« previous next »
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: What's PCM in the alsa mixer?  (Read 229 times)

Offline Howard

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 728
What's PCM in the alsa mixer?
« on: February 15, 2013, 01:42:41 PM »
I know what microphone, speakers, headphones etc are, but what does the PCM control?
Logged
How does one become a hero?  By asking a lot of dumb questions apparently! I have three computers of various ages, the most powerful is a Dell Netbook 10v; each has 2 or 3 versions of PCLOS of various vintages.  Location, St John's, Newfoundland.

Offline pags

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2519
  • Keep it clean.
Re: What's PCM in the alsa mixer?
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2013, 01:49:50 PM »
PCM stands for "Pulse Code Modulation", which is (one of) the way(s) audio is manipulated inside the computer.  In the mixer, this basically refers to audio streams created by software (as opposed to the hardware components of the sound system, some of which you listed).

Little bit of info here:
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/suse/suse9.0/userguide-9.0/ch18.html#id2935295

Logged

Offline muungwana

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6254
Re: What's PCM in the alsa mixer?
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2013, 01:53:16 PM »
i think its the channel all sound is ultimately sent to.

If you mute one channel,you can still get sound if the sound using application uses a different channel,if you mute the PCM channel,no sound will be produced because it will kill everything

try it



Logged
.. 3 things are certain in life : death, taxes and software bloat ..
.. tell me something i don't know, something i can use as i struggle to reason with the world around me ..
Pages: [1]   Go Up
« previous next »