Mic input/pipewire/ALSA

Just bringing this topic up again to flag it.

Resolve is still using ALSA, when it should be moving forward with pipewire audio support (or at least pulseaudio).

Though I'm on an unsupported distro (Debian), I still cannot get input (mic) to work. I see in qpwgraph that resolve creates the right ALSA things, but no audio is monitored/recorded.

Other (output) sound is working great.

You're understandable being befuddled by Linux and Resolve audio. I've been looking into it as well.

However, you're assumption (if I'm reading this right) that Pipewire and Pulse are not using ALSA is wrong. ALSA is the lowest level connection to the sound system in Linux. It can be difficult to navigate on it's own. All the other sound servers are routed through it so it must be doing something right.

I prefer using ALSA with no sound servers if possible and I still can't get Resolve to work well with outboard gear. I found it best when using the on-board sound card.

In relation to your problem others have commented about getting a mic to work with various levels of success. It's worth doing a search to see if you can add to the conversation and figure out something better / a more reliable way to do things for your use-case scenario. Let us know how you get on too.

You're understandable being befuddled by Linux and Resolve audio. I've been looking into it as well.

Not really befuddled, more annoyed.

However, you're assumption (if I'm reading this right) that Pipewire and Pulse are not using ALSA is wrong. ALSA is the lowest level connection to the sound system in Linux. It can be difficult to navigate on it's own. All the other sound servers are routed through it so it must be doing something right.

Oh I'm quite aware where ALSA lies in the stack, and how it all ties together -- in fact, if it weren't for PA/PW, most audio on Linux would not work, because ALSA requires exclusive access to a sound card/device. PA/PW lie on top of it, acting as a mux.

So when an app like Resolve directly accesses ALSA, it is in fact accessing the others via "hacky" plugins; hence my point that it should just get more modern and start using the PW APIs.

I prefer using ALSA with no sound servers if possible and I still can't get Resolve to work well with outboard gear. I found it best when using the on-board sound card.

I find that, for output at least, things work great for me; there's just some weird way BMD open and operate with the ALSA driver that PW doesn't like.

In relation to your problem others have commented about getting a mic to work with various levels of success. It's worth doing a search to see if you can add to the conversation and figure out something better / a more reliable way to do things for your use-case scenario. Let us know how you get on too.

Oh yeah, done plenty of that too, both in these forums and elsewhere, including with the primary author/maintainer of PW over in this thread.

It would be awesome if BMD just engaged with the PW community and sorted this out.

I just spun up a incus container yesterday to do more testing, and hilariously got it to work, albeit hacky again. It went something like this:

Code: Select all

container/resolve -> ALSA -> pulseaudio socket ==> host PA plugin -> PW -> ALSA -> microphone


I've seen that freedesktop thread. There have been other posts here pointing out similar to what your gripe is.

Audio doesn't work properly with Resolve in Linux, even if you all you are using is ALSA. It's broken at that level and needs to be fixed. I'm fairly certain they know about it. Good luck.