Frequently Asked Questions

This for those questions people have asked as it wasn't covered in the documentation

Can ices play mp3 files

No, there hasn't been much interest in handling mp3 with ices2. The older version ices 0.3 maybe of interest in such cases.

How do I encode from Line-In

IceS will read from the DSP on the soundcard, but where that gets the audio from depends on the mixer settings. Use a utility like aumix to see the settings and change the capture or recording device. Usually the default is the Mic

When I start ices 2 it seems to get stuck not doing anything

If you are using live input, check to see if something else is holding the recording device (typically /dev/dsp) open. A good candidate is esd. What happens is that the driver only allows one application to have the device open at any one time, a second attempt will just block.

Ices reports a message about failing to set samplerate on live input

Some hardware/drivers are limited in the settings they support. Sometimes they only support one samplerate like 48khz. You have to experiment if the documentation for the device is not specific.

The sound quality is poor

Ogg Vorbis is a lossy compression technology, so quality of the sound is reduced, however with live input the source of audio can be poor depending on the soundcard and the system it's in. As an initial test just record a wav file from the DSP (using eg rec, arecord etc) and listen to the quality of the audio recorded. If the source of audio is poor then encoding it to Ogg Vorbis is not going to improve it.

The reasons for poor audio from the DSP can be difficult to resolve, search for information on audio quality. It could be driver related or maybe some interference from some other device.

Here are some links where further information can be found:

http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/index.php
http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/index.php3