[arm-allstar] Audio levels of announcements

Tue Dec 29 17:46:38 EST 2015

Jeff,

Asterisk's sound files are in  /var/lib/asterisk/sounds and all directories under that. These are what we call the Alison sounds recorded by a real person. You can marry together the phrases to create what you want to say. These sounds are used by Allstar to create the messages you hear.

The on the hour time you hear is a Perl script I wrote and it includes the ability to change the level on the fly. See /usr/local/sbin/saytime.pl  Scroll near the bottom and you will see a sox statement that varies the level. It is fixed at 0.35 which is considerably lower than the normal 1.0 -  you can raise or lower it by changing that value in this file. A lower number, less than .35 would make it softer. This would only change the level of the hourly time though.

I just remembered I put a script in for specifically changing the volume on an audio  file. Sometimes I forget things too!  It is described in the scripts how-to on the web page. The file is  change_vol.sh

 Change volume of a sound file -

    change_vol.sh <infile> <outfile> <vol>

    To lower vol <1 (ex. .1-.99) - To raise vol >1 (ex. 1.1 -1.9)

   change_vol.sh inputfile.wav outputfile.wav .35

So all you have to do is run an audio file you want to change through this script. If you examine this script you will see how it is done with sox.

You really only need to change the level of the audio files that Allstar uses but it would be several. Like all the numeric files, connect message, etc.  You can go into the asterisk client - asterisk -rvvv and see the file names Allstar uses when it says things. Like the "to" in connected to is actually the numeric 2 as it sounds the same. 

As far as commands are concerned there is a description of commands at this site -

http://ohnosec.org/drupal/

Someone spent a lot of time putting this site together but to me it is a little convoluted. You can wend your way through it maybe find what you want. Another way is to Google "asterisk app_rpt xxxxxx"   where xxxxx is the command you are searching for help on. It usually takes you to the specific description for the command. 

The howto's on the hamvoip.org page help a little but don't hesitate to ask if you don't understand something. We are here to help.

73 Doug
WA3DSP
http://www.crompton.com/hamradio

Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 17:11:59 -0500
From: jeff.savasta at gmail.com
To: arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
Subject: Re: [arm-allstar] Audio levels of announcements

Thanks for the great explanation Doug. I have been working on this for like a month now and it was driving me crazy. You explained it well. I am glad I am not nuts. 
I actually thought it might have been the file in rpt.conf called amplitude ans idamplitude? I tried playing with that to no avail? Its under the morse settings where I see it. I am now assuming that’s for morse only?

Thanks for the great tips.I will do what you say. I wonder where the other sound files would be such as "The time is" and "Connection to" etc? Maybe I can adjust each one?

Doug, while I got you where can I find info out about sox and also all the setting and what they do in rpt.conf, simpleusb and radiousb that really explains it well for this newcomer?

 I am starting to dig this Linux stuff and its been a learning curve but has been worth every bit of it. The Pi is the neatest thing since the proverbial sliced bread. You have done a great job with it and the hard work is much appreciated!

Thanks so much, Jeff :)

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Doug Crompton <doug at crompton.com> wrote:

Jeff,

 There is no direct setting for the levels of telemetry (voice, ID, etc.) in Allstar. Most people find that setting the RX and TX levels properly results in a reasonable voice level. I say reasonable because some would like it to be lower. As an example if you had the TX level turned up to compensate for a low RX level it would make the telemetry sound louder. So make sure you have them set correctly. 

One way to change the level is to process all of the audio files to lower their level. I believe someone has written a script to do that??? It would basically run all the files voice through sox and reduce the volume. If it is just your local ID you want to adjust then it would be much easier. Just run the node-id.ul file in /etc/asterisk/local through sox to reduce the volume.

Changing the level of each file is a rather crude way to do it and a much better way would be to have a parameter to do this. This is yet another feature that should be included in a future release. Like the echolink level we should have a general telemetry level. It is on our list! 

73 Doug
WA3DSP
http://www.crompton.com/hamradio

Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 15:25:55 -0500
From: jeff.savasta at gmail.com
To: arm-allstar at hamvoip.org
Subject: [arm-allstar] Audio levels of announcements

Hello all,

If this has already been addressed I apologize but being new to the group I was unsure of how to search through old posts as I am new to the group.

Here is my problem, I am trying to set up my audio levels on my allstar/Echolink Pi node. I am aware of how to adjust the levels in Allstar and Echolink but can not seem to adjust the voice level of the announcements such as the connecting callsign,my callsign and the time. It seems to be extremely loud. I am going crazy on where to find the info on the volume adjustment file.

I went into the RPT.conf file and looked there but am finding it very difficult to find real good documentation on these menu items so its difficult to get info on each file.

Where am I going wrong here and did I miss something?

The radio is a Kenwood with the DMK interface which is operating in Vox mode.

All help is greatly appreciated,

Thanks much,

Jeff KB4JKL

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