HOWTO: Tascam US-122 in Fiesty

[richardjennings]

I have followed several tutorials that have led to success. However every one I have found requires manually introducing the Tascam to Ubuntu after a reboot or an unplug.

This following procedure worked perfectly for me in Fiesty, is easy to do, and best of all - allows you to hot plug your Tascam, reboot & just generally take it easy.

I found the original tutorial here : http://alsa.opensrc.org/Tascam_US-122

Unplug the Tascam US-122 USB cable

1)

sudo apt-get install fxload alsa-firmware-loaders

2)

wget http://ftp.mj2.org/pub/alsa/firmware/alsa-firmware-1.0.14rc3.tar.bz2

3)

tar xjf alsa-firmware-1.0.14rc3.tar.bz2

b)

sudo mkdir /lib/firmware

4)

sudo mv alsa-firmware-1.0.14rc3/usx2yloader/ /lib/firmware/

4b)

sudo cp -r /lib/firmware/usx2yloader /usr/share/alsa/firmware/

//revision 1

5)

 sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/55-tascam.rules

the rules file is now open in gedit..

6) copy the following into the 55-tascam.rules file in gedit

 BUS=="usb", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{idProduct}=="8006", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1604", RUN+="/bin/sh -c '/sbin/fxload -D %N -s /lib/firmware/usx2yloader/tascam_loader.ihx -I /lib/firmware/usx2yloader/us122fw.ihx'"
 BUS=="usb", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{idProduct}=="8007", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1604", RUN+="/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/usx2yloader'"

Save the file.


Plug in your usb cable and your tascam usb led should light up.

//revision 2

assuming it does, you can add another rule to 55-tascam.rules that automatically configures alsa to use the tascam as your default soundcard.

repeat step 5)

add below the previous rule:

KERNEL=="pcmC[D0-9cp]*", ACTION=="add", PROGRAM="/bin/sh -c 'K=%k; K=$${K#pcmC}; K=$${K%%D*}; echo defaults.ctl.card $$K > /etc/asound.conf; echo defaults.pcm.card $$K >>/etc/asound.conf'"
KERNEL=="pcmC[D0-9cp]*", ACTION=="remove", PROGRAM="/bin/sh -c 'echo defaults.ctl.card 0 > /etc/asound.conf; echo defaults.pcm.card 0 >>/etc/asound.conf'"

Save the file

unplug / plug your tascam back in.

Now alsa should be working correctly with the tascam!

[GMaq]

Hi,
I'm new to Ubuntu Feisty having just switched from MEPIS, I'm still pretty challenged at the console, I've tried your Tascam tutorial and also gone to the original one that you linked and although all the files and folders seem to be where they are supposed to be, i am not getting "the green light" I would guess it has to do with the last step of the tutorial. I would really like to get my US 122 up and running so I can use a MIDI keyboard with QSynth as well as Audio recording. I would really appreciate any guidance. Thanks for your time.

[Jeremy23]

I'm having a problem with the udev stuff. If I type the commands from udev manually (and replace the %N with the path to the device shown by lsusb) it works fine, but udev will not automatically execute the commands for some reason.

[Jeremy23]

OK, I got it working by copying-and-pasting the udev rules from http://alsa.opensrc.org/Tascam_US-122 directly into the udev rules file.

Looks like there were issues with the quoting. (hint, hint)

[GMaq]

Jeremy23,
THANKS!!!!!! That did the trick, One thing I'm still a little confused about is what is the purpose of the alsa-firmware-1.0.14rc3 folder that gets created in step 4?? The udev rules point to the native firmware folder that's already there, Is the downloaded folder supposed to overwrite the original one?? In the guide above a whole new alsa-firmware-1.0.14rc3 folder is created inside the alsa/firmware folder.

[daffe]

People may want to know that this tutorial worked nicely in Feisty 32 bits but I couldn't make it work on 64 bits. I needed to fxload manually on each reboot to have the us-122 to work in 64 bits. I f someone knows why, feel free!

[jaywalker13]

I'm having trouble with this one. Followed all the steps as shown above, but the best I get is that the green light on the US-122 sometimes comes on at start up, but even then the device does not work. In other words, programs like Amarok still play music via the comuter's inbilt sound card, not the US-122.

On the few occasions when the light does come on, the lsusb list says:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1604:8006 Tascam US-122 Audio/Midi Interface.

When the light does not come on, that line also has (without fw) at the end of it.

I can't get any consistent pattern of the green light on the US-122 coming on at startup or not coming on.

As a newbie, I would appreciate any advice. Sorry, I don't even know what other relevant information to give.

Thanks

Jay

[GMaq]

Hi,
I not saying this is the best way but it's what works for me, I use my US-122 with qtjackctl, which is available in the feisty repositories. qtjackctl is a GUI for Jack which is a low latency audio interface to manage connections to and from different software apps, kind of like a software patchbay.I'm not sure if it (Jack)will work with Amarok. I use my internal card with media players etc. and my US-122 for multitrack audio and MIDI. It may be something to try. Hope this helps!

[jaywalker13]

Thanks for your reply GMaq.

Trying to install jack. Did apt-install etc and it seemed OK. Then typed "jack" to start the program and got the following:

This is jack 3.1.1 (C)2004 Arne Zellentin <zarne@users.sf.net>
*warning* You have no standard location set, putting files into the current
directory. Please consider setting base_dir in ~/.jack3rc.
*error* Access of CD device /dev/cdrom resulted in error: No medium found

Can you advise on what to do next? I don't know what this means.

Regards

Jay

[dahouse]

Still not working for me. I'm guessing its the last command. Someone said it had to do with quotations? How would I fix this?

I did usx2loader with the device plugged in, and got this:

usx2yloader: no US-X2Y-compatible cards found

I'm running Ubuntu Studio on a Compaq Presario R3000 with a nforce integrated soundcard and an US-122 hook up via USB