I couldn't get PulseAudio to work on one of my computers no matter what I do. But removing PulseAudio can be tricky and besides, there is a very easy way to "fix" it (if you're using GStreamer as a backend for music and videos). This is very useful for applications which use GStreamer but do not let you select the sound output module like: Rhythmbox, Totem and so on.

The system-wide Pulseaudio equalizer developed by psyke83 now has its own Ubuntu Launchpad PPA, for easy installation and updates.

Ubuntu Karmic comes by default with ALSA 1.0.20 and if that doesn't work for you, an upgrade to ALSA 1.0.21 might be the solution. We wrote about the ALSA upgrade script for Ubuntu and Debian but there is an easier way of upgrading ALSA: by using a repository (Launchpad PPA).

If you use Ubuntu Karmic Koala beta and have a Intel sound card, you must be hearing a popping sound every now and then. This is a known bug and here is a temporarily solution for it.

Using the same ALSA upgrade script as for 1.0.20, but with some minor tweaks, you can upgrade to ALSA 1.0.21 by running a simple sh file.

The ALSA 1.0.21 driver package update brings the Creative X-Fi Linux driver officially along with a horde of updates to the other drivers and more. The CMI8788 Oxygen driver (used by sound cards like the Razer Barracuda AC-1) now includes support for HDAV S/PDIF inputs and when it comes to sound cards now works with the ASUS Xonar Essence ST.

A few days ago I was telling you about increasing the soft volume in MPlayer to 300%. I know a lot of people are experiencing a very low sound level in Ubuntu, so here is another trick to increase the sound (soft volume) in Ubuntu Linux, this time system-wide.

We posted instructions for upgrading ALSA on Ubuntu to version 1.0.20 but there are a lot of steps to follow so for this reason I searched for an alternative and found a script on the ubuntuforums.org (thanks to soundcheck)

Sometimes when you watch a move, the sound is just too low, even setting your alsamixer to 100%. But you can increase your MPlayer soft volume to 300% with just a simple command.

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (known by the acronym ALSA) is a Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System (OSS) for providing device drivers for sound cards.

By default, PulseAudio in Ubuntu up to Jaunty is set to work with 2 speakers (front channels). This tutorial will explain how to enable multiple sound channels (5.1, 7.1, etc) in Pulseaudio.

I've wanted to write this article for quite a while. Over the years I've noted that Java-based music and sound applications have increased in number and quality, yet no comprehensive list or summaries have covered these advances. And so at long last I present this survey of music and sound applications that require Java. The presentation follows no particular order, but in this first part I'll begin by questioning the use of Java in sound and music applications development, followed by a brief look at Java's internal audio and MIDI capabilities.

Over the last few years, OpenOffice.org has started to develop a respectable number of extensions, mostly for Writer and Calc, the two most widely used applications. The OpenOffice.org Extensions site lists only a handful that are unique to Impress. The recently released eVoice, which records sounds for direct insertion into a slide, is one of them. Once configured, eVoice is straightforward to learn, and becomes even more useful when you're working with other Impress features.

Gimp is universally used for image manipulation. However, with a bit of creativity and a couple of tricks, it can also be used as an audio filter! Here is how…

As promised, the second part of this series presents still more commercially available music and sound software for Linux. Come see (and hear) what your money will buy...

A Win/Mac developer recently asked me what I thought about his plan to create a binary of his application and sell it to interested Linux sound and music people. He asked with some trepidation, having already received a rather critical chorus of objection from some overly enthusiastic Linux users.

When I first updated to Gutsy, everything was working like a charm.  Then one day flash videos no longer played with sound.  I cast about for a bit trying to figure out what exactly happened.

The system speaker is controlled by a driver in the Linux kernel. This allows the pc speaker to beep at you for different reasons or at different events. If you remove the module which drives the speaker, the beeping goes away, as the machine no longer knows how to interface with that device.