Volume control doesn't follow LFE

[killerfrog]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

In ubuntu 7.04, if you use control (up, down and mute) on your computer (mine is Inspiron 9400) volume fallow, but not HFE (wish is in fact disable by default and should not).

Same happens if you do use master volume control.

Thank

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Apr 23 18:59:38 2007
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 7.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-panel
Package: gnome-panel 1:2.18.1-0ubuntu3.1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcCmdline: gnome-panel --sm-client-id default1
ProcCwd: /home/alexandre
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=fr_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
Uname: Linux alexandre-laptop 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. What do you call "HFE" exactly?

[killerfrog (alexandre0984)]

sorry, my mistake. I mean LFE (in my case, it's the Subwofer of my laptop)

[Premier (premiersullivan)]

Hi, I have a problem that maybe this problem... its a little hard to describe. I thought is was this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdeutils/+bug/58751 but it may not be.

If you turn LFE all the way down, it works like expected. This all seems to be related to LFE (Bass channel). Apparently, its able to bypass the master volume, but PCM is not. so, my guess is, whatever audio backend we all are using routes LFE incorrectly. When mute is on, the sound is substantially different than with it off -- as if we are only hearing the lower frequences. I didn't discover LFE until recently, and I would like to have it work correctly. Incidentally, with LFE on, turning down master volume seems to have little effect, but turning the master down to zero effectively mutes it, even if you have LFE on.

[Premier (premiersullivan)]

Okay, So I didn't understand this bug correctly for a long time, so I was not able to describe it correctly. It exists in every distribution and configuration that I've ever used, so that means the bug is at least 11 months old now. I've used kde on debian, mepis and ubuntu. Simply, my sound card has Master, PCM, and LFE channels. The Master is really front; it does not control LFE. Therefore, if you want LFE (which makes music so much better) you are faced with a situation where the mute shortcuts don't actually mute the sound, since LFE is still audible. To mute sound, you must manually mute both LFE and Master. Oddly, if you set Master volume to 0 (as opposed to muting), LFE is muted, but if Master is very low (say 5), LFE is still audible at full volume.

The people on #alsa instructed me to write a ~/.asoundrc that creates a software master. This didn't seem to really solve the problem; also, youtube videos (flash?) do not play sound with a software master for some reason.

As a solution (and actually a very pleasent one), I wrote a script that magically fixes it. Theres a bug I'm still working on, but it seems to work very well for me. If you want to use it, associate hot keys with "volcontrol.pl mute" "volcontrol.pl up" and "volcontrol.pl down"... you can do this with the kde menu editor, or xbindkeys, or some other method. Its kde dependent, but I might be able to fix that.

The script just uses amixer and sets LFE independently of Master. Please report any problems you may have with it, as it is unlikely to work with all configurations.

LCPI gives me this info:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
If I recall correctly, its a sigma tel audio card. This is a Dell E1705 laptop.

[davija (davija)]

I am having the same issue here. In short, this is how I would explain it.

Using the mute or volume control buttons only affects the main. It does not affect the LFE.

There should be a way to tie the LFE volume/mute settings to link to the main.

[EdwardO (edwardooo)]

Not sure the duplicated bug is exactly the same, but anyway my problem is best described here by Premier, and it is still unresolved (I have it on Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty and on Gentoo). As I have a Sigmatel Audio Card with an Intel HDAudio chipset too, it may be related to this particular model/family.

Here is a shorter alternative to the script above.
For example if using xbindkeys to use dedicated audio keys add:
=== CUT ===
"amixer set Master 4dB- > /dev/null ; amixer set LFE 4dB- > /dev/null &"
  m:0x40 + c:122
#or Mod4 + XF86AudioLowerVolume

"amixer set Master 4dB+ > /dev/null ; amixer set LFE 4dB+ > /dev/null &"
  m:0x40 + c:123
#or Mod4 + XF86AudioRaiseVolume

"amixer set Master togglemute > /dev/null ; amixer set LFE togglemute > /dev/null &"
  m:0x40 + c:121
#or Mod4 + XF86AudioMute
== ENDCUT ==
to your .xbindkeysrc.
(I've used the "Windows" key above, xbindkeys wouldn't override kde default shortcuts.)