Default device management

[ivoadf]

I'm a bit confused with the following guidance under the pipewire tab

My expectation would be that the easy effects sync/source would be the default system wide so that all applications would use them forcing any effects to be applied. If we don't do this how else would applications get the effects applied to their sync and source audio?

Would you mind explaining the reasoning behind this hint? I am probably misunderstanding the correct usage of this.

Thanks

[wwmm]

My expectation would be that the easy effects sync/source would be the default system wide so that all applications would use them forcing any effects to be applied.

In its default configuration EasyEffects tries to use the default system input/output device. If you set our own devices as default there is a chance that in EasyEffects initialization phase PipeWire will report our own devices as the default devices and as EasyEffects can't play to / record from itself it won't know anymore which device it should use. This has happened to some users.

If we don't do this how else would applications get the effects applied to their sync and source audio?

There is no need to set its virtual devices as default. For example when Process All Output Streams is enabled in our configuration window EasyEffects will move streams to its virtual output on its own. Except in the corner cases where the audio app developers decided to set a server flag that forbids third party tools from moving their app streams. There is nothing I can do when developers misuse the server flags.

[wwmm]

Is this correct?

Yes. If you have the following settings enabled

• Use Default input
• Use Default Output
• Process All Inputs Streams
• Process All Outputs Streams

EasyEffects will use the default input/output system device and will move the audio application streams to its virtual input/output. Except in the corner cases where the audio app developer committed the cardinal sin of disabling the stream management. Fortunately the vast majority of the developers do not do this.

In case there is a particular app you do not want to be touched by EasyEffects you just have to put it in the corresponding blocklist.

[ivoadf]

Awesome, now it makes sense.
Thanks for the quick reply!

[AidanofVT]

When I set an application's audio destination to the default in my OS sound utility, that disables that application in EasyEffects/Output/Players. Likewise, When I check/uncheck "Enable" in that menu, it actually changes whether or not EasyEffects is that application's audio destination in the OS. What's going on here?

[wwmm]

@AidanofVT is EasyEffects configured to process all outputs? If yes and the application dos not disable audio redirection the desired stream should be linked to EasyEffects virtual sink.

The enable/ disable checkbox will change the device the audio stream is linked to. When enabled it will be linked to our virtual sink. If disabled the streams will most likely use the default system device.

[dlipovetsky]

For a year, I used EasyEffects as my default "virtual" sink/source. Every time my "physical" sink changed, I would open the EasyEffects UI and configure it to use the correct sink.

Recently, EasyEffects returned to configuring its PipeWire devices such that their volume could not be changed. As I tried to understand this problem, I finally understood, from the help documentation, that I could configure EasyEffects as described in #1836 (reply in thread).

Now I can change my "physical" sink without having to re-configure EasyEffects.

This thread is the first place I've seen a complete description of the "process all streams, regardless of the input/output I use" use case, although I think it's a common use case.

[polarathene]

Just chiming in here too as I found the recommendation in settings a little confusing too. It says "external applications", but the examples given seem to be OS audio settings specific, rather than general applications?

It probably would be helpful if there was a "More info" link/button that expanded some text or directed me to a resource that expanded on what Easy Effects is doing here?

What happens if the default device changes here, such as my wireless headphones example below. I could explicitly choose the headphones instead of the "Use Default Output" switch being enabled, but not sure what happens when that device is not present (due to powering them off), presumably Easy Effects falls back to another output device, or the default?

If I explicitly choose one, and that device is also a default device elsewhere, is the hijacking behind the scenes still the same? Can apps use the default device, or would they need to explicitly choose that device as well if not choosing an implicit default device via the UI switch/toggle button?

---

The Discord app lists that Deity-VO-7U mic as the selected input/default, and I'm guessing an app should either use the Default device if possible, or use the explicit Deity-VO-7U below it and in this case both should be the same as "Easy Effects Source" to a listener? Easy Effects is doing the hijacking thing?

So the Easy Effects source / sink should be ignored, and our apps should choose a Default device or whatever Easy Effects settings has listed/chosen under the Input / Output "Name" values for Device Management? The Global bypass button when active presumably disables the device hijacking behind the scenes?

---

I am not sure if the Input tabs monitor button (which I have to toggle on/off each time my bluetooth headphones are enabled to switch the monitor output to them) is affected by the settings Default Output at all. Is it related?

Before the output was also the Deity-VO-7U, like the Default Input is shown above - I had toggled the switch button for Default Output, which changed the Output "Name" to my Bose headphones instead.

Perhaps the audio Output effects wasn't being applied to my headphones prior due to this, or my headphones had since become the default output device, and this was just an outdated UI value? I just know that when I power the headphones on after they've connected via bluetooth, I need to toggle the monitor button off then back on (in the Input effects view) otherwise I don't hear anything. So this may have just been UI not updating and made no real difference?

[wwmm]

It says "external applications", but the examples given seem to be OS audio settings specific, rather than general applications?

Maybe the word external was not a good choice. But "OS tools" are not the only ones that can set default devices. Anyone that is familiar enough with PipeWire or Pulseaudio API can write a small software or script that can set default devices. In any case the intention behind the recommendation is that users do not set EasyEffects as default devices. Never. Always keep your hardware as default.

What happens if the default device changes here, such as my wireless headphones example below. I could explicitly choose the headphones instead of the "Use Default Output" switch being enabled, but not sure what happens when that device is not present (due to powering them off), presumably Easy Effects falls back to another output device, or the default?

If you decide to use a custom input/output device and at some point in the future this device is removed EasyEffects will fallback to the default device. At least is what is happens on my computer when I disable one of my 2 soundcards.

If I explicitly choose one, and that device is also a default device elsewhere, is the hijacking behind the scenes still the same? Can apps use the default device, or would they need to explicitly choose that device as well if not choosing an implicit default device via the UI switch/toggle button?

I am not sure I understand. The only real problem is using an audio manager tool to set EasyEffects virtual devices as the system default devices. What you do in apps device selection menus won't matter if you have settings like Process All Outputs enabled in EasyEffects. IF the audio app is not disabling stream device management EasyEffects will be able to redirect its audio.

The Global bypass button when active presumably disables the device hijacking behind the scenes?

The global bypass button is for the effects in the pipeline and not the app stream redirection.

[wwmm]

Perhaps the audio Output effects wasn't being applied to my headphones prior due to this, or my headphones had since become the default output device, and this was just an outdated UI value? I just know that when I power the headphones on after they've connected via bluetooth, I need to toggle the monitor button off then back on (in the Input effects view) otherwise I don't hear anything. So this may have just been UI not updating and made no real difference?

Bluetooth devices are frequently are pain but as far as I am aware they usually work. I think I will need to see the output file generated by pw-dot. This file will show how devices and filters are linked to each other and can be visualized with the command xdot. This way I will have a better idea about what is happening on your side.

[herrenP]

I might be daft or something. To me, at some point in this thread it sounds like only tools that are considered OS tools should set easyeffects as default sink/source. At another point it sounds like no tool ever should do this.

In any case. I am simply running a script that is toggled by a hotkey to quickly change between my speaker (connected to onboard audio card) and wireless headset (it is it's own audio card). The script uses pulseaudio's CLI tool to do this.

I have Process All Outputs Streams set to true.

case $(getRunningSink) in
    "$onboardAudioCardName")
        ...
        pactl set-default-sink $externalAudioCardName
        pactl set-default-sink easyeffects_sink
        notifyUser $headphonesPortName
        ;;
    "$externalAudioCardName")
        ...
        pactl set-default-sink $onboardAudioCardName
        pactl set-sink-port "$sinkPortNumber" $speakerPortName
        pactl set-default-sink easyeffects_sink
        notifyUser $speakerPortName
        ;;
    ...
esac

If I do not run pactl set-default-sink easyeffects_sink in the cases above I can hear that the effects are not applied. For example when I am listening to music for example in YouTube Music webapp. Should I keep doing the above or should I not run the command that set easyeffect as default sink and do something else?

I never set default sinks anywhere else than via this script.

The reason I ended up in this thread at all is because I am having an issue where, sometimes, the sound is sort of crackling when easyeffects is enabled. But I am quite sure this is related to when I am also running Android emulators in Android Studio at the same time. Those emulators seem to do stuff with sound and volume during their boot sequence.

[wwmm]

Do you have a reason to keep Process All Output Streams disabled? In some cases it is easier to enable it and use the blocklist to exclude what you do not want to be redirected by EE.

[herrenP]

"Process All Output Streams" is enabled. The sound is different when I have toggled the sink output device via my script. Only when I enable the checkboxes does the sound change to what I expect.

[wwmm]

"Process All Output Streams" is enabled.

In this case the stream enable checkbox should be active without the need to do it manually. Unless some kind of problem is happening to WirePlumber. We rely on the media session manager to do this operation.

[herrenP]

Ugh, this sounds like a hard thing to troubleshoot. Any idea where to look? System log for WirePlumber maybe?

Thanks for your patience!

[wwmm]

I do not remember at this moment how to put WirePlumber in debug mode. But the first thing would be to run EasyEffects in debug mode so we can have more information. But it is probably better to do this in a new issue instead of this discussion about default device management.

In order to run EE in debug mode kill it easyeffects -q and restart it as G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=easyeffects easyeffects. Then start some audio players. under normalme circunstances the log should show they being moved to our virtual device when Process All Output Streams is enabled.

[teohhanhui]

Sorry if this is not the right place to ask this, but considering the other issues all link here for the advice on not setting EasyEffects sink / source as the default...

I think there should be guidance on how we can avoid the system automatically setting the EasyEffects sink / source as the default. This can happen for example when we disconnect a device. Is there a way for EasyEffects to mark as "never use as default" / deprioritize its own nodes?

[wwmm]

I think there should be guidance on how we can avoid the system automatically setting the EasyEffects sink / source as the default.

I would love to be able to do this. But as far as I know neither PipeWire or Pulseaudio allows something like this to be done. There isn't even a flag that would say "please put this device in the lowest possible priority".

[teohhanhui]

When using WirePlumber, I think priority.session is supposed to help?

• https://pipewire.pages.freedesktop.org/wireplumber/configuration/alsa.html#node-properties
• https://blog.zenlinux.com/2022/08/how-to-configure-audio-device-priorities-in-pipewire-wireplumber/
• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/wireplumber/-/issues/352
• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/issues/2363

[wwmm]

When using WirePlumber, I think priority.session is supposed to help?

I do not know. Looking at the pw-cli info object_id_number output PipeWire does not seem to set priority.session for null sinks (virtual devices). This field isn't in the null-sink info output. If I force it to be set when EasyEffects loads its virtual devices then the field is there. But it is not clear if it will actually be used or just ignored. And if setting it to zero is the best approach or not.

[wwmm]

The latest release 7.1.3 sets priority.session = 0. Let's see if it helps WirePlumber to not set our devices automatically as default...

[violetmage]

For anyone who is new to inter-application audio or is feeling lost, I can confidently recommend helvum as an easy visual way to interact with pipewire routing.

Anyway, here is my summary of the most common scenarios (please correct me if I'm wrong @wwmm ):

First, under no circumstances ever should easyeffects be set as the default device in your system's settings / audio mixer / whatever.

If you want easyeffects to "work like the default", set the device you want the final output to be as the default, then set easyeffects to process all outputs. Set your applications to output to the "system default" device, or whatever equivalent they offer. (Firefox, for example, will normally default to using the "system default". When easyeffects sees firefox try to set up it's output to the system default, it reroutes firefox to easyeffects virtual sink when process all outputs is enabled.)

If you want easyeffects to ignore certain applications, do the same as above, and simply add the application(s) whose audio you don't want processed to the list of excluded apps.

If you want only certain applications to be processed, or want to control all the routing yourself (for example, using helvum), turn off process all inputs/outputs in easyeffects, and explicitly set the applications that you want to be processed to use easyeffects virtual sink. Again, this will make more sense if you look at pw-dot | xdot or helvum.