[PD] OTish Linux audio question - how to put a compressor in the output chain

[Damian Stewart]

hey there everyone,

so i finally got around to installing Ubuntu on my macbook, and, ah - wow. 
i've tried to install linux every year for perhaps six years now, starting 
with RedHat version 6, and each time have given up. but this time i think 
i'm going to stick with it. hooray.

so. the first thing i've noticed is that the sound is crazy quiet compared 
to OSX (or rather, OSX is crazy loud compared to everything else). even 
playing with all the volume sliders i could find, i could make it only half 
as loud as under OSX.

i strongly suspect though that this is because the OSX audio output driver 
is actually heavily compressing the audio before sending it to the 
speakers, so it just _seems_ louder. i'm a Linux newbie but i've been using 
OSX in a BSD-y way (eg spending most of my time in Terminal). is it 
possible to insert a compressor module into the PulseAudio or OSS or ALSA 
DSP chain somewhere? ideally one that only kicked in when the internal 
speaker output was being used, and not when the line-out was being used.

chur!
d

-- 
damian stewart | skype: damiansnz | damian at frey.co.nz
frey | live art with machines | http://www.frey.co.nz