AMETER

              Ameter is an Alsa meter plugin for Linux audio softwares, with a graphical display. 

               ameter.jpg                

Download ameter-0.44.tar.gz (400 ko)        

This program aims at giving level metering capability to Linux Alsa audio programs

that does not have it, and that cannot use Jack/Meterbrige ( Glame, aplay/arecord or mplayer are examples).

It can be used also for OSS applications like Realplayer (using Alsa OSS Compat library ( provides

aoss wrapper), and a properly written .asoundrc (example below) ).

It has an overload indicator, which can be resetted by pressing a key.

     

News :

- 2013-11-02: No change since 2006, but ameter is tested "ok" on Debian Wheezy 64 ...

- 2006-01-02: Ameter is broken when using Alsa 1.0.10 or 1.0.11rc1 (so use Alsa < 1.0.10, or Alsa > 1.0.11rc1),

The command :

cat /proc/asound/version

shows Alsa version.

- 2006-06-05: a Debian package is now available, thanks to a nice user : ameter_0.43_i386.deb

The source package below includes the Debian directory needed if you want to build the package yourself.

Problems:

Please report problems to Laurent Georget laugeo_at_free.fr

Thanks:

This plugin is heavily based on the level meter plugin from Abramo Bagnara <abramo@alsa-project.org>

and on Meterbridge from Steve Harris : http://plugin.org.uk/meterbridge/

Thanks to Abramo for his help.

Thanks to Andrew Burgess ( http://www.cichlid.com ) for fixing the aplay problem when interrupting with ctrl+c.



1) Requirements :

- Alsa (tested with 1.0.11rc2 , 1.0.9 and older) (Ameter is broken when using Alsa 1.0.10 or 1.0.11rc1)

- SDL and SDL_image with PNG support: packages should come with your Linux distribution :

(The 4 necessary packages are named libSDL1.2 , libSDL1.2-devel , libSDL_image1.2 , libSDL_image1.2-devel on Mandriva )

Alternatively, you can download SDL (source or packages ) here:

http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php

and

http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/

(tested with version 1.2 (may work with 1.0)

2) Download ameter-0.44.tar.gz (400 ko)

3) Installation:

tar xvzf ameter-0.43.tar.gz

cd ameter-0.43

./configure

make

su -c "make install"

4) Edit (or create) .asoundrc file ,

in your home directory to have the following lines :

pcm_scope.ameter {

type ameter

}

pcm_scope_type.ameter {

lib /usr/local/lib/libameter.so

}

pcm.ameter {

type meter

slave.pcm 'hw:0,0' #can be hw or hw:0,1 etc...

scopes.0 ameter

}

pcm.dsp0 ameter


5) Test and examples:

Alsa native programs :

Set "ameter" as the output Alsa device.

Examples:

Using Glame:

- In audio preferences:

- Set output plugin to alsa_audio_out

- Set output device to ameter

(This is ok for monitoring both playing or recording)


Using aplay/arecord:

aplay -D ameter sound.wav

arecord -D ameter soundrec.wav


Using mplayer :

mplayer -ao alsa:device=ameter video.avi



Non Alsa programs :

You need to append "aoss" to the command lauching the program.

(aoss comes with alsa-oss package.)


Using Realplayer with alsa-oss :

aoss realplay sound.ogg


Using rec and play with alsa-oss :

aoss rec sound.wav

aoss play sound.wav

6) Limitations at that time :

- Only one stereo chanel