Audio Support Rock Pi S

mzoehr · August 8, 2019, 12:56pm

Hi,

We just stumbled upon the new Rock Pi S board and have several questions regarding the audio ports.

(1) Where are the channels 7 & 8 on the on digital output? (they seem to be ignored in the schemantics)
(2) Are the digitial MEMS supported in the ALSA driver stack at all?
(3) Can anyone provide us an output of aplay -L (alsamixed device listening)

Thanks in advance!

Best Regards

Matthias

xfjx · August 18, 2019, 8:14am

Right now I did not get ANY sound to work on the Pi S.

PLEASE RADXA, advice!

AntonyX · August 19, 2019, 9:34am

(3) Can anyone provide us an output of aplay -L (alsamixed device listening)

rock@rockpis:~$ aplay -L
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=Loopback
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=Loopback
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Front speakers
surround21:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
dmix:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
Loopback, Loopback PCM
Hardware device with all software conversions
rock@rockpis:~$ aplay -l
**** Liste der Hardware-Geräte (PLAYBACK) ****
Karte 0: Loopback [Loopback], Gerät 0: Loopback PCM [Loopback PCM]
Sub-Geräte: 8/8
Sub-Gerät #0: subdevice #0
Sub-Gerät #1: subdevice #1
Sub-Gerät #2: subdevice #2
Sub-Gerät #3: subdevice #3
Sub-Gerät #4: subdevice #4
Sub-Gerät #5: subdevice #5
Sub-Gerät #6: subdevice #6
Sub-Gerät #7: subdevice #7
Karte 0: Loopback [Loopback], Gerät 1: Loopback PCM [Loopback PCM]
Sub-Geräte: 8/8
Sub-Gerät #0: subdevice #0
Sub-Gerät #1: subdevice #1
Sub-Gerät #2: subdevice #2
Sub-Gerät #3: subdevice #3
Sub-Gerät #4: subdevice #4
Sub-Gerät #5: subdevice #5
Sub-Gerät #6: subdevice #6
Sub-Gerät #7: subdevice #7

xfjx · August 19, 2019, 9:17am

This is only the loopback device

jack · August 20, 2019, 11:53am

how do you connect the sound card?

xfjx · August 21, 2019, 7:30pm

What sound card? I thought the Pi S has onboard audio?

srz808 · August 21, 2019, 9:12pm

I have exactly the same problem, a lot of devices with aplay -l, but all of them are loopback, @jack: any ideas?

DIYprojectz · August 22, 2019, 10:06pm

@jack can we just connected LineoutL, LineoutR and GND pins on second (black) GPIO header to amplifier and use them, or does that require configuration?

jack · August 23, 2019, 1:35am

We are working on this issue. It’s a device tree configuration issue. A kernel update will fix it.

mzoehr · August 23, 2019, 7:50am

Dear Rock PI S team,

Thanks for the info. Regarding the audio, we stumbled upon a few things:

(1) First of all there is NO audio driver for the rock pi S
(2) Regarding the driver: Providing a driver for #### 26-pin Header 2 MICN1-8 will not work,
as the MICS will never have a synchronized clock rate, due to your schemantics. If you
cannot provide synchronized audio channels, any sort of beamforming will NOT work
(3) The only chance with that board design is to use the I2S0_8CH_SDI0 interface. However, channel 7 and 8 are missing. Are you currently working on that specific problem?
We can assist you to provide a driver for this board.

Please have a look at a reference implementation

http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/ReSpeaker_6-Mic_Circular_Array_kit_for_Raspberry_Pi/
one with the rockchip

http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/ReSpeaker_Core_v2.0/

For further implementation.

Just keep in mind that until you do not have a valid audio interface, the device is USELESS for any kind of smart-home or ASR. It will not get accepted by the communiy, and it will not be sold accordingly in Millions of pieces such as the RPI3. It will die as quickly as it was launched. Acctually I’m very outraged about your marketing strategy, providing a small embedded system with multichannel MICS, pretending to be usable for Alexa, Siri, …, but NO audio is working at all!

Best Regards

MZ

Dante4 · August 25, 2019, 10:27pm

You over exaggerating, honestly. There is enough projects that doesn’t require audio to work which RockPiS can satisfy, so please, restrain from words

Because you != community.

RockPiS is NOT rpi3. The closer is Pi Zero W.

Again, you over exaggerating. You already was told they are working on it. If you wanna help and you do understand how that works - i believe github is open, otherwise, your over exaggerating comments don’t help at all

“An extremely “rocking” mini computer for your projects! Get creative!! :-)”

I don’t see any Siri in there, do you? Or mean “projects”? Well, projects is vague word for sure

Jubian · August 26, 2019, 1:05am

We are updated the device tree to fix it,you can pull the latest kernel on github.

jack · August 26, 2019, 8:41am

Hi, mzoehr

We understand your point and your feedback is very important. The issue is what and how the users want to use the mic/audio is not clear for us, ie do the user prefer to use analog mic or digital mic. We also need to consider the maker gpio/spi/uart etc. So the two 26P header is very few and it’s really hard for us to choose which feature to keep and which to abandon. We have realised the i2s issue on the header missing essential clock. Below is what we are going to revise for the 26p header:

ROCK PI S V1.2	ROCK PI S V1.1	ROCK PI 4B	Pin no	Pin no	ROCK PI 4B	ROCK PI S V1.1	ROCK PI S V1.2
VCCIO	VCCIO	3.3V	1	2	5V	VCC5V0_SYS	VCC5V0_SYS
I2C1_SDA	I2C1_SDA	I2C7_SDA/GPIO	3	4	5V	VCC5V0_SYS	VCC5V0_SYS
I2C1_SCL	I2C1_SCL	I2C7_SCL/GPIO	5	6	GND	GND	GND
(T15) I2S0_8CH_MCLK	GPIO2_A5/I2S0_SCLK_TX	SPI2_CLK/GPIO	7	8	GPIO/DEBUG_TX	UART0_TX/SPI0_TX	UART0_TX/SPI0_TX
GND	GND	GND	9	10	GPIO/DEBUG_RX	UART0_TX/SPI0_RX	UART0_TX/SPI0_RX
GPIO0_B7/PWM2/I2C3_SDA	GPIO0_B7/PWM2/I2C3_SDA	PWM0/GPIO	11	12	GPIO/I2S1_SCLK	UART0_CTS/SPI0_CLK/I2C2_SDA	GPIO2_A5/I2S0_SCLK_TX
PWM3/GPIO0_C0/IR_RX	PWM3/GPIO0_C0/IR_RX	PWM1/GPIO	13	14	GND	GND	GND
SPDIF_TX	SPDIF_TX	SPDIF_TX/GPIO	15	16	GPIO	UART0_RTS/SPI0_CSN/I2C2_SCL	GPIO2_B2/I2S0_SDO1
VCCIO	VCCIO	3.3V	17	18	GPIO	GPIO2_B1/I2S0_SDO0	GPIO2_B1/I2S0_SDO0
SPI2_TX/UART2_TX_M0	SPI2_TX/UART2_TX_M0	UART4_TX/SPI1_TX/GPIO	19	20	GND	GND	GND
SPI2_TX/UART2_RX_M0	SPI2_TX/UART2_RX_M0	UART4_RX/SPI1_RX/GPIO	21	22	GPIO	GPIO0_B6/PWR_KEY/PWM1	V17 GPIO2_A7/I2S0_LRCK_TX
SPI2_CLK	SPI2_CLK	SPI1_CLK/GPIO	23	24	GPIO/SPI1_CS	SPI2_CS	SPI2_CS
GND	GND	GND	25	26	ADC_IN0	ADC_IN0	ADC_IN0

ROCK PI S V1.2	ROCK PI S V1.1	Pin no	Pin no	ROCK PI S V1.1	ROCK PI S V1.2
LINEOUT_L	LINEOUT_L	26	25	LINEOUT_R	LINEOUT_R
MP1	MP1	24	23	MN1	MN1
MP2	MP2	22	21	MN2	MN2
I2S0_SCLK_RX/PDM_CLK	MP3	20	19	MN3	R16 GPIO2_B0/I2S0_8CH_LRCK_RX_d
GPIO2_B3/I2S0_SDO2	MP4	18	17	MN4	GPIO4_B2/I2S0_SDO3
MP5	MP5	16	15	MN5	MN5
MP6	MP6	14	13	MN6	MN6
MP7	MP7	12	11	MN7	MN7
MP8	MP8	10	9	MN8	MN8
Y14 I2S0_SDI3/PDM_SDI3	I2S0_SDI2/PDM_SDI2	8	7	MICBIAS1	MICBIAS1
I2S0_SDI2/PDM_SDI2	I2S0_SDI1/PDM_SDI1	6	5	MICBIAS2	MICBIAS2
I2S0_SDI1/PDM_SDI1	I2S0_SDI0/PDM_SDI0	4	3	ADC_KEY_IN1	ADC_KEY_IN1
I2S0_SDI0/PDM_SDI0	I2S0_SCLK_RX/PDM_CLK	2	1	GND	GND

xfjx · August 28, 2019, 6:42pm

root@rockpis:/home/rock# aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=Loopback
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=Loopback
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Front speakers
surround21:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
dmix:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=0
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=Loopback,DEV=1
    Loopback, Loopback PCM
    Hardware device with all software conversions
default:CARD=rockchiprk3308a
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=rockchiprk3308a
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Default Audio Device
dmix:CARD=rockchiprk3308a,DEV=0
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=rockchiprk3308a,DEV=0
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=rockchiprk3308a,DEV=0
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=rockchiprk3308a,DEV=0
    rockchip,rk3308-acodec,
    Hardware device with all software conversions

The new kernel is already available via apt. Thanks so much! Now I will try to get some music playing

srz808 · August 29, 2019, 10:17am

Hi @xfjx, somehow the repository didn’t work for me, how did you install the new kernel via apt? Thanks

EDIT: on a new install

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

did the trick

srz808 · August 30, 2019, 10:54am

Hey again,

so now the devices appear, unfortunately still no sound. I however noted that the loopback and rockchip devices share the same names (“default”, “sysdefault”). Any way to disable the loopback driver?

srz808 · August 30, 2019, 11:09am

Hey @xfjx,

did you get it to work, also which pin was the audio on?
(I am looking for line_out audio, but so far no success )

mzoehr · September 2, 2019, 10:42am

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply. First of all I didn’t want to start a flame war here. Your product is nice, as it is. The only thing that popped up is an unique selling point. Regarding micro arm devices, there are plenty out there, like this one http://linuxgizmos.com/worlds-smallest-quad-core-sbc-starts-at-8-dollars/. However there is no small multi mems board available. The rockchip supports this by design, however you have to implement it accordingly.

Regarding the choice of mics, the best option is to use MEMS instead of analog ones. The use of MEMS in combination with an analog processing is no problem or vice versa, as you can use DAC/ADC.
Please have a look at the following schematic, where 2 ADCS are used to feed the audio input

The use of multiple MEMS does not have any advantage unless you are using it for beamforming, i.e. ASR and smart home usage. If you are planning to support multiple MEMS which might be one real USP of your board, the MEMS have to be clock synchronized.

Regarding the choice of MICS on the pin. The rockchip codec seems to be only processing stereo signals. So after having several discussions with some tech experts, we came to the conclusion that you cannot use the standard interface, otherwise the mics are not clock synchronized. If you are planning to support multiple MEMS, the only way would be to use the I2S interface, i.e. I2S0/I2S1 with 8ch: supports up to 8 channels (8xTX or 8xRX).

At the current state, the board (insert link, order code, etc.) can only connect to 6 digital mems microphones via the i2s interface. This is due to pin Y14 being left unconnected (see page 7 of the schematics pdf). Further, it would be nice to have synchronous sampling of the mems microphones and the line-out. According to the RK3308 datasheet, this happens at different hardware units, (audio-codec, i2s interface). In order to have synchronous sampling, the audio driver must take care of reading/writing to those units at the same time (i.e. with the same DMA cycle).

There is a reference implementation available for one variant of the rockchip. You might find some infos here how the sound module was implemented:

For a reference sound driver design intro, using multiple MICS have a look at

However, the are not using the rockchip

We will come back to you, if we find a valid driver design using the proposed I2S with the rockchip.

Best Regards

Matthias

xfjx · September 7, 2019, 11:40am

with a very basic /etc/asound.conf

pcm.!default {
        type hw
        card 1
}

ctl.!default {
        type hw
        card 1
}

I was able to get some sound out of my Rock Pi S. I connected headphones to GND, PIN 25 and PIN 26… BUT: I only got sound on one ear. I switched PIN 25 and 26 and got sound on the other ear so it not broken headphones.

mzoehr · September 10, 2019, 11:51am

Dear Rock Pi S Team

We stumbled uppon the FireFly board

http://en.t-firefly.com/product/rocrk3308cc?theme=pc#spec

It uses the same Rockchip RK3308, as well as support for a 6ch microphone array.
Please have a look at the driver implementation>

http://en.t-firefly.com/doc/download/53.html

I would be extremly cool, if you add this driver specification to your board, as it seems to fullfill all requirements for multi-channel audio recording and playback. If you are experiencing troubles please drop us a line here.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Best Regards

Matthias