Provided by: oss4-base_4.2-build2010-5ubuntu9.1_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

                                                 17 January 2023                                   oss_sblive(7)