I was wondering if someone who has had success using the RME HDSP 9652 could help me out with configuration to get it working with JACK and ALSA. If you could describe the distro you are using and the necessary steps to get the hardware working with alsa and JACK that would be awesome.
I was using Tango Studio 10.04 unsuccessfully. I don’t mind switching to another distro if it offers better support for this card.
You shouldn’t have any issue with that card, the main thing is that you need to have hdspconf and hdspmixer. hdspconf you need to use to set things like sample rate, hdspmixer needs to be open to actually pass audio through it(Stupid decision on ALSA’s part, but there is a history here).
Agreed, I have an HDSP9652 and it works great! I have only one issue: I have to start hdspmixer once after login to hear something, I’m here in Debian stable (I created a batch for opening & closing hdspmixer, it doesn’t need to stay open all the time). Other than that, perfect drivers, no need to do anything for software installation.
You can try the AV Linux LiveDVD it has all the ALSA tools gui’s pre installed including hdspconf and hdspmixer. If your card works properly with the LiveDVD then it should work if you install AV Linux as well. I am quite surprised it doesn’t work with Tango Studio, by all accounts it is a great multimedia OS and RME stuff is well supported by Ubuntu generally.
My experience is somewhat different than Seablade describes, in that I don’t use hdspconf or need hdspmixer to use my RME card. I suppose, though, that’s because what I have is a Digi9652, not an HDSP9652 (though I vaguely recall it saying HDSP9652 on the card itself; that could be pure hallucination, though; The card has been installed for years and I haven’t actually looked at it in a long time):
Anyway, that card has worked just fine for me on Slackware and Slamd64 for quite a few years. The only “issue” I ever have is forgetting to switch the ADAT machines I use as AD/DA converters to “digital” input for playback.
Hrmmm… I suppose I haven’t given you much help, but hopefully there’s some useful tidbit you can find in at least the extra data point.
As seablade said, I just had to make sure hdspmixer had been opened before I was able to get sound from ALSA. Once I made that realization everything was fine and dandy.