Linux Mint Forums

Hi,
I'm having problems with sound. It crackles and drones when I play music, no matter in which application.
I use Pulse Audio - in the system audio settings, the default setting was ALSA, but no sound at all, so I switched to Pulse and there it was, with the considerable crackling and droning (which I strangely don't notice when playing a video!).
I've had this same problem before on the same PC in Ubuntu 10.04:
I was able to fix it at the time by installing and Equalizer app that also had a pre-amp slider - which was cranked way up by default! Turning it down got rid of the terrible droning.
So I'm figuring this is just what Pulse Audio does (maybe not only on my machine) - there is this pre-amp cranked up way too high, and there should a built-in way to tune the audio output, but since there isn't one, I have to find an app that lets me manipulate it.
In support of this theory is that I did find the built-in Equalizer of Banshee with the very same setting for pre-amp, which allowed me to normalize the sound, but of course only for stuff I play in Banshee - now I need to fin d a system wide solution!

I haven't found that equalizer I used in Ubuntu on the repo, and the ones I did find and install from software centre (eq10q and fil-plugins) don't show in the applications menu! Any suggestions?
I am btw new to Debian, been using only Ubuntu-based distro so far and so I may be not aware of some things specific to Debian.

Come on guys! I am interested as well. I need a global equalizer for my system, but I do not feel like playing around too much ending up braking something. Yes, that happened far too often and I am tired of it

In short, how do we add a global equalizer for pulseaudio in LMDE?

KingBongo wrote:Come on guys! I am interested as well. I need a global equalizer for my system, but I do not feel like playing around too much ending up braking something. Yes, that happened far too often and I am tired of it

In short, how do we add a global equalizer for pulseaudio in LMDE?

Really, this is pretty disheartening. I am thinking of hopping to yet another distro simply because of the fact that I can't seem to get ANY answers for problems with LMDE! I haven't received a single response yet on support requests, on IRC same as here.

I'm gonna try first though if people at Debian forums are kind enough to look at questions about LMDE.

Stating again more simply my question:

I'm looking for an equalizer application to use with Pulse Audio.

Other equalizers won't work because Pulse Audio is all I can get to work on my system.
Thanks, Ben

bennypr0fane:
I hear you. I am struggeling with that as well, but sometimes I actually get some answers Another way is to look for solutions for Debian Wheezy (a.k.a. Debian Testing right now) since that's what LMDE basically is. Sometimes it works! But to be honest, that approach mostly requires more work since plain Debian includes much less stuff than LMDE. And the reason why we use LMDE in the first place is because we do not want all that extra hassle, isn't it? You could also try adding stuff made for Ubuntu, but that is more risky.

Come on guys!

EDIT: If you ask on some Debian forums, DO NOT tell them it is for LMDE. Just tell them it is for Debian Wheezy/Testing, which is almost true. If you do not lie to them it won't work, trust me

Here goes! I had to dig into "www.webupd8.org" to find this. Download the following .deb package and install it (some missing dependencies probably have to be installed as well) and voila! If you use gdebi for installation just click on the .deb file and follow the instructions, missing dependencies will be automatically installed.

https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+ar ... c3_all.deb

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

KingBongo wrote:Here goes! I had to dig into "www.webupd8.org" to find this. Download the following .deb package and install it (some missing dependencies probably have to be installed as well) and voila! If you use gdebi for installation just click on the .deb file and follow the instructions, missing dependencies will be automatically installed.

https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+ar ... c3_all.deb

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Thanks! So this is a package created for Ubuntu, right? Has it worked for you?

if you're going to install it take a look at this topic http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58846 (if you see the same errors maybe the solution is in there)

bennypr0fane:
Yes, it is created for Ubuntu, but it seems to be working so far. I guess you couldn't resist and have been trying it yourself already How does it work out for you?

zerozero:
Thank you! Those guys seem to be doing basically the same as we are doing over here

no probs. just keep in mind that pulseaudio-equalizer is not maintained anymore, so any bugs, issues new features, whatever you are out of luck.
it's something that you have to use as-is.

zerozero:
It isn't maintained anymore? Why? I really think a global equalizer is useful at times.

EDIT: I don't think this equalizer works as good as I thought at first It seems to saturate the channels real easy, generating terrible distortion. The built-in equalizer in Banshee works much better. What are your thoughts?

KingBongo wrote:zerozero:
It isn't maintained anymore? Why? I really think a global equalizer is useful at times.

EDIT: I don't think this equalizer works as good as I thought at first It seems to saturate the channels real easy, generating terrible distortion. The built-in equalizer in Banshee works much better. What are your thoughts?

I'm using it right now in Debian Wheezy and it seems to work pretty good. But very small incremental changes must be made or sound is easily distorted. Make a small change, then hit apply, make another small change, etc. You make big changes and it simply distorts everything. Had to play around a bit to get it working well for me.

If you like ALSA and would like to purge your system from pulseaudio in favor for ALSA, you can have equalizer in ALSA too!

Check out my old thread/story/quest to that here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=196&t=94877
The reason I switched to ALSA is not only because I had problems with high CPU usage, but also bad sound quality. Distorted sound etc.