[mdlug] Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 PCI sequencer problems

[Scott Webster Wood]

I have an older box that I've been toying around with as a means to play a new 
M-Audio Axiom 49 I just picked up.  With some tinkering I was able to get 
timidity installed as server and used jack to get the thing playing sounds but 
still noticed an ever so slight bit of latency on this old beast of a machine.

So the other day I saw the local second-hand store selling a PCI 16 soundblaster 
card and I picked it up for $5.  I have it working now for audio, but still seem 
to have trouble getting anything to come out the sequencer.

My motherboard has a VIA/realtek 8233 compatible chip on it and this new one 
runs under the ES1371 driver.  My M-Audio shows up as USB-Audio

# lspci | fgrep audio
00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880B [AudioPCI] (rev 02)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 
AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)

# cat /proc/asound/cards 
0 [AudioPCI      ]: ENS1371 - Ensoniq AudioPCI
                      Ensoniq AudioPCI ENS1371 at 0xec00, irq 10
1 [U49            ]: USB-Audio - USB Axiom 49
                      M-Audio USB Axiom 49 at usb-0000:00:10.0-2, full speed
2 [V8235          ]: VIA8233 - VIA 8235
                      VIA 8235 with ALC101 at 0xd800, irq 5

Of course the Timidity stuff shows up at 128 for ports 0-3 and alsa is saying 
that port 0 on the AudioPCI is showing up at 16.  But no matter what I seem to 
do, I can't get any audio to come out:
# aplaymidi -l
Port    Client name                      Port name
14:0    Midi Through                    Midi Through Port-0
16:0    Ensoniq AudioPCI                ES1371
20:0    USB Axiom 49                    USB Axiom 49 MIDI 1
128:0    TiMidity                        TiMidity port 0
128:1    TiMidity                        TiMidity port 1
128:2    TiMidity                        TiMidity port 2
128:3    TiMidity                        TiMidity port 3

# aplaymidi -p 128:0 sample.mid  # this works
# aplaymidi -p 16:0 sample.mid  # this acts like it's doing something
                                #  but no sound comes out

Does anyone have any suggestions to help me get this thing working?  The reason 
I bought this thing (besides the fact it was only $5) was because of the latency 
running the timidity soft-synth with my Axiom.  I was hoping that since it had a 
hardware-based wavetable that it would have less latency.  I'd love to get it 
working!  Thanks for any help in advance.

SW