[Solved] How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

[Chris Musampa]

Hi all,
I have a softvol in my .asoundrc (copied from hardy) which is set as the default alsa output, it upmixes stereo to 5.1 and adds a control called "All".

In old Amarok I set stereo output to "default" and hey presto my master volume hotkey controlled all volume. Amarok 2 doesn't have the option (or I can't see it) and outputs only to the PCM channel (also applies to system sounds).

Xine and Kaffeine both use the default output, but amarok and system sounds both ignore it, this means no subwoofer output for my music.

Can I add my softvol to the preferred devices list?
Is there a better way to achieve a working master volume control?
Should I just disable system sounds and try downgrading to old Amarok?

Thanks in advance.

[Chris Musampa]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

Bumpage

[tomp01]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?



If you do decide to downgrade Amarok, then you can follow these instructions.

Add repository to Adept

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add key

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
0x1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63

Update sources, remove Amarok 2 and add 1.4

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove amarok
sudo apt-get install amarok14

[Chris Musampa]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

Thanks for the reply Tomp,

I've searched a fair amount on this and found no obvious way of adding my virtual device the preferred devices list. I'd also thought another option would be to send amarok/system sounds to pulseaudio then get pulseaudio to output to my alsa virtual device (even though I'd rather not have another unnecessary layer in the sound system), again google revealed nothing.

I think I may end up going the amarok 1.4 route (have already disabled system sounds as I often forget to turn the PCM volume down then later get blasted by the login sound) but I'm surprised that such a simple requirement can't be handled easily in KDE, surely I can be the only person on the planet with a seperate subwoofer.

[tomp01]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?


I think the problem resides with Amarok 2, I reverted back to 1.4 because there was no CD support. I may be wrong of course!

Thanks for the reply Tomp,

I think I may end up going the amarok 1.4 route (have already disabled system sounds as I often forget to turn the PCM volume down then later get blasted by the login sound) but I'm surprised that such a simple requirement can't be handled easily in KDE, surely I can be the only person on the planet with a seperate subwoofer.

[abalone]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

tomp01, doesn't Amarok 2 use Phonon? Then wouldn't the problem be that there's no obvious way to tell Phonon to send sound to the ALSA default device (or even to completely user-specified devices)?

[abalone]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

I've searched a fair amount on this and found no obvious way of adding my virtual device the preferred devices list.

I know of two alternatives; they might work.

1. Add a "hint" block to your default device in .asoundrc:
hint {
show on
description "Name to display for the device"
}
It will now become available as an output device in System Settings -> Multimedia (I'm assuming Amarok 2 uses Phonon).

2. You can also make Phonon use the GStreamer backend, not Xine, tolerating some performance drawbacks. In my case, switching to GStreamer adds "default", "hw:0,0" and "hw:0,1" to the list of Phonon output devices.

(I learned about these from https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474259)

[Chris Musampa]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

Hi Abalone,

Then wouldn't the problem be that there's no obvious way to tell Phonon to send sound to the ALSA default device (or even to completely user-specified devices)?

That is precisely the problem I have and that is why it also applies to system sounds rather than just amarok.

I know of two alternatives; they might work.

1. Add a "hint" block to your default device in .asoundrc:
hint {
show on
description "Name to display for the device"
}
It will now become available as an output device in System Settings -> Multimedia (I'm assuming Amarok 2 uses Phonon).

2. You can also make Phonon use the GStreamer backend, not Xine, tolerating some performance drawbacks. In my case, switching to GStreamer adds "default", "hw:0,0" and "hw:0,1" to the list of Phonon output devices.

(I learned about these from https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474259)

Your 1st suggestion sounds just what I'm after, I'll try it tonight and post results.

From what I read Gstreamer in kde sounds a bit grim, thanks for both though.

[Chris Musampa]

Re: How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

Hi Abalone,

Then wouldn't the problem be that there's no obvious way to tell Phonon to send sound to the ALSA default device (or even to completely user-specified devices)?

That is precisely the problem I have and that is why it also applies to system sounds rather than just amarok.

I know of two alternatives; they might work.

1. Add a "hint" block to your default device in .asoundrc:
hint {
show on
description "Name to display for the device"
}
It will now become available as an output device in System Settings -> Multimedia (I'm assuming Amarok 2 uses Phonon).

2. You can also make Phonon use the GStreamer backend, not Xine, tolerating some performance drawbacks. In my case, switching to GStreamer adds "default", "hw:0,0" and "hw:0,1" to the list of Phonon output devices.

(I learned about these from https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474259)

Your 1st suggestion sounds just what I'm after, I'll try it tonight and post results.

From what I read Gstreamer in kde sounds a bit grim, thanks for both though.

WAHEY it works! Many thanks all esp Abalone, it was your 1st suggestion which did the trick.

[abalone]

Re: [Solved] How do I send amarok 2 sound to alsa default instead of front?

Great!

But I hope the KDE/Phonon devs will make that extra step unnecessary in the future.