RECORDING PROBLEMS IN AUDACITY under VL

[youngtomedison]

ifplugd is known to cause "Skippage" when its misconfigured.
If you turn it off and the problem stops we can show you how to configure it, or make it so you don't need ifplugd to start your network.
if it doesnt solve the problem then it will only have been a few moments of lost time.

OK, I tried shutting off ifplugd as you described. Nothing happened, no improvement, same skipping while recording from an analogue device (a cassette deck). I did notice something that I didn't before, possibly because I wasn't looking for it. The VU meters which display audio going through the program, input and output, looked very choppy. It was like Audacity was being prevented from running properly by something else in the system.

XMMS plays normally (though it uses the OSS sound drivers). VLC plays sound OK. When Mplayer runs, it flashes the message "alsa-control: unable to find simple control 'PCM',0" (the error message box flickers constantly through video playback and the output is really choppy).

This is beginning to smell like a problem with ALSA, either a bug in ALSA itself or a bad setting that I do not know how to fix.

Thing is, I'm using an M-Audio Delta 410 multitrack sound card. When I go to adjust its parameters either using the terminal version of ALSA or gamix, nothing is labelled very clearly; I don't really know which sliders and buttons do what. There are way more than the expected two inputs and two output controls, including some whose functions I never saw while running the card under Windows. It's very cryptic to me.

Where do I go from here?

[uelsk8s]

XMMS does not use the OSS sound drivers unless you have downloaded and installed them.
ALSA has OSS emulation for programs that don't have alsa compatibility.
since that works for xmms that is the first thing i would try in the others.
the next thing i would try is downloading and installing the OSS drivers http://www.4front-tech.com/download.cgi
installation instructions are here http://www.opensound.com/release/oss-install.pdf

HTH,
Uelsk8s

[youngtomedison]

XMMS does not use the OSS sound drivers unless you have downloaded and installed them.
ALSA has OSS emulation for programs that don't have alsa compatibility.... ...
HTH,
Uelsk8s

Hmm, that's funny. XMMS, even with the OSS-ified ALSA drivers plays without a hitch, as does VLC, which I see also uses ALSA/OSS emulation (I'm listening to a net radio station's MP3 stream as I write this). I wonder why it works with these apps but not with Audacity or MPlayer (the latter of which I was only aboe to get going by selecting the so-called OSS dreivers).

I pulled up GSLAPT and there was no search result for OSS as such that I could find.

I wonder what's up with all this?

BTW, I did download the driver file you recommended. I'll have to pore over the instruction PDF file, and have my friend explain to me how to compile from source.

[easuter]

Can you please post the output from:

Code:

cat /etc/modprobe.conf

Code:

cat /etc/rc.d/rc.modules | grep snd

Code:

lsmod

Code:

lspci

(as root)

[youngtomedison]

Here's the output:


cat /etc/modprobe.conf

root:# cat /etc/modprobe.conf
# /etc/modprobe.conf (old location for Linux 2.6+ config)
#
# The use of this config file is deprecated if you are using a
# 2.6.x or newer kernel.  Instead, create files in the
# /etc/modprobe.d/ directory containing modprobe options.
#
# For more information, see "man modprobe.conf".

alias eth0 e1000


cat /etc/rc.d/rc.modules | grep snd

root:# cat /etc/rc.d/rc.modules | grep snd
/sbin/modprobe snd-pcm-oss
/sbin/modprobe snd-seq-oss
/sbin/modprobe snd-mixer-oss


lsmod

root:# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
i915                   22144  1
drm                    71324  2 i915
iptable_nat             7172  0
nf_nat                 16556  1 iptable_nat
nf_conntrack_ipv4      14860  2 iptable_nat
nf_conntrack           53128  3 iptable_nat,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nfnetlink               6168  3 nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack
iptable_filter          3460  0
ip_tables              12020  2 iptable_nat,iptable_filter
x_tables               12804  2 iptable_nat,ip_tables
capability              4236  0
commoncap               6272  1 capability
snd_seq_midi            7488  0
lp                     11016  0
cpufreq_conservative     6920  0
cpufreq_ondemand        7308  0
cpufreq_performance     2816  0
cpufreq_powersave       2560  0
p4_clockmod             5412  0
speedstep_lib           5128  1 p4_clockmod
freq_table              4640  2 cpufreq_ondemand,p4_clockmod
sg                     28456  0
fuse                   40724  0
snd_seq_dummy           3980  0
snd_seq_oss            30208  0
snd_seq_midi_event      6912  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                47344  6 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            42176  0
snd_mixer_oss          15616  1 snd_pcm_oss
shpchp                 30496  0
pci_hotplug            28752  1 shpchp
intel_agp              22044  1
agpgart                28748  3 drm,intel_agp
i2c_i810                6020  0
i2c_algo_bit            8208  1 i2c_i810
iTCO_wdt               10032  0
snd_ice1712            57588  0
snd_ice17xx_ak4xxx      4224  1 snd_ice1712
snd_ak4xxx_adda         7808  2 snd_ice1712,snd_ice17xx_ak4xxx
snd_cs8427              8448  1 snd_ice1712
snd_ac97_codec         92332  1 snd_ice1712
snd_pcm                70540  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ice1712,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              20744  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          8712  1 snd_pcm
ac97_bus                3072  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_i2c                 5632  2 snd_ice1712,snd_cs8427
snd_mpu401_uart         7808  1 snd_ice1712
snd_rawmidi            20032  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          7308  5 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
evdev                   9088  3
serio_raw               6404  0
e1000                 123392  0
snd                    44644  14 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ice1712,snd_ak4xxx_adda,snd_cs8427,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_i2c,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
i2c_i801                8076  0
soundcore               7264  1 snd
i2c_core               18816  3 i2c_i810,i2c_algo_bit,i2c_i801
pcspkr                  3584  0
parport_pc             37092  1
parport                31560  2 lp,parport_pc


lspci

root:# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies Inc. ICE1712 [Envy24] PCI Multi-Channel I/O Controller (rev 02)
01:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)