[PD] some interesting info regarding RME-Alsa (0.9) and PD (and other 0.35.9 suggestions)

[Ivica Bukvic]

I did, then it complains about the lack of MIDI (since my es1370 is
Dell's OEM card without a gameport), but does not generally change the
rest of the output. That's why I did not bother writing down that
possibility.

Ico

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ppagano at bellsouth.net [mailto:ppagano at bellsouth.net]
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 7:38 PM
> To: ico at fuse.net
> Subject: Re: [PD] some interesting info regarding RME-Alsa (0.9) and
PD
> (and other 0.35.9 suggestions)
> 
> try it without that -nomidi flag
> 
> 
> Ivica Bukvic wrote:
> 
> > I hope this might be helpful to whomever will be capable of making
Pd
> latest
> > Alsa+RME friendly (which now, since Alsa has become incorporated
into
> the
> > kernel should be a rather important issue ;-).
> >
> > I was fiddling with different options, so this is what I could come
up
> with:
> >
> > On my system there are 2 soundcards es1370 as the primary card, and
RME
> > Hammerfall as the secondary one.
> >
> > I am using latest Alsa 0.9.
> >
> > Here's my .asoundrc file (which should be placed into one's home
dir,
> and
> > this one works flawlessly with Ardour):
> >
> > pcm.rme9652 {
> > type hw
> > card 1
> > }
> > ctl.rme9652 {
> > type hw
> > card 1
> > }
> > pcm.dsp1 {
> > type plug
> > slave.pcm rme9652
> > }
> >
> > (please notice that my card # and dsp# refer to RME being secondary
> card,
> > thus for example, I'd start ardour by saying: ardour -d rme9652 -f
2048
> )
> >
> > Now, as far as the latest 0.35.9 version of PD is concerned, here
are a
> > couple of suggestions:
> >
> > the extra/expr~/vexp.h does not find properly some includes which
are
> located
> > in the src/ dir. This might be the quirk of my  machine, but the
easy
> fix to
> > make a compile error-less would be to change m_pd.h include line of
this
> file
> > from:
> >
> > #include "m_pd.h"
> >
> > to:
> >
> > #include "../../src/m_pd.h"
> >
> > (note: i did do make depend, but that did not resolve this "file not
> found"
> > error)
> >
> > Now onto the main reason for this e-mail :-)...
> >
> > This is what I tried with the Pd in its current state:
> > (note, I am using internal RME brackets with 8 i/o, so I have them
> specified
> > appropriately)
> >
> > call:
> > pd -nomidi -alsa -inchannels 8 -outchannels 8 -alsadev 2
> > yields:
> > audio I/O stuck... closing audio
> > [app works, no sound]
> >
> > call:
> > pd -nomidi -alsa -alsadev 2
> > yields:
> > snd_pcm_hw_params_set_access (input): Invalid argument
> > Sample width set to 4 bytes
> > ALSA: set input channels to 14
> > snd_pcm_hw_params_set_access (output): Invalid argument
> > alsa: set output channels to 14
> > pd: pcm.c:866: snd_pcm_writei: Assertion `pcm->access ==
> > SND_PCM_ACCESS_RW_INTERLEAVED' failed.
> > Aborted
> > [app closes]
> >
> > call:
> > pd -nomidi -alsa -inchannels 26 -outchannels 26 -alsadev 2
> > yields:
> > audio I/O stuck... closing audio
> > [app works, no sound]
> >
> > call:
> > pd -nomidi -alsadev 2
> > yields:
> > snd_pcm_hw_params_set_access (input): Invalid argument
> > Sample width set to 4 bytes
> > ALSA: set input channels to 14
> > snd_pcm_hw_params_set_access (output): Invalid argument
> > alsa: set output channels to 14
> > pd: pcm.c:866: snd_pcm_writei: Assertion `pcm->access ==
> > SND_PCM_ACCESS_RW_INTERLEAVED' failed.
> > Aborted
> > [app closes]
> >
> > call:
> > pd -nomidi -alsa -inchannels 2 -outchannels 2 -alsadev 2
> > yields:
> > audio I/O stuck... closing audio
> > [app works, no sound]
> >
> > (note: alsadeve 0 and 1 give me the es1370 card, probably since it
has
> one
> > device for output and one for input, but I may be wrong about this
one)
> >
> > Finally, if select -soundoutdev and -soundindev flags and specify
RME
> for
> > being either primary or secondary (i.e. 0,1 or 1,0), then there are
no
> errors
> > and the app works (sound works fine from the es1370), but the RME is
> pretty
> > much dead sound-wise. (I am a bit rusty on PD, but my assumption is
that
> DAC
> > 3 and up should then refer to RME card, if the es1370 is specified
as
> the
> > primary card, and there is no sound coming from it despite lack of
> errors).
> >
> > Anyhow, you get the pattern. It seems that there is some issue with
the
> > interleaved stuff, as well as recognizing the # of i/o and sample
width.
> > These to me seem to be minor problems, since some properties of the
card
> are
> > definitely being recognized (and if I specify no. of channels, the
card
> does
> > not report any error, except for the "stuck audio"), so I would hope
> that
> > fixing it should not be that big of a deal. But then again, I never
> coded a
> > driver, so what the heck do I know ;-).
> >
> > Well, hope this may help getting the RME to work with PD. Cheers!
> >
> > Ico