Find configuration settings and Driver information that will help your audio hardware perform the best. = Sound Cards = With the notable exception of firewire devices, the vast majority of soundcards in UbuntuStudio will be supported through the ALSA-Project drivers. These drivers tend to work 'out of the box' as they are the main sound drivers in Ubuntu. Full compatibility listings can be found at [[http://www.alsa-project.org|http://www.alsa-project.org]] The following are tweaks to improve/fix common issues with particular cards. == FireWire Audio == FireWire audio support is maturing in Linux generally, but still can provide some challenges for the creative user. UbuntuStudio 8.04 (Hardy Heron) ships with the [[http://freebob.sourceforge.net|FreeBoB]] FireWire audio drivers, which implement support for a small range of external audio devices. [[http://freebob.sourceforge.net/index.php/List_of_Supported_Devices|(FreeBoB supported devices)]] UbuntuStudio 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and 9.10 (Karmic Koala) ship with the FFADO driver. [[http://ffado.org/?q=devicesupport/list|(FFADO supported devices)]] Check to see if your device is supported before installing UbuntuStudio, or making a purchase. [[http://www.ffado.org|FFADO]], the successor project to FreeBoB, also notes that some FireWire host cards [[http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/251|are better than others]] {{{ Some of Ricoh chipsets are reported _not_ to work well, some seem to work fine. NEC chipset has been tested by a developer and is reported to work fine, but since Presonus advises against them, there must be a reason to avoid them. So far, in order of preference (best to worst) according to developers: Texas Instruments, VIA, NEC, O2 Micro (all are OHCI controllers)}}} == USB Audio == USB Audio devices are generally well supported - look particularly for devices that advertise 'Driver Free operation on Windows and Mac OS X'. This implies that the device is 'Class Compliant', a technical term for 'smart enough to talk to anything'! As always, though, check [[http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main|compatability]] first. Most modern Linux distributions use a hot-pluggable architecture for USB, which means that you can add and remove devices on the fly. In everyday use, this is very helpful. However, for pro-audio use this often means that the Alsa device numbers (hw:X) of your USB sound cards and MIDI interfaces can change every time you plug them in - or boot up. See [[UbuntuStudio/UsbAudioDevices|UsbAudioDevices]] for some advice on this matter. == Creative == == Echo Audio == Several Echo Audio cards are supported by alsa, but need a firmware blob to make them work. This is available in the alsa-firmware package from [[Medibuntu]]. The best mixer for these cards is echomixer, which is included in the alsa-tools-gui package. == Intel == === QuickFix poor sound qualtiy of intel 82801H === Choppy audio was reported for the Intel 82801H on Ubuntustudio Hardy out of the box. * Run `lspci | grep audio` and if yours looks something like {{{ 00:lb.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (IHC8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) }}} * Run `sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base` and at the bottom, add: {{{ options snd-hda-intel model=laptop position_fix=1 }}} == M-Audio == == VIA == === QuickFix poor sound quality of snd-via82xx === Problem described on : http://alsa.opensrc.org/Via8233#Poor_sound_quality * Create the file `/etc/modprobe.d/soundcards` * Run `sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards` * Enter the following line into the file: {{{ options snd-via82xx dxs_support=4 }}} * Save and Reboot = MIDI Hardware = = Graphics Cards = ---- CategoryHardware