USB Audio Not Working

fentimanj

I have followed numerous tutorials (incl https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Sound-Issues/) and still am unable to get audio out of my external USB Audio interface when running games in Amiberry.
In terminal, I can successfully run

speaker-test -c2 -D plight:1,0

This generates white noise through the headphone output

In RetroPi, under sound settings I have the following:
Audio Card = DEFAULT
Audio Device = MASTER
OMX Player Audio Device = ALSA: HW:1,0

NB - System Volume is always at 0% and keeps resetting to that if I change it

But when I load a game in Amiberry, there is no audio

HELP!!!!

Huge thanks in advance

mitu

Please add some info about your setup, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.
Did you disable the on-board audio on the Pi ?

fentimanj

@mitu
Raspberry Pi 400 running RetroPi 4.7.15 (I think! Just ran an update)

Powered via USB into powersupply

USB Devices attached are a USB Audio Adapter bought from PiHut (https://thepihut.com/products/usb-audio-adapter-works-with-raspberry-pi)

I have updated the /config.txt file with the following:
#dtparam=audio=on
dtparam=audio=off

mitu

@fentimanj If the on-board audio was disabled, then the USB soundcard should be the only audio output and should be selected by default by any program that uses ALSA.

Make sure you don't have any $HOME/.asoundrc file (remove the file if it exists) and try again to use Amiberry.
For EmulationStation, the configuration should be similar to https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Sound-Issues/#step-3-choosing-the-audio-device-mixer. The Audio Card should be set to 'default' and the Audio Device to whatever amixer scontrols -D default reports.

fentimanj

@mitu Thank you for this - it's really helpful

When I execute: amixer scontrols -D default
I get the following error: amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory

mitu

@fentimanj said in USB Audio Not Working:

When I execute: amixer scontrols -D default

Can you run

aplay -l
aplay -L

and post the output ?
Did you follow the documentation on the Adafruit site and modified any config files after installing the USB sound card (e.g. modified /etc/asoundrc or alsa.conf) ?

fentimanj

@mitu

I've checked and don't have either of those files in /etc.
And no, I didn't follow any Adafruit documentation when install

aplay -l

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

aplay -L

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default
output
sysdefault:CARD=Device
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Front speakers
surround21:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
dmix:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Audio Device, USB Audio
    Hardware device with all software conversions

mitu

Based on this output, I think you'd need to set in EmulationStation the Audio Card to Device.

To get the name of the mixer (volume control), run

amixer scontrols -c Device

and choose the 1st entry and set it as Audio Device. For instance, in my case, the USB audio card is named 'Controller':

amixer scontrols -c Controller
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Simple mixer control 'Headset',0

I would use PCM as the AudioDevice settings in ~/.emulationstation/es_settings.cfg:

<string name="AudioCard" value="Controller" />
<string name="AudioDevice" value="PCM" />

This should fix the audio not working (or the volume slider rather) in EmulationStation.

For Amiberry, I'm not sure why it's not working - maybe it's trying to use the 'default' card and it's not working ?

Try following the advice here and create a /home/pi/.asoundrc file containing

defaults.pcm.!card 1
defaults.ctl.!card 1