# 4 speakers with alsa and sblive?

## n8wood

I have Alsa installed and my SBLive is working OK, except it is not using the rear channels. Is there any way to get them working with Alsa?

BTW, in the alsamixer utility, I have the Surround channel set to 100, but it makes not difference.

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## leej

 *n8wood wrote:*   

> I have Alsa installed and my SBLive is working OK, except it is not using the rear channels. Is there any way to get them working with Alsa?
> 
> BTW, in the alsamixer utility, I have the Surround channel set to 100, but it makes not difference.

 

Keep playing with the alsamixer utility adjusting the different slides (keep moving to the right), and finally you'll find the rear speaker volume.

After a dispute on here a few weeks ago about the SBLive and Alsa, I took a guys advice (can't remember his name) and used the built in kernel support for my SBLive.  Although it's a nightmare to build Alsa out of your system (once Alsa is installed - many packages link themselves to your alsa libraries and have to be remerged) the built in kernel support for the sblive is far superior.  *All* mixer utitlities have a volume slider for the rear speaker - even those in KDE & Gnome.

It really is better never to merge Alsa at all in the first place (if you can help it) because it really does leave a horrible trail behind if you ever want to get rid of it.  :Smile: 

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## Styles

Here is what I have learned. And you might as well get used to Alsa it is going to part of the kernel soon! Speaking of kernel the only thing under sound that should be selected and built in is "Sound Card Support" nothing else should be selected.

To get all 4 speakers going emerge alsamixergui find "Wave Surround" and up that all the way to the top. This will get all 4 going.

To get the tone control to work type

```
mixer set Tone 1 unmute
```

 And now the sliders will control bass and treble.

Some extra info!

Open up Xine w/ alsa

```
xine -A alsa09
```

 goto the setup and click the Audio Tab then click the box" Use 4 channel" Now you will be able to play dvd's and have them sound better than winderz... 

Join the alsa user mail list they have great info...

Stuff that I'm still working on!

learning on how to save the settings after a reboot. 

And winex sound problems with alsa.

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## leej

 *Styles wrote:*   

> Here is what I have learned. And you might as well get used to Alsa it is going to part of the kernel soon! 

 

As an option.  If you've got superior built-in support for your soundcard, it's probably a better idea to go with that instead.  :Smile: 

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## n8wood

Thanks for the help.

I was able to find the proper volume adjustment in alsamixer by scrolling over to the right (Surround Wave).

I am now emerging alsamixergui to check it out.

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## n8wood

Styles---

A workaround for saving settings on reboot is to set them all up via amixer in a startup script:

amixer set "Wave Surround" 100 unmute

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## JefP@@

If you use the init.d/alsasound script ... you can use alsactl to store your volume settings of any card you've installed (2 on my box  :Wink: ) Just enter "alsactl store" this will store information to /etc/asound ... If you want to hack the file by yourself, it is possible ... when you boot, the script will run "alsactl restore" which will set the the volumes back to your desired settings (saved into /etc/asound)

Grtz

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## Styles

Sweet thanks JefP

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## Frayday

 *Quote:*   

> the built in kernel support for the sblive is far superior

 

What kernel version are u talking about?  :Question:   You mean the OSS support ? or Alsa (kenerl ~> 2.5.5) ???

Thanks !

Dave

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## Sipi

 *Styles wrote:*   

> To get all 4 speakers going emerge alsamixergui find "Wave Surround" and up that all the way to the top. This will get all 4 going.

 

Hi,

I have a big problem with it. It enables 4 (or 6) channel output, but only for PCM/WAV sound. (Sound originated from the computer itself.)

But for Line-in and analogue CD-in, sound comes ONLY from the front speakers, not from rear.

I think on SBLive! these external connectors are connected to the AC97 part of the card. So, is there a way to enable AC97 inputs to output to all speakers?

Regards,

Sipi

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## Sallad_Tosser

JeffP I havnt quite figured out what you mean by your alsactl command it only works in root and doesnt save my mixer for my user. Please help I hate redoing my alsamixergui everytime i reboot.

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## gen2newB

I have 2.6 kernel and i have alsa built into it. I couldn't get sound going, until i stumbled across the suggestion fo putting alsasound in rc-update.

Try: 

```

rc-update add alsasound default

```

as far as i can see, it saves the settings when you go to reboot or shut down.  But again, this has only been tried on 2.6.0-test9, no other patch sets.

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## RemcoNL

Thanks for all the ideas guys!

In the end I did this:

pcm & pcm2 on about 80 % which gives my front and rear speakers about the same volume.

Now I can play MP3 and a movie with AC3 sound at the same time: the MP3 goes to my analog out, 4 channels, and the AC3 goes through my digital out, so I just select the one I want on my receiver!

No more settings, it just works! Better then it ever did on Windows  :Smile: 

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## MrNugget

Sorry, this thread is old but i don't get it working, i compiled everything today... ALSA with my SB Live! works, but only front speakers, and i dunno why, i turned everything on with alsamixer, alsamixergui, gnome-alsamixer, but no sound from rear speakers, and if i want to compile alsa-driver i get an error :/

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