Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] SBLive mailing list?
From: Robert Jonsson (robert.jonsson_AT_dataductus.se)
Date: Fri Sep 21 2001 - 10:04:10 EEST
Hi,
"M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Richi Plana wrote:
>
> > Frank Barknecht wrote:
> >
> > >The Midiman cards have above all excellent sound quality. You can use
> > >all important combinations of samplerate/resolution. You don't get any
> > >effects, like the SBLive has, instead you get the pure sound without
> > >noise and distortions.
> > >
> > >And you get qualitiy connections to the outside analog world: RCA jacks
> > >all over the place, no tiny jacks.
> > >
> > One question, though: How are the drivers under Linux? Are there
> > OpenSource OSS drivers? Closed source? ALSA support?
>
> I have the top of the line Midiman Delta 66. Red Hat 7.2 does not support it.
> OSS/Linux (closed source, payware) does support it, but the documentation is
> primitive. Alsa supports it and the documentation is *less* than primitive. I
> did not realize when I bought it that I was going to need to do driver-level
> integration to get it to work. I never did get it to work; I'm doing rendering
> to WAV files on my Linux box and recording on a Windows system :-(. Maybe
> the situation has improved since March, but as of then, using the Midiman
> Delta 66 ("envy" chipset) with Red Hat was a *major* hassle. I'm particularly
> disappointed in Alsa.
I'm using a Delta 44 with great success using the ALSA 0.9beta6 drivers. I can
understand your feeling about lack of documentation and general hassle to get it
to work. But Linux today isn't hassle free (neither is windows for that matter,
far from it) especially when you talk about projects that still do a lot of
design work, like ALSA.
As for documentation, ALSA is still in very active development, pursuing
documentation has been very low on their todo list, reason being that alsa has
gone through many redesigns. Written documentation is obsoleted quite fast in
ALSA-land.
Do consider this mailing list, and even more so, the alsa-user mailing list as
THE source for information regarding "getting it to work". For now that is the
best documentation you can get.
As for the Delta cards, I find functionality in ALSA to be on par with the
windows drivers, and in some areas, far exceeding them(alsa specific issues, like
being able to repartition the soundcard into any configuration the hardware can
handle, and even if the hardware can't handle it, the drivers can most certainly
emulate it). There is a specific graphical mixer(envy24control) where you can
control all the routing and view signal levels, very nice.
BUT, do remember that these cards cannot easily be compared to the sb-live,
sb-live is a card which presents the: fiddler-of-all-trades-master-of-none (i'm
sure i didn't get that right....;). Delta cards (or should I say, envy24 based
cards) are purely made for creating music, if you are looking for a general card
that will support your gaming needs also, they are not your cup of tea.
my 2 euro
/Robert
>
> --
> znmeb_AT_aracnet.com (M. Edward Borasky) http://www.aracnet.com/~znmeb
>
> Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
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