GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 753847
Output Volume tied to Subwoofer
Last modified: 2021-06-09 16:07:41 UTC
This has been happening for a long while (all Gnome 3.x I believe), and I am not sure if it is a bug or if it is a design decision. On my system I have 5.1 surround sound configuration, and while everything works great, of the three sliders at the bottom (Balance, Fade, and Subwoofer), changing the overall volume adjusts the subwoofer slider along with it. The issue here is that it doesn't seem possible to fix the relative subwoofer volume in relation to the global sound volume, as it keeps changing with the volume slider. Further, manually dragging the output volume button will move the subwoofer volume as well, but moving the subwoofer will not adjust the output volume until a volume up/down command is given, in which case the subwoofer slider snaps back to match the output volume slider. Regardless, either the Subwoofer slider is useless, as it doesn't have any ability to control anything on its own. Or, something is wrongly plumbed and the output volume is being controlled by both sliders, and the 'actual' subwoofer volume control is not being shown. I don't know.
This might be a pulseaudio or driver issue. Can you adjust those volumes correctly with 'pavucontrol' ?
Created attachment 309691 [details] Pavucontrol settings There does not appear to be any subwoofer control option adjustable in Pavucontrol.
So if pavucontrol does not show a subwoofer slider, what is the slider in Gnome-control-center doing?
Can you post a screenshot of this subwoofer slider?
Created attachment 309748 [details] Sound control panel As you can see, the Subwoofer volume slider is in sync with the Output Volume.
In pavucontrol, on the rightmost tab ("Configuration") what happens if you change the profile? Can you change it to "Analog Surround 5.1 Output" ? Do you then see a subwoofer slider in output devices?
It was on "Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input" already, but changing it to just Analog Surround 5.1 Output does not add a subwoofer slider in output devices. Switching between the 5.0 and 5.1 profile doesn't change anything in Pavucontrol. but it does add or subtract the Subwoofer slider in control center.
I think this is an error in the sound panel, not PulseAudio. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, but the current situation seems weird. This is from testing a 2.1 configuration. When you move the top slider, the subwoofer slider follows. But when you move the subwoofer slider upwards, the master *slider* follows but not the *volume* for the front channels, only the volume for the subwoofer channel. At that point, the PulseAudio volume and the master slider become unsynchronised. This is broken. But before fixing it I need to figure out how it's supposed to work. Anyone who knows?
Ok, so here's how I think it's supposed to work. 1) The subwoofer slider shows the absolute value of subwoofer output. 2) The master slider shows the maximum value of any channel, including subwoofer. I'm not totally sure whether it actually works like it's supposed to work, but still - it's confusing. It would be less confusing if the subwoofer slider was relative to the master slider rather than absolute. Or perhaps if the master slider was to show the average instead of the max...
IMO any specific volume setting should be relatively proportional to the global output volume. That is how pretty much all other sound control panels work. I.e. if the subwoofer is set to 50%, it should be relitave to the global output volume.
I've been thinking a little bit more about this. Because the two other sliders (balance and fade) control the balance between different speakers, the subwoofer should probably do that too. I e: slider all the way to the left - means 0% subwoofer and 100% of all other channels. slider in the middle - means 100% subwoofer and 100% of other channnels. slider all the way to the right - means 100% subwoofer and 0% of all other channels. That I believe would make it behave like the other sliders. It means we should add a "tick" in the middle (where it's balanced).
PulseAudio part added here: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2015-September/024413.html
Awesome great work. I don't disagree with your ideas in Comment 11, however it is hard for me to imagine a practical purpose for attenuating your speaker volumes to boost your subwoofer, i.e. anything above the halfway tick. Having the slider slid all the way to the right would mute your speakers and crank your subwoofer, which seems utterly pointless. And, while I agree consistency is key, at least for balance and fade the (100/0 - 100/100 - 0/100) makes practical sense. In that same vein, the "balance and fade" bars are also badly broken in their current implementation. I'll file a new bug and post it here. If you are already in the guts of sound settings perhaps you could take a look at those two bars as well
(In reply to Britt Yazel from comment #13) > Awesome great work. Thanks :-) > Having the slider slid all the way to the right would mute your speakers and > crank your subwoofer, which seems utterly pointless. Certainly having it somewhat to the right makes sense, e g if your subwoofer is further away from you than the rest of your speakers are, e g. > In that same vein, the "balance and fade" bars are also badly broken in > their current implementation. I'll file a new bug and post it here. If you > are already in the guts of sound settings perhaps you could take a look at > those two bars as well Is that bug 756764 ? (I don't run Wayland.)
David, what do the sound settings on Windows or other OSes do for the subwoofer slider?
(In reply to Bastien Nocera from comment #15) > David, what do the sound settings on Windows or other OSes do for the > subwoofer slider? Don't know. I have barely used Windows since XP :-)
Yep that is the bug. Also, in Windows my realtek audio panel works the way I described in comment #10.
Looks like on Windows the subwoofer slider just controls the subwoofer's volume (relative to global volume?), and that's it. I think that would be the easiest, the behaviour mentioned in comment 11 seems a bit too confusing when you get beyond half-way through. Is that going to be possible with your PulseAudio patch?
I.e. 100%=0 software attention on the sub, and 0%=maximum software attenuation.
(In reply to Bastien Nocera from comment #18) > Looks like on Windows the subwoofer slider just controls the subwoofer's > volume (relative to global volume?), and that's it. I think that would be > the easiest, the behaviour mentioned in comment 11 seems a bit too confusing > when you get beyond half-way through. > > Is that going to be possible with your PulseAudio patch? Yes. But since that 1) limits the usefulness of the slider (makes it impossible to have higher subwoofer compared to other channels) and 2) makes it less consistent with the other sliders, I disagree that it would be the best behaviour.
(In reply to David Henningsson from comment #20) > (In reply to Bastien Nocera from comment #18) > > Looks like on Windows the subwoofer slider just controls the subwoofer's > > volume (relative to global volume?), and that's it. I think that would be > > the easiest, the behaviour mentioned in comment 11 seems a bit too confusing > > when you get beyond half-way through. > > > > Is that going to be possible with your PulseAudio patch? > > Yes. > > But since that 1) limits the usefulness of the slider (makes it impossible > to have higher subwoofer compared to other channels) OK, then it's an absolute volume, which the global volume is supposed to reflect. > and 2) makes it less > consistent with the other sliders, I disagree that it would be the best > behaviour. The fade and balance sliders move from one set of speakers to another (between front and back sets for the former, right and left for the latter). Subwoofer controls just the subwoofer.
(In reply to Bastien Nocera from comment #21) > (In reply to David Henningsson from comment #20) > > (In reply to Bastien Nocera from comment #18) > > > Looks like on Windows the subwoofer slider just controls the subwoofer's > > > volume (relative to global volume?), and that's it. I think that would be > > > the easiest, the behaviour mentioned in comment 11 seems a bit too confusing > > > when you get beyond half-way through. > > > > > > Is that going to be possible with your PulseAudio patch? > > > > Yes. > > > > But since that 1) limits the usefulness of the slider (makes it impossible > > to have higher subwoofer compared to other channels) > > OK, then it's an absolute volume, which the global volume is supposed to > reflect. > > > and 2) makes it less > > consistent with the other sliders, I disagree that it would be the best > > behaviour. > > The fade and balance sliders move from one set of speakers to another > (between front and back sets for the former, right and left for the latter). > Subwoofer controls just the subwoofer. And my proposed change is to make it more consistent with the other sliders, subwoofer would move from one set of speaker (non-subwoofer speakers) to another set (subwoofer speaker).
Or we have all the way left be 100% attenuation, a halfway tick be 0% attenuation, and all the way right be maximal (safe) amplification. That should cover all use cases
(In reply to David Henningsson from comment #22) <snip> > And my proposed change is to make it more consistent with the other sliders, > subwoofer would move from one set of speaker (non-subwoofer speakers) to > another set (subwoofer speaker). I don't think this is the expectation when modifying a setting that should not affect any other speakers.
(In reply to David Henningsson from comment #14) > (In reply to Britt Yazel from comment #13) > > Awesome great work. > > Thanks :-) > > > Having the slider slid all the way to the right would mute your speakers and > > crank your subwoofer, which seems utterly pointless. > > Certainly having it somewhat to the right makes sense, e g if your subwoofer > is further away from you than the rest of your speakers are, e g. > > > In that same vein, the "balance and fade" bars are also badly broken in > > their current implementation. I'll file a new bug and post it here. If you > > are already in the guts of sound settings perhaps you could take a look at > > those two bars as well > > Is that bug 756764 ? (I don't run Wayland.) Yes this is the bug, and it actually has nothing to do with Wayland, that was a misplacing of blame on my part. I recorded a video over on that bug report where you can see how very crazy the bug is
Hi, well i'm an affected user D: I think this has not yet been said, this happend too if you play with the global slider over 100% and the subwoofer (only up the global volume, subwoofer volume stalled), maybe add the over 100% to the subwoofer slider can help.
Now that the LFE patches made it into PulseAudio8.0 and it has been released, can we expect the subwoofer volume to be fixed as stated above for Gnome3.20?
Not to plug another bug in this thread, but bug 756764 seems related (albeit a different issue) to the work in this one, perhaps they can both be fixed at the same time.
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