How to use softvol to control the master volume
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This howto describes a workaround if your master volume doesn't work. This happens if your sound card can't control the volume on the hardware side or the driver doesn't support this feature of your sound card. Maybe updating ALSA or using another module will fix the problem. If nothing works, you can define a new virtual pcm device in the .asoundrc file, which controls the volume on the software side.
Contents
Preparations
Find out on which existing PCM device you can base your setup. In this
device, the audio data will be processed the last on its way to the
sound card. In a simple stereo setup, this is problably just the
hw:0,0
device. If your card doesn't support hardware mixing, you may
have to use a dmix
plugin first (see example
below).
In a typical 5.1 surround sound setup,
you are probably using the predefined surround51
device.
To get a list of possible devices, you may use:
aplay -L
To test this device, use:
speaker-test -D<device name> -c<channel count> -twav
If that command produces sound on the correct channels and you can use it on two different consoles simultaneously, you can use this device. If simultaneous usage doesn't work, see dmix and Hardware mixing, software mixing to enable software mixing.
Editing the asoundrc file
Creating a new softvol device
Open the asoundrc file in your favorite editor. E.g. like this:
nano ~/.asoundrc
Now we create a new softvol device be typing:
pcm.softvol {
type softvol
slave {
pcm "<device name>"
}
control {
name "<control name>"
card 0
}
}
This will create a new PCM device called softvol
, which is controlled
by a volume control <control name>
and which will pass the sound data
with the changed volume to its slave <device name>
.
You have to replace <device name>
with the name of the device you
determined above and <control name>
with what you want to call your
new volume control, e.g. SoftMaster
. If your card does not have a
master volume control at all, you're lucky, because you can name your
new volume control Master
and your new control works like a master
volume control is supposed to. To find out, whether such a control
exists, run:
amixer controls | grep Master
If this command lists a control named Master
, you should not name your
new control like this. Unfortunately, existing controls can't be
overwritten, so you have to pick a name like SoftMaster
. This control
will now control everything, but as it is not called Master
, mixers
(like
KMix)
won't use it to control master volume, unless you can make them choose
another control (like
GMix).
The name you give to your control matters a lot. Some suffixes have
special meanings. For example, if you want your softvol to control the
playback volume only, the control name must end with Playback Volume
.
Such a name prevents the mixer from showing it as a capture control.
Now test your new device with:
speaker-test -Dsoftvol -c<channel count> -twav
Note: The new volume control won't appear immediately! Only after
the first usage of the newly defined device (e.g. with the command
above), should amixer controls | grep <control name>
display your new
control. Mixers that were already started before the first usage (like
KMix) have to be restarted to adopt the changes. If you still don't see
the new control, try restarting ALSA or your PC.
Make applications use it
Finally, we'll have to make all applications use this new device. In a
simple stereo setup, we can redefine the default device and route it to
our softvol
device (with a plug
device, so rate is converted
automatically). In that case, add this to your asoundrc file:
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvol"
}
With this configuration, our softvol
device controls both playback and
capture. This may not work properly for some setups. If you prefer that
softvol
controls the playback only, you must define a new default device
which is of type asym
: you can then decide that the playback is controlled
by the softvol, and let the capture unchanged. In that case, you should add
this to your asoundrc file:
pcm.!default {
type asym
playback.pcm {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvol"
}
capture.pcm {
type plug
slave.pcm "<device name>"
}
}
If you have a multi channel sound card, you may want to upmix these
stereo signals first (see
SurroundSound). It is useful to
redefine the surround40
, surround51
... devices in the same way, so
everything is passed through our new softvol device by default. Note
that you should not overwrite the device <device name>
from above!
Make sure that every application uses a device that is redirected to your softvol device because everything else will not be controlled and may be too loud! If you can't redefine the default devices, you have to configure your applications separately.
Note, if your <device name>
happened to be named "default"
literally, you will have to go back to the first step, and use
"cards.pcm.default" instead of just "default" in pcm.softvol
slave pcm block. Otherwise, when trying to replace default output, you
will get error
ALSA lib conf.c:4049:(snd1_config_check_hop) Too many definition levels (looped?)
Playback open error: -22,Invalid argument
Common example with dmix
In the latest ALSA versions (after 1.0.9) dmix has been enabled by default for the boards that need it, so in order to benefit for both features (softvol+dmix) you must have in \~/.asoundrc something like this:
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvol" #make use of softvol
}
pcm.softvol {
type softvol
slave {
pcm "dmix" #redirect the output to dmix (instead of "hw:0,0")
}
control {
name "PCM" #override the PCM slider to set the softvol volume level globally
card 0
}
}
In this case, the device called dmix
is the device <device name>
the
whole setup is based on (see above).
This works for my crappy C-Media Electronics CMI 9739 - nforce2 integrated 'soundcard' that lacks both volume control and mixing in hardware. I think it will do for many other similar 'soundcards'.
More complex example
I am using an SBLive! Platinum [CT4760P] and the asoundrc file below. Maybe you can solve your problems by understanding this example and maybe copy parts of it.
On the lowest level, I have two softvol
devices that pass their data
to the predefined devices front
and rear
controlling their volume
with the controls Front Master
and Rear Master
. A multi
plugin
merges those two stereo devices into a four channel device. My multi
device would be the <device name>
device in the text above. The device
called softvol
controls the volume with a control called SoftMaster
using the multi
device as slave. I then define an upmix device to
upmix stereo streams to 4.0 and some downmix devices to downmix 4.1,
5.0, 5.1 and 7.1 streams to 4.0.
To enable recording with multiple applications, I define some dsnoop
devices. dsnoop
does the same thing with recording as dmix
does with
playback. The device recording
is a regular stereo recording device,
whereas recleft
and recright
are mono devices recording only one
channel of the stereo stream. If you want to plug two mono mics into the
stereo mic plug of your sound card (with an adapter) and record from
them separately, this is quite handy, otherwise, this part is not
necessary.
Finally I replace the default
device with a asym
device, redirecting
its playback to the upmixing device and its recording to the recording
device. This way, the default
device is playback and recording device
at the same time (full duplex). I also create the surroundX
devices
redirecting to the corresponding downmix devices.
What I didn't consider yet in my file are devices needed for compatibility with OSS and similar. If I need them one day and change my config file locally, I'll post an update here.
#-------------------------------
# Volume
#-------------------------------
# volume of all channels
pcm.softvol {
type softvol
slave.pcm "multi"
control {
name "SoftMaster"
card 0
}
}
# splitting the channels in front and rear
pcm.multi {
type multi
slaves {
a.pcm "frontvol"
a.channels 2
b.pcm "rearvol"
b.channels 2
}
bindings {
0.slave a
0.channel 0
1.slave a
1.channel 1
2.slave b
2.channel 0
3.slave b
3.channel 1
}
}
# front
pcm.rearvol {
type softvol
slave.pcm "rear"
control {
name "Rear Master"
card 0
}
}
# rear
pcm.frontvol {
type softvol
slave.pcm "front"
control {
name "Front Master"
card 0
}
}
#-------------------------------
# Recording
#-------------------------------
pcm.recording {
type dsnoop
ipc_key 2589
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
format "S16_LE"
}
}
pcm.recleft {
type dsnoop
ipc_key 2589
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
format "S16_LE"
}
bindings.0 0
}
pcm.recright {
type dsnoop
ipc_key 2589
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
format "S16_LE"
}
bindings.0 1
}
#-------------------------------
# Upmix
#-------------------------------
# upmix stereo to 40
pcm.upmix {
type route
slave.pcm "softvol"
slave.channels 4
ttable {
0.0 1
0.2 1
1.1 1
1.3 1
}
}
#-------------------------------
# Downmix
#-------------------------------
pcm.downmix41 {
type route
slave.pcm "softvol"
slave.channels 4
ttable {
0.0 1
1.1 1
2.2 1
3.3 1
}
}
pcm.downmix51 {
type route
slave.pcm "softvol"
slave.channels 4
ttable {
0.0 0.67
1.1 0.67
2.2 1
3.3 1
4.0 0.33
4.1 0.33
}
}
pcm.downmix71 {
type route
slave.pcm "softvol"
slave.channels 4
ttable {
0.0 0.34
1.1 0.34
2.2 0.67
3.3 0.67
4.0 0.33
4.1 0.33
6.0 0.33
6.2 0.33
7.1 0.33
7.3 0.33
}
}
#-------------------------------
# Overwrite existing devices
#-------------------------------
pcm.!default {
type asym
playback.pcm "plug:upmix"
capture.pcm "plug:recording"
}
pcm.!surround40 {
type plug
slave.pcm "softvol"
}
pcm.!surround41 {
type plug
slave.pcm "downmix41"
}
pcm.!surround50 {
type plug
slave.pcm "downmix51"
}
pcm.!surround51 {
type plug
slave.pcm "downmix51"
}
pcm.!surround71 {
type plug
slave.pcm "downmix71"
}
See also
Retrieved from "http://alsa.opensrc.org/How_to_use_softvol_to_control_the_master_volume"