hifiberry amp with retropie

NastyWays85

Hi there,

i am experimenting with raspberry pi, installed retro pie lastest version,
i have the hifiberry amp module laying around, so i thought why not try to build a cabinet,
and install some speakers connected to the hifiberry amp

the thing is, the module gets detected,

when i ssh into the pi

aplay -l

is see following

***** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
Subdevices: 7/8
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_amp], device 0: HifiBerry AMP HiFi tas5713-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0*

so my card is numbered as 1

also when i go to retropie menu and select audio

you get the options Auto, headphones, hdmi and mixer-adjust output vol,e

when i select mixer
i see card bcm2835 selected, there i can push F6 so i can select sound card
and here i can select the hifiberry amp

the volume of the hifiberry is set to 100%

the thing is i don't get sound, not in the menu, not in the games,

can someone help me out?

kind regards.

NastyWays85

for some reason when i try to post it in the category help and support i get an error
category doesn't exist... sorry in advance

Ekstreme

I have one of these that I got working with Volumio and a similar issue. I've got it on loan to a mate as soon as I get it back I'll get you the boot.txt option I needed to use to get it to work. It may help.

cyperghost

@NastyWays85
Please use this setting .... The Hifiberry only got Softwaremixer
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4417/volume-control-for-dac-hifiberry-devices-i2s-devices

Follow the adafruit guide and disable the bcm2835 soundmodule. It's in the link of the thread posted

Better this way :)
https://www.hifiberry.com/guides/configuring-linux-3-18-x/

NastyWays85

@cyperghost said in hifiberry amp with retropie:

@NastyWays85
Please use this setting .... The Hifiberry only got Softwaremixer
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4417/volume-control-for-dac-hifiberry-devices-i2s-devices

Follow the adafruit guide and disable the bcm2835 soundmodule. It's in the link of the thread posted

Better this way :)
https://www.hifiberry.com/guides/configuring-linux-3-18-x/

@cyperghost

hi there, i already tried that article from hifiberry,
but no luck first of all

Remove drivers from the blacklist

Remove the following lines from /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf on Raspbian. If you’re using another distribution, check where it configures module blacklists.

blacklist i2c-bcm2708
blacklist snd-soc-pcm512x
blacklist snd-soc-wm8804

seems that the raspi-blacklist.conf file is already empty

then next step

Remove the driver for the onboard sound

Remove the line

snd_bcm2835
from /etc/modules

the only thing written in /etc/modules is

uinput
i2c-dev

then they ask

Configure device tree overlay file

You don’t have to edit /etc/modules anymore, but need to load the correct device tree file. To do this, you must edit /boot/config.txt and add the following line

Amp/Amp+

dtoverlay=hifiberry-amp

so i edited the config.txt and added the line above
i then went to the next step

Configure ALSA

Create /etc/asound.conf with the following content:

pcm.!default {
type hw card 0
}
ctl.!default {
type hw card 0
}
Reboot again now

after reboot they ask to test it

when they do aplay -l they're only left with the hifiberry amp...

i get

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
Subdevices: 7/8
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_amp], device 0: HifiBerry AMP HiFi tas5713-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

so as you can see because of the fact that in the file /etc/modules there was no line
of the existing sound card so i can't remove it

Remove the line

snd_bcm2835
from /etc/modules

am i overseeing something?

thx for your reply!

NastyWays85

@cyperghost said in hifiberry amp with retropie:

@NastyWays85
Please use this setting .... The Hifiberry only got Softwaremixer
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4417/volume-control-for-dac-hifiberry-devices-i2s-devices

Follow the adafruit guide and disable the bcm2835 soundmodule. It's in the link of the thread posted

Better this way :)
https://www.hifiberry.com/guides/configuring-linux-3-18-x/

haha, went back to your answer, and followed the first link, there you can click further to adafruit guide, and basically it explains the same as the second link you post from hifiberry
with one difference

Edit your Pi configuration file with
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
And scroll down to the bottom. If you see a line that says: dtparam=audio=on

Disable it by putting a # in front.
Then add:
dtoverlay=hifiberry-amp
on the next line. Save the file.

the trick is to disable dtparam=audio=on

by disabling this line, the only sound device is the one you specify with dtoverlay

rebooted and started a game, sound is pounding through the speakers connected to the hifiberry amp, you can finetune the volume with alsamixer

thx for the replies!

gonna test everything and then i can begin making the cabinet! so nice!

cyperghost

@NastyWays85
Glad it worked for you!
Can you control the sound volume with the controls the ES provides? (you know the black/white slider with x%)
If not then try the asound.cfg posted in my thread. My volume control wasn't adjustable just as I added a software mixer.

vandyman

@NastyWays85

I own the HiFiBerry aAmp and am trying to use it as an arcade speaker option. But I'm having no luck except for hearing the click sounds on the emulation station menu. Would you mind providing a detailed walk through how you solved this? Much appreciated!