USB sound

[Basil Chupin]

On 04/10/13 23:12, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 04/10/13 22:48, R Kimber wrote:
>> On Thu, 03 Oct 2013 23:49:03 -0400
>> Ric Moore wrote:
>>
>>>> I've been having problems with UBS sound for some time (it used to 
>>>> work
>>>> about 6 months ago). I find that any USB sound device that I 
>>>> connect is
>>>> not recognised, and is not listed by aplay -l
>>> sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
>>> Then open it. Under the playback tab you select the device you want to
>>> play back through from a drop down selection of all the audio devices
>>> your system sees. I switch between my USB headset and my 6.1 sound 
>>> systm
>>> all the time using that. I use the headset to not bother other's
>>> sleeping. Or, I can blow the cat out the window with 6.1. pavucontrol
>>> SHOULD be installed during the install process, but it's not. Go 
>>> figure.
>>> Ric
>> Thanks, but pavucontrol gives:-
>>
>> Error: unable to connect to pulseaudio: OK
>>
>> I should explain that in attempting to resolve this issue I have made 
>> many
>> changes, including disabling pulseaudio.  None of the changes worked.  I
>> then purged alsa-base, pulseaudio, and pavucontrol, and then 
>> re-installed
>> them.  This has made no difference, and pulseaudio remains disabled,
>> although I reversed the changes that I made previously, and anyway 
>> purging
>> should have removed any changed settings.
>>
>> All the relevant modules seem to be loaded OK, including snd_usb_audio.
>>
>> - Richard.
>
> I am not sure what you mean by "USB sound", but you would know that 
> pulseaudio depends on alsa - ie, it sits on top of alsa so you need to 
> configure alsa first before doing anything with pulseaudio.
>
> Install alsamixer and run it (as user) in a terminal; use F6 to select 
> your sound card and F5 to see all the available channels which you 
> activate/deactivate as required - have some CD or whatever running as 
> you are doing this so that you can judge which channels are needed to 
> get your sound.
>
> Once you have alsa working then make sure that you have pulseaudio 
> installed and running and then install pavucontrol and use it as Ric 
> has suggested.
>
> BC

Oooops, forgot to mention that you may have to uninstall or disable 
pulseaudio before using alsamixer. I don't know what pulseaudio is like 
now but in the past pulseaudio was a pain in the butt because when you 
ran alsamixer only 2 or 3 channels were displayed and only by 
uninstalling or disabling pulseaudio could you see ALL the available 
channels handled by your sound card/chip. (Which is why I always disable 
pulseaudio as I have no need for it.)

BC

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