Changing sound devices in KDE?

[Spiffie]

Hi everyone,

I'm really happy with the new version of Kubuntu that was released recently. Almost everything worked right out of the box, and anything that didn't was fixed with a bit of tweaking and updating which wasn't too much hassle.

However I have one small hitch that I am unable to figure out through forum searching. I have 2 perfectly working sound devices (an onboard system I use for speakers and a audigy 4 I use when i want to use my headphones) and I can't for the life of me find a way to change them on the fly while im logged in. By using the ubuntu help docs I was able to change my default card to either one and back again following a reboot, but what I'm looking for is a solution to be able to just change the card that is currently being used and back again without rebooting so I can just switch between my two cards whenever I feel like it.

I'm not a huge gnome fan, but this seemed to be the one area where I had an easier time figuring out. Any help with this would be great. Thanks!

[Spiffie]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

I think I've found a bit of a lead on this since I posted this thread.

http://andrew.org/index.php/archives...-audio-device/

It pretty much describes what I'm trying to do in a nutshell. Kubuntu doesn't have /etc/asound.conf for making alias's of specific sound devices. Is there a different file somewhere I can do this?

It seems like this is something that should be so simple, like the ability to configure mouse speed, is it not included in KDE at all?

[lingenfr]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

Agreed I have a PCMCIA sound card for my laptop. It should be as easy as inserting/ejecting the card and maybe toggling a setting in Kmix. Unfortunately it took a lot of fiddling.

[dibl]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

If you right click the speaker icon on the panel, you can choose "show mixer window", and then in the upper right is a drop-down window for "current mixer". It looks like you could choose an alternate device there.

Also on the "Switches" tab it appears you can choose alternate devices.

Finally, another choice when you right-click the speaker is "Select Master Channel" and that one also has a drop-down window for choosing a device.

HTH

[Spiffie]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

Thanks for the replies to my post. Unfortunately Dibl I tried what you have described in Kmix already and it appears that while you can change the volume properties of each device, you can't actually use it to select which one is active currently =\

[monkwarrior]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

By using the ubuntu help docs I was able to change my default card to either one and back again following a reboot

Would you mind sharing that information with me, I am looking for that info for weeks now

Monk.

[Spiffie]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

Hi Monk,

I found the ubuntu sound troubleshooting doc here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/So...8e9a586a007705

somewhere it has a section on setting the default sound card, which is what I did and it works fine enough, but it requires a reboot each time =\

[3vi1]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

I have multiple sound cards in my machine. The first thing I do is edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base so that it wont constantly flip-flop the card it's using. You just have to set an index for the drivers:

Ex. I add the following for my SB and onboard chipsets:

options snd-ca0106 index=0
options snd-intel8x0 index=1

(cat /proc/asound/cards to see your cards and their order.)

Now, if you want to use a different card in a specific program, most good apps let you choose the output device. For example, in the alsa setup of Amarok, replace "default" with hw:1,0 to use card 1 instead of card 0.

-J

[monkwarrior]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

Thanks lads.
In the mean time I managed to disable my onboard soundcard by modifying my blacklist file. So all is well now.

Monk.

[Spiffie]

Re: Changing sound devices in KDE?

Thank you thank you thank you 3vi1!

The kw: 1,0 switch was exactly the information I needed, I was able to change it for all applications by going into sound settings and putting that in under "Override device location" in the hardware tab. Now all I need to do is check or uncheck the box as needed to change the current enabled sound device from the default headphones to my speakers!

Thanks a bunch!