 seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 33 May  2 23:47 timer

bug

Member

From: Israel

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 48

Re: ALSA & USB sound card woes

Does it also happen if you have only one application playing sound? If so, the USB card doesn't support hardware mixing and dmix is acting funny. [Just an idea, not sure if it's the case]

oliland

Member

Registered: 2011-01-31

Posts: 4

Re: ALSA & USB sound card woes

Thanks bug, no - it happens all the time. Funnily enough it has no trouble mixing sound - it's just all at a terrible frequency!

oliland

Member

Registered: 2011-01-31

Posts: 4

Re: ALSA & USB sound card woes

I made a recording with my phone just so you can hear what it sounds like:

http://soundcloud.com/oli-2-2/alsa-prob … rted-sound

oliland

Member

Registered: 2011-01-31

Posts: 4

Re: ALSA & USB sound card woes

/proc/asound/version:
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
/proc/asound/cards:
 0 [Device         ]: USB-Audio - USB Sound Device
                      USB Sound Device at usb-0000:00:1d.3-1, full speed
/proc/asound/devices:
  1:        : sequencer
  2: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  3: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
  4: [ 0]   : control
 33:        : timer
/proc/asound/timers:
G0: system timer : 3333.333us (10000000 ticks)
P0-0-0: PCM playback 0-0-0 : SLAVE
P0-0-1: PCM capture 0-0-1 : SLAVE
/proc/asound/pcm:
00-00: USB Audio : USB Audio : playback 1 : capture 1