[CLUE-Tech] SB Live! Mixer Tweaking

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sat, 29 May 2004 15:52:26 -0600
Timothy Klein <teece at silverklein.net> wrote:

> So I have a SoundBlaster Live, with ALSA running the driver. (Linux
> 2.6.6, Debian Sid).  
> 
> It works.  I am wondering if anyone knows of a utility that might know
> what all of the mixer channels do, and can have reasonable presets?
> 
> This card has 62 (!) different mixer channels, many of which have an
> unclear function to me.

Well, when I run xmixer, or gnome-volume-control, I don't see 62 channels.
I see the typical vol, pcm, line, etc. controls.

According the the Creative Labs specs
<http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sblive/specs.asp>, it has "64-voice
hardware polyphony". Is this what you're referring to? These would be used
for synthesis (e.g. MIDI), and not for pre-recorded audio playback.

Can you point to a web page which at least lists what these 62 channels
are?

> I can get it to sound OK with one sound source,
> but the next sound source with different properties will sound bad.  I
> am thus constantly futzing with the mixer, which is non-trivial, as
> there so many variables.

Which mixer program are you using?
 
> The biggest problems seem to come from Artsd applications in KDE, XMMS
> seems to be somewhat better.  Annoyingly, the mixer channels seem to
> behave differnetly depending on which primary sound output/software I am
> using.

Examples would helpful here, particularly those which sound bad.

> Is anyone else running this card and happy with it?

I'm using one, on a RH8.0 system, 2.4 kernel, which I think indicates OSS.
I honestly haven't paid any attention to whether RH patches the kernel for
ALSA. I just check the boxes for the SBLive stuff when I build the kernel.

I haven't encountered any difficulties. My usage is almost entirely
playing OGGs using XMMS, but I also use mplayer some, and the command-line
"play" program. I sometimes listen to CDs as well.

jed
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... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday
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