Linux sound issues - solved

Hi all,

I currently use Linux (Peppermint 5) so not sure about other OS's.

For quite some time now I have had sound issues most noticeably when using pianoteq, issues like :- double notes being played at odd times, some keys sounding off tune, distortion when playing and at one point all of the instruments sounding like a childs toy piano.

I have tried various distro's in the Linux stable to try and remedy this and ended up with Peppermint 5 which has actually highlighted the problems I was experiencing and not just in Pianoteq ( it caused lags, unresponsiveness and eventually crashed the system ).

Cause and Effect.

The cause is the choice of soundcard, not by us the user but by the machine at boot time, I have a creative-Xfi soundcard versus the onboard Nvidia sound,using the alsa program  I select the ct-xfi as the default and it gets assigned as 0 (zero, for convenince here) all is well, however at the next boot it may or may not be assigned 0 if not it could be 1 or however many devices are listed, the machine defers to 0.

As an example, I have headphones plugged into the onboard Nvidia outlet permanantly, with the ct-xfi handling the audio, speaker wise, after a boot and I find the audio is coming from the headphones I call up the Alsa program and choose which device is default (F6 brings up a pop-up where you can choose) I choose the ct-xfi and I think all is well, not so, for some reason the machine accepts your input but still treats the Nvidia as default, the conflict begins.   

I read about a fix for this and I'm ashamed to say I cannot recall where or how the process went, I do have a file in my homefolder called .asoundrc (which is a hidden file) and whose contents are as follows :-

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1
},

I do recall making this file in my homefolder and the thing of note here is the line that states – card 1

Use the alsa program to find the number of the card you want to use (the F6 option) and change the line(s) –  card   to match the number you want, when done logout and back in and the change will be done, why the machine doesn't do this is beyond me, since doing this the sound from pianoteq has been tremendous and the machine in general runs as sweet as a nut.

Regards Ellgor.