Looking for more bass..

Silverwing · 2009-12-08 22:32:45

Hi all,

I've noticed that when running Windows, I get a hell lot more bass out of my system. Bass level is very low on Linux. I've got a Logitech X-540 5.1 surround set, surround works, channels are setup well, using ALSA. My sound card is about 5 years old, supporting 6 channels. I guess the sound card is this line in lspci:

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)

It's an asus P4C800 motherboard. There are some alsa drivers on the driver cd (was pretty surprised by this) compiling it returns some errors about missing (time.c and some of these if I'm right) so it might not support modern kernels.

Messing with alsa's mixer doesn't really do much, it seems like I cannot control the bass speaker alone.
I've tried pulseaudio with Ubuntu, but moving the bass slider up gives some really bad sound so that's probably not a good option.

I truely miss the bass, I even ran Windows today to make my music sound better and play my favorite games with full bass output. I even had to use Windows for a party!

If possible, I need a system wide bass improvement. I'm fine with using amarok for some extra bass for my music, but I also want extra bass with Warcraft (through wine).

If someone can help me fixing this, there will be only one reason for using Windows above Linux, the slight performance difference in Warcraft III (about 10 fps, 20 fps in a fight..)

pyther · 2009-12-09 00:28:00

I don't know much about alsa, but you might want to give ossv4 a try. Others say it sounds better than alsa and I would have to agree. There is a page in the wiki and it is a breeze to setup.

lucke · 2009-12-09 01:04:14

I don't know if it'd change anything, but you could try installing alsa-plugins and putting "defaults.pcm.rate_converter "samplerate"" in /etc/asound.conf.

FALK · 2009-12-09 01:40:23

Have a look at this: http://www.thedigitalmachine.net/alsaequal.html
It is in AUR.

Edit: just tried it in moc and mpd, works great.

Last edited by FALK (2009-12-09 01:54:30)

Silverwing · 2009-12-09 15:14:33

Thanks for the quick replies, I'll take a look at alsaequal.

EDIT:

Could you post your mpd config? And should the configuration file .asoundrc be in my home directory (doesn't exist at the moment)?
Any ideas how I could get wine use the alsaequal plugin?

Last edited by Silverwing (2009-12-09 15:28:10)

RaisedFist · 2009-12-09 15:41:49

Silverwing wrote:

Hi all,
I've noticed that when running Windows, I get a hell lot more bass out of my system. Bass level is very low on Linux. I've got a Logitech X-540 5.1 surround set, surround works, channels are setup well, using ALSA. My sound card is about 5 years old, supporting 6 channels. I guess the sound card is this line in lspci:

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
It's an asus P4C800 motherboard. There are some alsa drivers on the driver cd (was pretty surprised by this) compiling it returns some errors about missing (time.c and some of these if I'm right) so it might not support modern kernels.

No, this is not your logitech card. It's the onboard soundcard, so you should set ALSA use your card. Show us what "lsmod" command displays when run. Also, have you done what the wiki page (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA) suggests?

FALK · 2009-12-09 15:42:20

Put this in .asoundrc in your home-dir:

ctl.equal {
  type equal;
}

pcm.plugequal {
  type equal;
  slave.pcm "plug:dmix";
}

#pcm.equal {
  # Or if you want the equalizer to be your
  # default soundcard uncomment the following
  # line and comment the above line.
 pcm.!default {
  type plug;
  slave.pcm plugequal;
}

and use "alsamixer -D equal" to config it. Also works in wine if you choose ALSA as driver.

Silverwing · 2009-12-09 15:57:15

@FALK:

I tried that, but there were no results for mpd, haven't tried wine yet.

@RaisedFist:

My sound card isn't logitech, that's just my speakers. What am I suppost to look for in lsmod?
I've done pretty much everything on the alsa page.

Just tried OSS, and it seems to sound better. It doesn't give the amount of bass I want but at least it's better.

FALK · 2009-12-09 16:43:19

from mpd.conf:

audio_output {
          type    "alsa"
          name    "equal"
          device  "plug:plugequal"
}

Silverwing · 2009-12-09 18:42:51

I guess I screwed up something while setting up OSS, starting the alsa daemon now returns this:
/etc/rc.d/alsa start
:: Restoring ALSA Levels [BUSY] /usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1608: No soundcards found...
[FAIL]

OSS still works though. I tried to think about what I've changed, but all of the config done for OSS was done with OSS tools, I didn't alter any configuration files.

lucke · 2009-12-09 18:46:02

OSS used to move ALSA modules. If that's still the case, uninstall OSS and it should move ALSA modules back.

Silverwing · 2009-12-10 15:40:27

Using OSS for a day now, I'm quite happy with it. I think I might stick with it. Thanks for the replies, this will make me happy every day I fire up mpd

denisfalqueto · 2009-12-10 17:40:22

Sorry to be late, but Pulseaudio is very good too. You can continue using Alsa (it can run as a plugin for Alsa lib) and there is an increasing number of applications supporting Pulse natively. If you can spare some time to test it, it may be worth. Its software mixer is very good, I couldn't believe the difference it made with my crappy onboard sound card.

pyther · 2009-12-10 18:19:28

denisfalqueto wrote:

Sorry to be late, but Pulseaudio is very good too. You can continue using Alsa (it can run as a plugin for Alsa lib) and there is an increasing number of applications supporting Pulse natively. If you can spare some time to test it, it may be worth. Its software mixer is very good, I couldn't believe the difference it made with my crappy onboard sound card.

But that was just his problem. Alsa was not giving him enough bass for his likings.

if [[ OP == female ]]; then s/(his||him)/her; fi

Last edited by pyther (2009-12-10 18:20:42)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-08 22:32:45

Looking for more bass..

#2 2009-12-09 00:28:00

Re: Looking for more bass..

#3 2009-12-09 01:04:14

Re: Looking for more bass..

#4 2009-12-09 01:40:23

Re: Looking for more bass..

#5 2009-12-09 15:14:33

Re: Looking for more bass..

#6 2009-12-09 15:41:49

Re: Looking for more bass..

#7 2009-12-09 15:42:20

Re: Looking for more bass..

#8 2009-12-09 15:57:15

Re: Looking for more bass..

#9 2009-12-09 16:43:19

Re: Looking for more bass..

#10 2009-12-09 18:42:51

Re: Looking for more bass..

#11 2009-12-09 18:46:02

Re: Looking for more bass..

#12 2009-12-10 15:40:27

Re: Looking for more bass..

#13 2009-12-10 17:40:22

Re: Looking for more bass..

#14 2009-12-10 18:19:28

Re: Looking for more bass..

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