System Wide Equalizer for Slackware 13.0

An equalizer for Slackware 13.0? I tried to make it work with Pulseaudio but that led me to make some heavy changes in the system core library and thus leaving the system a bit unstable (call me a coward but i got tired of running unstable version of the distros). I then remembered reading about an equalizer that could run directly connected to ALSA called AlsaEqual.
Here’s how i got it working.

Installation & configuration

First we should resolve our dependencies by installing:

- alsa-plugins
- ladspa
- libsamplerate
- fftw
- swh-plugins
- caps

All these packages can be found in http://slackbuilds.org/

Next we grab the source of AlsaEqual from http://www.thedigitalmachine.net/alsaequal.html and compile it and install it.

Create the config file for the equalizer to work:

vim ~/.asoundrc

and put:

pcm.plugequal{
 type equal
 slave.pcm "plug:dmix"
}

ctl.equal{
 type equal
}

#I couldn't get this working, but I just assume it's essential
pcm.equal{
 type plug
 slave.pcm "plug:dmix"
}

pcm.!default {
 type plug
 slave.pcm "plugequal"
}

Save and exit. Now restart alsa

/etc/rc.d/rc.alsa restart

And now we test Alsaequal

alsamixer -D equal

Now you’ll be able to adjust the sound with a nice equalizer.

You can optionally install Alsamixergui which i found in Debian’s homepage http://packages.debian.org/source/squeeze/alsamixergui just remember to apply the patch that’s next to the link that points to the tarball or you won’t be able to compile it.

Happy Hacking!

References:
[1] Archlinux Wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture#System-Wide_Equalizer

[2] Gentoo Forums http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-800205-start-0.html

UPPDATE:
I noticed that some times it makes some problems with the mic.

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