AMETER
Ameter is an Alsa meter plugin for Linux audio softwares, with a graphical display.
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.
- 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)
tar xvzf ameter-0.43.tar.gz
cd ameter-0.43
./configure
make
su -c "make install"
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
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