alsa sound module snd_aloop

Question

I am having some trouble wrapping my head around the snd_aloop module.

I am trying to route all my audio through alsa without using pulseaudio. If I start jackd there's not sound from non alsa apps but things like rhythmbox or any other native jack supported software works just fine.

The main reason is that I do mostly audio editing but I listen to videos online as well.

I was reading that I can use the alsa snd_aloop module to setup virtual hw that I can route my non jack away apps audio through to get things to play nicely with jack via the alsa_in and alsa_out mechanism.

i've read quite a few tutorials like this one, this one looked over a lot of the documentation here and here as well.

The part that is most confusing to me is the loopback setup and the way alsa_in and alsa_out works.

For example with the snd_aloop module there's 2 devices with 8 subdevices

my aplay-l looks like this

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Loopback [Loopback], device 0: Loopback PCM [Loopback PCM]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: Loopback [Loopback], device 1: Loopback PCM [Loopback PCM]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CS4208 Analog [CS4208 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: CS4208 Digital [CS4208 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

if I try to setup my system like this:

#jack capture and playback
pcm.jack_capture_1 {
    type plug
        slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,0,0"
}

pcm.jack_playback_1 {
    type plug
        slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,0,1"
}

#alsa capture and playback
pcm.alsa_input_1 {
    type plug
        slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,1,0"
}

pcm.alsa_output_1 {
    type plug
        slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,1,1"
}


#playback devices
pcm.jack_audio_1 {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "jack_playback_1"
  capture.pcm "jack_capture_1"
}

then do alsa_out -j "playback" -d jack_audio_1 sound.wav

I still get no output even after making the connections in the jack routing map.

My questions: Looking at my setup I have the loopback jack_capture_1 tied to hw:0,0 loopback jack_playback_1 tied to hw:0,1

that means any sound sent to jack_capture_1 should be echo out of jack_playback_1 is that correct?

also is the alsa_in is the the alsa audio stream that'll go into the jack session while alsa_out is the alsa audio stream that jack outputs after it finishes?

I have been reading everything that I can on the snd_aloop but even their official documentation seems a bit lacking.

Can someone help me sort this out?

Answer 1

A bit late with the answer but maybe someone finds this helpful ;)

/etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
alias snd-card-8 snd-aloop
options snd_aloop index=8 id=loop0 enable=1

/etc/asound.conf

#### Linrad ####                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

pcm.loop0_0_0 {                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
  type plug                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    slave {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
      pcm "hw:loop0,0,0"                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
      format FLOAT_LE                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
      rate 96000                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    }                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
}                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

pcm.linrad_alsa {                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  type asym                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  playback.pcm "loop0_0_0"                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
  capture.pcm "loop0_0_0"                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
  hint {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
    show on                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    description "Linrad: ALSA"                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  }
}

pcm.loop0_1_0 {
  type plug
    slave {
      pcm "hw:loop0,1,0"
      format FLOAT_LE
      rate 96000
    }
}

pcm.linrad_jack {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "loop0_1_0"
  capture.pcm "loop0_1_0"
  hint {
    show on
    description "Linrad: JACK"
  }
}

#### WSJTX ####

pcm.loop0_0_1 {
  type plug
    slave {
      pcm "hw:loop0,0,1"
      format FLOAT_LE
      rate 96000
    }
}

pcm.wsjtx_alsa {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "loop0_0_1"
  capture.pcm "loop0_0_1"
  hint {
    show on
    description "WSJTX: ALSA"
  }
}

pcm.loop0_1_1 {
  type plug
    slave {
      pcm "hw:loop0,1,1"
      format FLOAT_LE
      rate 96000
    }
}

pcm.wsjtx_jack {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "loop0_1_1"
  capture.pcm "loop0_1_1"
  hint {
    show on
    description "WSJTX: JACK"
  }
}

....

And for the piping to jack something like this (placed in a shell script that runs after jackd starts)

alsa_in -j "WSJTX source" -d wsjtx_jack -q 1 &> /dev/null &
alsa_out -j "WSJTX sink" -d wsjtx_jack -q 1 &> /dev/null &