Provided by: oss4-base_4.2-build2010-5ubuntu3~18.04.2_amd64 bug

NAME

       oss_sblive - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live/Audigy family driver.

DESCRIPTION

       Open  Sound  System  driver  for  Creative  Labs  Sound  Blaster  Live!,  Audigy, Audigy2,
       Audigy2-Value and sound cards.

       The sblive driver supports:

       •  8-48Khz Playback/Recording

       •  8 or 16 bits

       •  SPDIF digital output and Input

       •  Multi channel 5.1 (Live!) and 7.1 (Audigy) output.

       AC3 passthrough is only supported on Audigy series of the soundcards.

OTHER SIMILAR CARDS

       There are several Sound Blaster cards that are also called  as  Live  or  Audigy.  However
       these  cards  are  based on entirely different hardware design and they are not compatible
       with this driver.

       •  Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card is used in some  Dell  machines  but  it's  driven  by  the
          emu10k1x driver.

       •  Sound Blaster AudigyLS and Live 7.1 models are driven by the audigyls driver of OSS.

   SBLIVE COMBO SPDIF AND AUDIO JACKS
       Most  models of Live! and Audigy cards have an orange combo jack that is used both for the
       analog center/LFE output and for digital DIN (S/PDIF) output. The output mode is  selected
       by  a  driver  configuration  option  (seel  below)  which  should  be set to proper value
       depending on the actual speaker configuration.

       •  Noisy analog center/LFE output. The  orange  combo  jack  at  the  rear  plate  of  the
          Live/Audigy  card  is shared between the digital DIN and the analog center/LFE outputs.
          In digital DIN mode (default) you  will  hear  very  noisy  output  from  the  speakers
          connected  to  this  output  jack.  If  you have analog center/LFE (subwoofer) speakers
          connected then you need to turn  off  the  sblive_digital_din  (or  audigy_digital_din)
          option.

       •  There  is  a  new  configuration  option to enable/disable the "digital DIN" output. By
          default the digital DIN interface is  enabled  which  disables  the  center/LFE  analog
          output   (uses   the   same   combo   jack).  By  setting  the  sblive_digital_din  (or
          audigy_digital_din) option to 0 you can enable the analog C/LFE  output  feature.  When
          digital  DIN  is  disabled  you  can  still get S/PDIF (or AC3) output from the digital
          (optical/coax) outputs of the optional livedrive unit.

   SBLIVE MIXER
       SB Live cards have actually two mixer chips. In OSS both of them are controlled  together.
       However only limited set of features can be controlled using ordinary mixer programs (such
       as the mixer applet included in OSS).  Majority of features can only be accessed using the
       ossmix and ossxmix programs included in OSS.

       The AC97 mixer is used to control volumes of the back bracket inputs (mic and line in) and
       the _analog_ CD input connector on the soundcard. The 'mic' volume controls the  level  of
       the  rear  bracket  microphone input sent directly to the front (only front) speakers. The
       'line' and 'cd' controls do the same for the back bracket line in  connector  and  the  on
       board analog CD input connector. It's usually recommended to set these volumes to 0.

       Another  function  of  the AC97 mixer is selecting the signal that is passed to the master
       mixer (for example for recording). One of the 'mic', 'line' or ’cd' signals can be  routed
       to  the  master  mixer by selecting that device as the recording source in the AC97 mixer.
       The 'rec' volume control slider can be used to adjust the  signal  strength.  The  'igain'
       control  doesn't  usually  have  any  effect  but  some  hardware revisions may use it for
       controlling the microphone recording level.

   SBLIVE MASTER MIXER
       Other mixer functions are handled by the DSP engine of the  EMU  10k1  chip.   Most  input
       signals (including all digital signals and LiveDrive inputs).

       There  are only two master mixer settings that can be controlled using all mixer programs.
       The 'vol' setting is the master output  volume  that  affects  both  the  front  and  rear
       speakers  and  the  headphone  output (digital output volumes are not affected). The 'pcm'
       setting controls volumes of all PCM playback channels (/dev/dsp#).

       In addition to volume sliders most inputs have a stereo VU meter pair  (only  in  ossxmix)
       that can be used to monitor the input and to adjust the input levels properly.

       The master mixer consists of several sections that are:

       •  Primary  section:  This  section  has  two  settings. The "spkmode" setting selects how
          front/rear speakers are used for PCM playback (outputs from programs using  /dev/dsp#).
          The possible settings are FRONT, REAR and FRONT+REAR. The default is FRONT+REAR. Change
          this setting if you like to get PCM playback only from  front  or  rear  speakers.  The
          "autoreset" flag is used to control the "/dev" section.

       •  "/dev"  section:  This  section  controls  the  volumes  of  each /dev/dsp# device file
          supported by the device (there are 8 of them at this moment). These volumes will return
          back  to  maximum  every  time  the  device  is opened. However this can be disabled by
          setting the 'autoreset' option to OFF. The ossxmix program has special ability to  show
          the application using the particular /dev/dsp device (for layout reasons only the first
          4 characters of the program name are shown).

       •  The equalizer section: This section controls the graphic equalizer for  front  speakers
          only.

       •  The  front rear, and record sections: These three identical sections control the levels
          of external inputs and PCM playback (/dev/dsp# devices) to be sent  to  the  front/rear
          speakers  and to the recording device.  The CD Analog audio will only be heard from the
          FRONT speakers.

   SBLIVE RECORDING
       Before recording anything you need to set the volumes in the recording  section  properly.
       To  enable  recording  from the AC97 connected inputs (mic, line in and analog CD) use the
       AC97 mixer to select the desired input and then tune the input level using  the  rec  (and
       igain) setting.

       Finally  set  the  'ac97'  slider  in  the  record section of the master mixer so that the
       recording level is suitable.

       The OSS drivers permit recording any application that's currently playing.

       To record audio that's playing on any of the SB Live channels:

       •  Turn down the AC97 control in the "record" section. This prevents any audio  being  fed
          to  the  soundcard from MIC/Line-in/CD-in from getting mixed with the audio produced by
          the application that's currently playing.

       •  Type ossrecord -s<sampling rate> -b<bits/sample> -c<channels> test.wav

       •  To stop recording press <Ctrl-c> and then you can play back  the  test.wav  file  using
          ossplay command.

              RECORDING  ISSUES:  In  most  cases noise is caused by the microphone input or some
              other (unused) input. Use the ossxmix program to turn off  all  unused  inputs  and
              finally save the current mixer settings (see below).

       Hint:  Look  at the VU meter panels of ossxmix. It's usually very easy to locate the noise
       source by looking which input has some signal coming from it.

              WARNING! If you turn off some of the signals in recording section or the AC97 mixer
              section  this affects all subsequent recordings. Remember to raise the volume prior
              doing any recording. After that decrease the volumes again if necessary.

   SBLIVE HARDWARE MIXING
       You can use /dev/oss/oss_sblive0/ pcm0-pcm7 to play  multiple  audio  programs  using  the
       hardware mixing.  Simply specify the device name with the application. A simple test is to
       do   the   following:   ossplay   -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm0   <file1.wav>   &    ossplay
       -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm1  <file2.wav> & ossplay -d/dev/oss/oss_sblive0/pcm2 <file3.wav>
       &

       You should hear all three wav files playing simultaneously.

       NOTE: Some apps may desire the old /dev/dspN names. e.g. /dev/dsp0 - /dev/dsp7.

       NOTE: You can increase the number of output devices from the  standard  8  devices  to  32
       device.  For  this, run soundconf, select Set configuration options and look for the entry
       "sblive_device", now type any number between 1 and 32 for the number of channels you wish.
       You  can  also do this manually by editing oss_sblive.conf and inserting sblive_devices=XX
       entry, e.g.: sblive_devices=27

   CDROM CONNNECTIONS
       There are two alternative ways to connect audio signal from a CD-ROM drive tor the SB Live
       soundcard.  You  can  use a (three wire) analog cable or a (2 wire) digital cable. OSS now
       supports both of these choices. Note that there are separate mixer settings  for  both  of
       these connections.

       The  analog  CD-ROM  wire is connected to the AC97 code chip and this method works in most
       cases. To route the analog CD -input to the (front) speakers you need to raise the  volume
       of  the  'cd'  control in mixer. However if you like to hear the analog CD input both from
       the front and rears speakers you need to do this in slightly different  way  (please  read
       the description of the mixer above).

       The  digital  connection works only with CD-ROM drives that has support for it.  Note that
       some CD-ROM drives having this digital output connector use a different signal level  than
       the  one required by SB Live. This means that the digital connection doesn't work with all
       CD-ROM drives (no sound). If you have problems with the digital connection you should  use
       the  analog  one.   When using the the digital CD input you may need to adjust the 'digcd'
       volumes using ossxmix (or ossmix).

       It should be noted that SB Live works internally at 48 kHz. This  means  that  all  S/PDIF
       input  signals  are  automatically  sample rate converted to 48 kHz.  If you record from a
       44.1 kHz (CD-ROM) and save the result to a 44.1 kHz file the signal will  be  sample  rate
       converted  twice.  First  from the 44.1 kHz input to internal 48 kHz and then back to 44.1
       kHz. While the sample rate converter of SB Live is  very  precise  this  will  cause  some
       change.  This  should  not  be  any  problem  when doing audio recordings but it may cause
       unwanted results when transferring digital data (such as AC3/DTS)  using  the  S/PDIF  the
       interface.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

       •  sblive_digital_din=<0|1> - This option is to enable/disable the "digital DIN" output of
          SB Live. By default the digital DIN interface is disabled which enables the  center/LFE
          analog output (uses the same combo jack). By setting the sblive_digital_din option to 0
          you can enable the analog Center/LFE output feature. When digital DIN is  disabled  you
          can  still  get  S/PDIF  (or AC3) output from the digital (optical/coax) outputs of the
          optional livedrive unit. Default: 0=analog output.

       •  audigy_digital_din=<0|1> - same as "sblive_digital_din" option except  for  the  Audigy
          soundcards. Default: 1=digital output.

       •  sblive_devices=<1..32> - Number of audio devices to be configured.

LIMITATION

       •  SB Live! devices will not work in Sparc systems due to PCI addressing limitations. Only
          Audigy/Audigy2 models work under Sparc.

       •  EMU Wavetable MIDI synthesizer is not supported

       •  AC3 passthrough only supported on Audigy/Audigy but not on SB Live! devices.

FILES

       /etc/oss4/conf/oss_sblive.conf Device configuration file

AUTHOR

       4Front Technologies

                                         13 November 2019                           oss_sblive(7)