ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

greenjeans · 2025-12-23 15:10:28

32-bit version is UP! https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do … /AlsaTune/

Thanks @fsmithred!

greenjeans · 2025-12-25 18:29:47

New 3.1-1 version is up now and ready for testing!

ilargi · 2025-12-26 17:25:17

After installing Alsatune-3.1-1 I noticed that the values for the EQ pre-sets shown on Alsatune are slightly different from the actual values on the pre-sets.csv file. The changes seem to affect only certain frequencies within a given pre-set value group and may change after closing and launching the app.
I tried it with a number of pre-sets and the problem shows up on most of the pre-set groups.
Removing version 3.1-1 and installing 3.0-0, or 2.1-0 makes no difference.
I'd appreciate it if somebody using Alsatune could confirm this behavior or if it is just me.

greenjeans · 2025-12-26 17:58:43

@ilargi, yes I can think of at least one reason, and it's something I spent a good chunk of yesterday pondering, but I haven't seen it happen with EQ sliders.
Here's what's going on with the backend sliders for the mixer:
1. Some are fully adjustable from 0%-100% in increments of 1, but there are some that seem this way but aren't, more on that in a sec.
2. Some are pure toggle switches without sliders, we got those covered.
3. There's a third kind, one that has a slider on the backend like the other sliders, but is actually a stepped-channel, both mic boosts on my machine are this way, they are actually a sort of 4 position switch, 0% 33% 67% 100%, and the backend slider "snaps" to the nearest value when you are in the alsamixer TUI.

AlsaTune currently just treats those as a regular slider, but if I set it at 40% in AT, it will in reality fall to 33% on the backend. And when you close then re-open AT the value will now be correct at 33%
Thankfully I only have a couple of these, and on controls I don't ordinarily use.

But another fly-in-the-ointment, some sliders for volume can also be incremental with values other than 1, so they are stepped-channels, just a LOT of steps.

Last fun thing I get to deal with in this adventure of sound with ALSA, is that the backend controls (at least on my test machines) aren't linear even if they read 1 through 100 in the alsamixer TUI, so those numbers will always be off from the AT frontend as I tried to normalize the scale some.

I will go and test the EQ more, the whole thing needs a lot more testing really, it's experimental stuff and needs some people smarter than me to take a look.

Thanks ilargi!

greenjeans · 2025-12-26 18:30:42

Okay I just tested all the EQ sliders on both machines, and they stay right on the money with the presets.csv and the backend too.

Did find a bug though, the new preset-edit window works fine, until you try to move the window and then it leaves a nice trail for you. *sigh*
I've had problems from the get-go with that thing, and mostly seems like yad issues, the version in daedalus is ancient, really could use something newer.
Back to the drawing board.

ilargi · 2025-12-26 19:23:06

Thanks for the detailed information!
I have seen the problems only with the EQ sliders, but the changes are never over .04-.05 on the scale, and I can't really tell the difference in the sound quality, so I can live with that OK. Besides, it only shows on some of the sliders, and the values go back to the pre-sets on clicking the name in the Choose EQ Pre-sets box.

greenjeans · 2025-12-26 20:21:53

^^^Ahh the quirks of alsa and soundcards...it's tough on this end trying to figure them all out, but I feel good progress is being made, and it REALLY helps when folks like you test and give feedback, thanks again!

So I figured out the other bug, wrong command that was a holdover from earlier experiments, so my bad of course. Tickled though that I did figure it out just by looking at the code, didn't have to do any searches or doc-reading and my fix worked the first time with a bonus that I got to eliminate a now un-used function so the script is a little smaller, I think i'm getting better at C.

I'll get it packaged up as 3.1-2 and uploaded here in a bit.
EDIT: All done, it's up now.

Last edited by greenjeans (2025-12-26 20:47:07)

beate · 2025-12-27 21:10:40

It can be done in the mixer for sure, and I haven't seen it done or tried it myself but I would think it's absolutely possible in the EQ as well.

Have been experimenting with the eqalizer a bit. Not with Your tool, just with the basics.

alsamixer -D equal will show the sliders of the EQ. Alsamixer provides keystrokes to split a stereo track and adjust the two channels seperately. More or less, here in devuan not all strokes seem to work, but anyway.

On my notebook i am using qasmixer anyway and for a few years.
quasmixer provides a field for user defined devices. Entering "equal" there shows the eualizer controls, and they are working. There does not seem to be a way to split stereo channels, but channels that have already been split using alsamixer appear split in qasmixer as well, and they are grouped nicely. And the can be operated perfectly from that interface.
Which means that that little and well established program serves 90% of my needs.

So that kind of behavior might be what should be expected for Your little tool as well.

(in my opinion the main work should be some kind of alsa-jack-only overlay on devuan, mainly because possibly all the desktop environments and other apps pull either pulseaudio or pipewire and thus cause problems: after the upgrade to excalibur, my intentionally alsa only machine had pulled pipewire and started the daemon. Which caused audio from freetube not to work. An overlay to devuan might provide dummy packages to resolve those nasty dependencies.

For my current problem with one sided hearing loss that result is really cool: i would just need to run a mono track, adjust the bad side range by range until i hear that frequency range appearing in the center, and i'll end up with a nice overall setting. Being able to enjoy music again is *really* cool.

greenjeans · 2025-12-27 21:55:47

(in my opinion the main work should be some kind of alsa-jack-only overlay on devuan, mainly because possibly all the desktop environments and other apps pull either pulseaudio or pipewire and thus cause problems

That in a nutshell, describes @rations' jack-bridge project, a much more complex and encompassing system that I think might do what you are asking. And there's some more nice frontend projects for the alsamixer, saw one that was really nice the other day, it was done in QT which I don't much like, but it was very nice and complete and did split volume controls into right-left channels whereas mine doesn't.

Think of those projects as thoroughbred racehorses that can do it all.

My project, is just a donkey, not too pretty, stubborn at times, but day-in and day-out it just gets the basic jobs done and does them fast as hell for a donkey.

At this point, most anything else I could do would be feature-creep and bloated code. Gonna keep this thing small and simple, there's already other folks working on more sophisticated stuff, i'm going to stick to my little niche and just try to make it the best it can be by little improvements to behavior and some expanded stuff as more testing is done to accommodate more types of soundcards and scenarios.

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#101 2025-12-23 15:10:28

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#102 2025-12-25 18:29:47

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#103 2025-12-26 17:25:17

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#104 2025-12-26 17:58:43

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#105 2025-12-26 18:30:42

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#106 2025-12-26 19:23:06

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#107 2025-12-26 20:21:53

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#108 2025-12-27 21:10:40

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

#109 2025-12-27 21:55:47

Re: ALSA-only purists: Question, new GUI app for the mixer and EQ?

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