moOde 7.5.0 with RoonBridge and Soekris dam1021

[maikel76]

Hi everyone,

I really need your help
Ok so I have the latest moOde 7.5.0 installed, installed the RoonBridge plugin from the Roonlabs website. Roon core is running on a NAS (synology DS220+, 10GB RAM, DSM7)
moOde is installed on a raspberry pi 2B+ and is directly (with very short wires) connected through I2S to a Soekris DAM1021 DAC
I selected Soekris DAM1021/1121 (I2S) option in audio settings, driver and chip options cannot be set. I also tried a few other settings as Named Device and I tried HifiBerry as DToverlay.
I get a message "Hardware volume controller not detected"
Within moOde software volume is working perfect, I also changed the vol.sh so that volume is changed through serial commands directly to the DAC card
Until here everything works like a charm.
Now I also have a Roon setup working, and thats actually working like a charm too, can even play DSD.

My issue however is: I cannot change volume in my roon app, i tried many many things but cannot somehow get it to work
I see that in roon my audio-device (moode roonbridge) is detected as: moode, ip-adress, linux 5.4.77-v7+ ALSA.
Device setup: Unidentified device (DAM1021, moode, rpi not in the list) snd_rpi_rpi_dac
Volume control is set as Device volume which is right i guess, BUT volumelimits are all 0 and there is no option to change volume or change limits. I shows as Fixed volume.

Now the strange thing is that it looks like my ALSA doesnt detect anything, and maybe thats the issue? I can remember many years ago when i setup raspbian i had to manually setup hifiberry card to let it being used in ALSA.
There are so many variables that I'm a bit unsure where to start, so if anyone could give me a hint, it would be very apreciated.

Edit: Oh thats pretty stupid... so I forgot i was logged out of my ssh session and was lookig at devices on my laptop  
Ok so i see that mentioned snd_rpi_rpi_dac and getting a message "This sound device does not have any controls", which corresponds exactly with what I see in the roon app.

The question still stands if anyone knows how to program the ALSA config outside of moOde and what precautions i should take  (e.g. after update)

PS: I installed the pyroon python api module and should be able to read and write from and to the roon app with it, but if there isn't any volume control, there is not much to change

[Tim Curtis]

Moved from FAQ and Guides to Support.

[maikel76]

Good morning Tim,
Sorry I put this in the wrong topic and thanks for moving.
Would it be possible for Soekris dam1021/1121 device rpi-dac dtoverlay to add ALSA controls so volume control would be possible when using a roodbridge renderer?
Or is this too simple of a thought?

[Tim Curtis]

The device driver has to be explicitly designed to expose device controls for example chip options or hardware volume. Basic drivers like rpi-dac or hifiberry-dac are designed only to handle the I2S audio stream and not device controls.

Maybe Soekris has a special driver for their board that exposes its volume controller??

[maikel76]

The device driver has to be explicitly designed to expose device controls for example chip options or hardware volume. Basic drivers like rpi-dac or hifiberry-dac are designed only to handle the I2S audio stream and not device controls.

Maybe Soekris has a special driver for their board that exposes its volume controller??

OK thanks a lot Tim, that helps me understanding the system and problem much better. I try to find it
Have a great weekend ahead

[TheOldPresbyope]

Does the Soekris DAM 1021 DAC expose volume control via its I2S interface?

When I read the (pathetically brief) manual all I see is

FEATURES
The initial rev 0.90 release of the firmware together enables the following features:
...
4. Digital volume control through simple potentiometer
...
8. S/W interface (serial interface) allows:
.       1. Volume control (e.g. with Arduino)
.       2. Input selection (e.g. with Arduino)
.       3. Loadable FIR filters including bypass filter for NOS support (s/w utility included)
.       4. Firmware update/upgrade 

It appears there are knowledgeable Soekris users actively participating on other forums, e.g., diyaudio.com and community.roonlabs.com. You might get quicker responses there.

Regards,
Kent

[maikel76]

Does the Soekris DAM 1021 DAC expose volume control via its I2S interface?

When I read the (pathetically brief) manual all I see is

FEATURES
The initial rev 0.90 release of the firmware together enables the following features:
...
4. Digital volume control through simple potentiometer
...
8. S/W interface (serial interface) allows:
.       1. Volume control (e.g. with Arduino)
.       2. Input selection (e.g. with Arduino)
.       3. Loadable FIR filters including bypass filter for NOS support (s/w utility included)
.       4. Firmware update/upgrade 

It appears there are knowledgeable Soekris users actively participating on other forums, e.g., diyaudio.com and community.roonlabs.com. You might get quicker responses there.

Regards,
Kent

Hi Kent,
Sorry I totally missed your reply. I can acknowledge that with a serial command like

Code:

echo  "V-90\r\n" > /dev/serial0
echo  "V-0\r\n" > /dev/serial0

you can change the volume to low and high. I connected the dam to a raspberry pi through I2S and this is working.
Tonno made a change in the vol.sh script in /var/www and I changed it to the latest release, that's working within moOde like a charm.
However I would like to use Roon for this, so roonbridge. Roon has an api and i think i can change it with this, however, the volume control options are not shown in the roon app because roon(bridge) connects to ALSA and there are no volume control options there (what Tim explained)

I can also confirm there is an topic where Soren (Soekris) reads. If you want to know where please let me know
I just bricked my dam last friday-night trying to update firmware on linux which honestly is a complete nightmare. The update produced some errors and then just stopped, leaving an unreachable dam left. Luckily I should be able to reset it so I'm gonna try that somewhere tomorrow

[TheOldPresbyope]

Gotcha.

Not a Roon user so can’t tinker. Time to retreat to lurker mode 

Regards,
Kent