HowTo: Creative Audigy 4 under FreeBSD

The snd_emu10kx driver provides support for Creative SoundBlaster Live! and Audigy sound cards, namely for Audigy 4.

Assuming that you are running FreeBSD 7's generic kernel it's simply a matter of loading the driver as a module at boot time.

To do so :

• % su
• # echo 'snd_emu10kx_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf

If you are planning on compiling your own custom kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

device sound
device snd_emu10kx

Just to be sure if the sound driver was correctly loaded run:

• % cat /dev/sndstat

FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 32bit 2007061600/i386)
Installed devices:
pcm0: on emu10kx0 [MPSAFE] (4p:1v/1r:1v channels duplex default)
pcm1: on emu10kx0 [MPSAFE] (1p:1v/0r:0v channels)
pcm2: on emu10kx0 [MPSAFE] (1p:1v/0r:0v channels)
pcm3: on emu10kx0 [MPSAFE] (1p:1v/0r:0v channels)
pcm4: on emu10kx0 [MPSAFE] (1p:1v/0r:0v channels)

To setup sound output levels for various audio sources and frequency ranges you can use the FreeBSD mixer. To display the current mixer values do the following:

• % mixer

Mixer vol is currently set to 75:75
Mixer pcm is currently set to 75:75
Mixer speaker is currently set to 75:75
Mixer line is currently set to 75:75
Mixer mic is currently set to 0:0
Mixer cd is currently set to 75:75
Mixer rec is currently set to 0:0
Mixer igain is currently set to 0:0
Mixer ogain is currently set to 50:50
Mixer line1 is currently set to 75:75
Mixer line2 is currently set to 0:0
Mixer line3 is currently set to 0:0
Mixer dig1 is currently set to 0:0
Mixer dig2 is currently set to 0:0
Mixer dig3 is currently set to 0:0
Mixer phin is currently set to 0:0
Mixer phout is currently set to 0:0
Mixer video is currently set to 75:75
Recording source: mic

To change mixer values you can type mixer followed by the name of the device and the desired level. If you wanted to change the CD output volume to 95 percent on left channel and 85 on the right channel:

• # mixer cd 95:85

And were all done.

If you want additional information on the driver take a look at snd_emu10kx and mixer's man pages.