A Slightly Different Picade Sound Question

Picade
1

Good Morning,

I have a slightly different Picade sound query.

tl;dr
Sounds works, but, how do I control the sound and make the settings survive a reboot?

Background
I have a KickStarter Picade Maxi.

  • Fresh RetroPie install - all updated.
  • New Firmware - all updated.
  • It has eight buttons on the top of the console.
  • A button either side.
  • Two front facing button.
  • No headphone out.
  • No power switch.

Six of the top buttons are wired to the Picade board as normal buttons. All six all share a ground loom.
The remaining two top buttons are wired to the volume +/-.
The two side button are wired to ‘Esc and Enter’.
The two front buttons are ‘1-Up and Coin’.
All six share a ground loom.
The Picade board shows all buttons are working.

So far all of this follows the Picade wiring.

Where things go away from the current Picade is with the sound.

The Pi is linked to the Picade board via both HDMI and USB (for power).

The audio goes from the screen controller board to the audio in on the Picade board.

At the moment I seem to have four different ways to control the volume:

  • Volume buttons on the side of the cabinet that are wired to the screen controller board. Works and survives a reboot, but still very quiet. Probably needs to work in conjunction with ALSA being louder.
  • Volume control in RetroPie. Not really tested
  • ALSA mixer on the Pi. Works but doesnt survive a reboot.
  • Volume buttons on the top of the console, wired to the volume +/- terminals on the Picade board. Not working and not sure why.

So my questions are these:

  • How do I get ALSA to remember a previous volume level? (I think this in conjunction with the volume controls on the cabinet side would be OK.)
  • Will the console top volume +/- buttons ever be able to work? (Not an issue as I can always make these ‘1-Up and Coin’ instead.

Many thanks,

Simon.

2

OK, so I figured how to set the ALSA setting using sudo alsactl store

So I guess my question really is:

Can I use the two buttons wired to the Picade board for the volume +/- when the audio input to the board is coming from the screen controller board?

(Or do I run the audio to the Picade board from the Pi itself?)

Cheers,

Simon.

3

So, it looks like setting the ALSA to survive a reboot solved all of the sound issues.

(It seems that a low ALSA setting was the maximum the volume would ever get to.)

Top console buttons wired to adjust the volume +/- now work as expected.

All good now, thread can be closed.

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