(#492) Re: speak-freely with alsa & esd sound server

Message posted to the Speak Freely Forum
  by John H on Tue, 14 Oct 2003 01:50:03 +0200 (MEST).
  http://www.fourmilab.ch/wb/speak-freely.pl?rev=492

  Reply To: (#491) speak-freely with alsa & esd sound server
  Author:   Attila Koni....
  Date:     2003-10-13 14:17

: Forwarded from the [email protected]
: mailing list: Hi Folks,
: Is it possible to run speak freely with alsa
: and esd together?
: I ask because alsa alone runs fine, but i have
: a problem with my cmi8738
: soundcard which doesn't allow me to invoke the
: mic boost feature present in
: my soundcard for both recording and monitoring
: mic output.
: Currently the mic output for monitoring in the
: speakers is the only thing
: that gets affected by the mic boost switch, and
: the record-level, which is
: obviously needed for speak-freely remains
: untouched by this switch.
: So i hoped to get this fixed with esd as an
: intermediate between alsa and my
: half-ready sound-card-driver.
: Is there any solution? Without this mic boost
: feature my head-set is
: extremely low volume, and i don't always want
: to use an effects-processor
: originally developed for musical sessions to
: bost up my mic input to
: acceptable signal strength.
: Any help is very much appreciated.
: Thanks and Regards, Attila.

Are you thinking of SF talking communicating via an alsa emulation layer to
esd, which will process it and call the alsa libraries itself?
I would think it a better thing to get alsa to do the right thing in the first
place. I'm pretty sure the extra layer would incur greater delays, and if ESD
can do what you want, then it must be possible to do it without ESD.
One possibility would be just to add a gain in software to the values read in
by the alsa routines. Do you know if ESD is just enabling a feature in the
card, or amplifying in software after capturing?
Depending on the quality of the soundcard, you may get better results from the
hardware preamp.


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