Playtime with Pulse Audio

[Just17]

Excellent. Kudos to pinoc (and the Bacon Brigade) for the exemplary job! But wait ... there's more surprises on the way.

Tease!!!!!!!!!!

[Archie]

pinoc is just brilliant!

Excellent. Kudos to pinoc (and the Bacon Brigade) for the exemplary job! But wait ... there's more surprises on the way.

Tease!!!!!!!!!!

And you know it!

[Just17]

Because I am using the test5 64bit install presently, the following has been done on that install. I will confirm this also works on the 32 bit install later.  

[EDIT:   Confirmed working on 32 bit also. The only hindrance is the absence of VeroMix on 32 bit. This makes things very easy to manage on the 64 bit install] EDIT2: situation changed 

PA Equalizer

I had not previously realised it, but the PA Equaliser is installed by default apparently  

So what is needed is to load the required PA module and then launch the Equaliser app.
After that all works as expected!  

pactl load-module module-equalizer-sink

will load the equaliser module.
Then to launch the Equaliser application the command is

qpaeq

That is all that is required!

I have yet to investigate this more fully .....   it appears we should have some presets to select from, but they do not seem to be installed (if they exist).
You can make your own presets and save them in any case.

Here is a pic of the Equalizer



Note:  If a name is applied to the Equaliser module when it is loaded then that name will appear in the pic as "Sink".

I added this module to the ~/.pulse/default.pa file to ensure it loads at bootup. The extra lines read

Code: [Select]

## Load the Equalizer module to enable qpaeq to function
load-module module-equalizer-sink sink_name=Equalized
As can be seen I have named it "Equalized"

I suspect this equaliser will be very useful for those with laptops, whose speakers are not the best  

More fun!  

[Just17]

A note to any following this thread .....  I edited my post about headphone switching the audio stream on insert, to say it is now working here on 32 bit --  see edit on earlier post.

[Archie]

Just18, we'll need to collaborate again soon. Sound is very important to many of our users and I think you got a good thing here ... so if we could, either with me or Daniel.

[coco]

Volume Control is compatible with Pulseaudio?

Regards

[Just17]

Volume Control is compatible with Pulseaudio?

Regards

pavucontrol, kmix and VeroMix widget (not working here on updated KDE 4.6.5) ...  yes

I have not tried any others.

[coco]

Volume Control is compatible with Pulseaudio?

Regards

pavucontrol, kmix and VeroMix widget (not working here on updated KDE 4.6.5) ...  yes

I have not tried any others.

Thanks Just18, What package is Volume Control to install it? Regards

[Just17]

Volume Control is compatible with Pulseaudio?

Regards

pavucontrol, kmix and VeroMix widget (not working here on updated KDE 4.6.5) ...  yes

I have not tried any others.

Thanks Just18, What package is Volume Control to install it? Regards

pavucontrol

It controls volume as well as other functions.

Kmix also works if using KDE
VeroMix is ready for the move to KDE 4.8.3 I believe .....  also controls more than volume.

[Just17]

I haven't posted here for about a month ......  because I came across nothing new that I thought of interest.

Maybe it is an opportune time for others to post their uses of the various functions PA provides .....  and if any have tried the recording script I posted earlier please leave some feedback.

As for my own set up I now have six individual icons in my tray for PA 'doings' ......

Veromix
PulseAudio Equaliser
PulseAudio Recorder   (my own script)
PulseAudio Vol Control
PulseAudio Loopback Mixer - toggle on/off
PulseAudio Preferences

Those cover everything I have played with to date.
All are functioning here ......  I am using 32 bit KDE 4.8.3 and maybe some of those will have to wait for the general updated to KDE before they become fully available.

****

I have noticed a number of users having trouble getting PulseAudio working at all.

This is becoming noticeable and so I wonder if anybody is trying to chase down the cause?
In some cases it appears to have been a problem with not using the 'task' PulseAudio package.
Most of the causes appear to be a mystery ....  or possibly hardware dependent ......  or maybe related to something that happened to me a couple of times which resulted in my having to reinstall a couple of PulseAudio module packages.
In any case, if someone has the interest .....  and of course the time ......  solving these problems might help stave off future complaints.

***

One last thing that I would like to see ........  a task-pulseaudio-all meta package, which would install all the PA modules and pavucontrol in addition to the modules the present meta package installs.
It could also include a .desktop file for the equaliser .....  and maybe one for the loopback mixer.
Maybe a development of the PA-Record script could also be included, to cover all bases.

Yes I know time is tight and there are other priorities ....  I am just throwing this out there for consideration at some future date when time allows someone to look at it.


regards.

[Just17]

Man am I glad I started this thread ....  set up a laptop today to stream a film from my main PC, but the Laptop only had a VGA output and no HDMI.
So I got video and no sound from the TV.

Simple as it is, I failed to get sound working over the LAN until I accessed this thread and used the post about setting up PAPrefs    Yep my own post!  

Only thing I had to do was to adjust the audio in VLC to take into account the delay over the LAN (J & K keys on VLC).

Result .....  film streamed from my main PC into the laptop; video output on the VGA socket from the laptop to the TV; sound sent back to the main PC to play on its speakers.

PA is great!  Pity I cannot remember how to set it up without reference to my own posts      

[Archie]

Which is why I have your post notes on my notebook as well.

There's really nothing much to say about PulseAudio on my install except that it is working well. I have disabled autostart of KMix and am using Veromix (with just its Add Effects). I was also looking at the command pacmd ... but since I've got everything working, it ain't much of a deal for me.

So thank you for all those insightful posts, I have a working PA. 

[Just17]

Which is why I have your post notes on my notebook as well.

There's really nothing much to say about PulseAudio on my install except that it is working well. I have disabled autostart of KMix and am using Veromix (with just its Add Effects). I was also looking at the command pacmd ... but since I've got everything working, it ain't much of a deal for me.

So thank you for all those insightful posts, I have a working PA. 

I have left Kmix in place .....  and use a different master channel on that to what I have on Vermoix ....  so I have mouse wheel adjust for both speakers and wireless headset 

Glad to hear it is still working properly for you.  Good stuff!

[Just17]

This is to add a couple of links to explanations and bug fixing on PulseAudio. Yes they are for a different OS, but are, I believe, valuable nevertheless.

http://forums.opensuse.org/blogs/oldcpu/pulseaudio-basics-opensuse-pavucontrol-96/

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Audio_troubleshooting#STEP-7:_Pulseaudio_problems

This link gives an explanation of the various commands that PA makes available

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/multimedia/pulseaudio.html

[Just17]

Some more informative stuff on hacking your PA settings .....

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Examples#Simultaneous_HDMI_and_Analog_Output