Rpi USB audio woes and other zombies.

tonythetiger

yo may of already checked it, but ive installed alot of linux over the years, and they often come muted by default, try muting and then unmuting, if not "alsa sound mixer terminal" is what to search for. But honestly some sort of on off thing with mute usually works.

Hex

@Xeon When you say audio doesnt work, which part are you referring to? Video screensaver/preview or Emulator?

Xeon

@hex Everything.
because there is nowhere i can select it as the primary audio device.

Hex

@Xeon Have you tried Sound settings in ES? It has an option to change your device: "OMX PLAYER AUDIO DEVICE". Try both the alsa options. one of them will work.

Xeon

@hex Where do i do this? google has failed me.

Xeon

Does this function work or is it just shrouded in confusion?

Hex

@Xeon Wait I shall get something up soon.

Xeon

@hex thanks

Hex

@Xeon Ok so I tested videos and i got it working. SSh into your pi and try aplay -l and post the output.

Xeon

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
Subdevices: 8/8
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: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Natron

@xeon I just fixed this on mine, actually. The problem is that most tutorials for this are old, showing you how to reconfigure an ALSA.conf file that's missing because they moved it when Raspbian switched to Jessie from Wheezy. The new config file is located at /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf and the file is structured differently. I got mine working by doing the following:

Get into your terminal and type:
sudo nano /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf

Near the middle of this file there are two entries to change. They look like this:
defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0

Just change the zeroes to ones like this:
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1

Then save the file (overwrite).

This worked for me, but I do get a small error telling me that it couldn't find mixing levels or something when I transition into configuration files in Retropie, but I DO get sound, which is the main thing.

Hopefully this does it for you!

Xeon

@natron said in Rpi USB audio woes and other zombies.:

defaults.ctl.card 0

You my friend are a legend.

This worked.
Afterward I updated to latest build via the retro pie script.
Made the changes again.

Selected Speaker in emustation 'not possible on stock image' and increased the volume.

This works! :)

Natron

Awesome! This was quite the head-scratcher, so I'm glad I could help!

Hex

@Xeon You shouldnt have to do that. You could have selected "ALSA:HW:1,0" in the OMX player output device option.

Xeon

@hex said in Rpi USB audio woes and other zombies.:

selected "ALSA:HW:1,0" in the OMX player output device option

How? Kindly explain.

Natron

If you hit the start button and go into Sound Options, there is an option called OMX player at the bottom. You can select this option, but I found that it didn't work for me.

I actually have a question for you, @Xeon. Are you noticing any performance issues with the USB audio? I've noticed that my games run slowly with it in use, and in the menu when I have the audio plugged in my frame rate drops by half. I'm wondering if it's specifically my adapter, or if this is some kind of driver or setup issue.

Hex

@natron said in Rpi USB audio woes and other zombies.:

If you hit the start button and go into Sound Options, there is an option called OMX player at the bottom. You can select this option

Yes this is the correct way to get USB audio

@Natron I checked it on a fresh Retropi setup and it worked as expected. Which option did you select ? ALSA:HW:0,0 or 1,0??

The 0/1 is the device id and :0 is subdevice. aplay -l gives you details about which is your usb sound card.

Natron

@hex That's odd because it didn't work. I tried both options, actually and got no love either way. I'll go back and reconfigure everything back to normal and try this method out again, though. Maybe I missed something.

Edit: Nope, still nothing. Oddly, the volume slider always sets itself back to 0% as well when I use the sound settings menu.

Edit 2: The performance is still atrocious, and fixes itself as soon as I disconnect my USB audio device. I think I'll just have to use this on a regular TV instead of a monitor with speakers. Ah well.

Hex

@Natron There are two settings you have to consider.

1) Master Volume control

If you want to control volume from ES, ES needs the device being used. For USB audio you need to select Speaker from PCM/SPEAKER/MASTER options. For Pi's own Audio out use PCM. For PC use MASTER

2) OMX Audio out device
If you want the Omx player to know which device to output audio from, you will have to set this option.

Local -> Pi's audio out
HDMI -> Hdmi audio
Both -> Both of the above [Default]
ALSA -> Use Manual settings.

To test out which works for you, try this command after closing ES from the command line

# Change the parameter after -o to each of the options to check what works for you.
# options : local / hdmi / both / alsa:hw:0,0 / alsa:hw:1,0

omxplayer MY_VIDEO_FILE.mp4 -o alsa:hw:0,0

Xeon

@hex This option not even being possible unless you run the update script.