How to Set HiFi Berry Jambox Volume?

[mnopneal]

Still loving Jambox for our bluegrass group.

In addition to our home unit, and one at church, we've deployed one at a musicians home. The rest of our singers use Jacktrip boxes.

Here's the question - the Capture volume is by default very low for the HiFiBerry input. Not a factor for Neal or Church, as we're feeding it from a mixer. But the other home user has a regular PC condenser mic, and they aren't audible.

So, we installed pimixer, ran it, set Capture volume at 70%, click Make Default, input volume is great, life is good. And when they reboot all that is lost. Is there a way to make the PiMixer volume setting stick?

regards,

Neal Rhodes
"Dynamic Range"

[kdoren]

@mnopneal

So, we installed pimixer, ran it, set Capture volume at 70%, click Make Default, input volume is great,

Was this on jambox? pimixer is already installed on jambox ("Audio Device Settings") on the desktop. Specifically which "Capture volume" did you set at 70%? ADC?

Suggestions:

1. use latest jambox image 1.5.0 if you are not already using it. It has latest alsa-utils and HiFiBerry overlay, and I believe there were some bugs in earlier versions of alsa-utils that could affect this.
2. Try using QasMixer (also on the desktop). I prefer it to pimixer. I believe settings should be sticky for both QasMixer and pimixer.
3. read this thread: it's a bit old but is related: Quiet output #25
4. There is a setting CAPTURE_LEVEL in /home/pi/.config/Jamulus/jamulus_start.conf It's for the master ALSA capture level and defaults to 80%, so I don't think this affects you, but you can change or comment out this line if necessary.
5. In extreme case you could figure out how to set this with amixer command, and place the command in the above conf file. but I don't think this should be required.

[mnopneal]

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I've been retired too long... "First rule, update everything to most current revisions". I will be the crash dummy and flash a new Jambox image and test.

I recalled that I did have to install pi-mixer, The Jambox images would have been circa-12 months ago; that's how stable and useful they were.

The Capture parameter I adjusted was ADC; there was another slider linked to it; maybe left/right, which makes no sense for a mono microphone.

I did read that thread you mentioned. My head is still ringing, but I shall digest a few bites at a time.

Thanks.

[mnopneal]

In the interest of science, I tried just updating everything - using the update Apps icon, then apt update; apt dist-upgrade; apt clean

and now the Make Default button under Preferences -> Sound seems to save the value across power cycle/reboot.

Yes, I suspect just building a new microSD might have accomplished the same thing.

Thanks.

[kdoren]

@mnopneal Glad it's working for you. However, I don't advise updating in this way, because:

1. You won't get the jambox script and config changes that are baked into the image. There are some bug fixes and performance improvements in the newer versions. At some point I may make these updatable via apt, but it isn't yet.
2. You'll be running a combination that has never been tested, so you might run into unusual problems.
3. You might break something, or worse: make it not work quite as well.

My advice is to go with the latest image release. i.e. v1.5.0 has been tested and is in use by a number of people. That way, you'll be less likely to have problems, and if you do it will be easier to get help. I presume that you don't have a lot invested in customizing the old ones, and then you can always swap back and forth between new and old versions if you need to compare.

[mnopneal]

yes, you are of course right. I was being lazy in seeing if in fact updated non-Jamulus glop like ALSA components would fix the saving of input volume. Which it did.

This morning I took the plunge and flashed new SD images. Which worked out of the box. I think I was dimly remembering the "old days" of extra futzing about to get the HiFi Berry HAT cards recognized and Mic Bias turned on. None if which was needed.