Alsa -- unable to control volume
 

Hi all,

I have a peculiar problem. I've noticed that I'm now unable to control the volume of the output on my soundcard. This was something that was working when I originally did the install (Fedora Core 4) but seems to have been broken by an update.

The sound plays fine. Using the volume control in XMMS, Gnome volume control, etc has no effect at all. Interestingly, the volume control in Totem works fine. I've also played around with the alsamixer application, and found that changing the volume for `Wave Surround' seems to alter the master volume, and changing the volume for other sections (all named EMU10K, strangely) changes volumes for left/right channels.

I'm also unable to enable my microphone/line input. This is the major gripe...

The soundcard is an old but trusty Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live!.

Can anyone suggest a fix?

Cheers,
Michael

just messed up mixer settings
when you use the surround outs you just can't use Master device to controll sound
no way around that one.
i suggest if you feel like it getting a mixer named qamix
http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/
if you know how to compile stuff written with Qt/KDE
read the README the thing comes with a great config file already setup for SB Live
(tip: you have to edit the makefile paths as the package does not come with a configure script)

it shows your controlls (like surround controlls in a box to themselves)

also might try the command line
amixer
man amixer

you have to enable Capture and a Mic Capture device for mic to work

qamix also shows capture device as a seperate tab .

I would NOT mess with that endless string of EMU10K devices at the end of any mixer that shows them when it should not. Try your best to not save any changes you have made to these devices or delete
/etc/asound.state and restart alsa and see if defaults are restored (at least that's what i would do)

Mixed up mixer settings...
 

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. I went out and installed Qamixer. I've finally got it working, but I don't see anything that I couldn't change back in the command line alsamixer.

I can see that if I altered the XML configuration file, I could make it change the Wave Surround mixers when I'm changing the master volume. This is a desired effect, but it will only work within Qamixer. Or am I missing something?

Is there a way not to use the surround outs, so I can use the normal mixer settings?

I tried enabling playback and capture from the mike, no joy. I unmuted the mike in the Ext. Source Playback tab and activated it in the Capture tab. I'll continue trying.

Cheers,
Michael