[Freedos-user] soundcard setup and volume control apps? sbmix dosemu2 failure confusing me

[Eric A. <e....@jp...>]

Hi fellow users :-)

In the dosbox vogons community, people use a CLOSED
source freeware tool to activate PnP soundcards and
do some scriptable volume control settings:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=72553

The tool supports:
SB16, SB16 PnP, ViBRA16, SB AWE32, SB AWE32 PnP, SB AWE64 etc.
ESS AudioDrive ES1868, ES1869, ES968 with ES688 or ES1688
Yamaha YMF71x (719, 718, 715 etc.)
ALS007, ALS100, ALS120
Diamond DT0196 and DT0197
Aztech AZT2320
Rockwell RWA010 WaveArtist
OPTi 82c925, 82C931, 82C933
Cirrus Logic Crystal CS4232, CS4235, CS4236, CS4237
C-Media CMI8330, CMI8329
Analog Devices SoundPort AD1816, AD1815
Gravis Ultrasound PnP etc.

Vladimiro mentioned that Robert has an open source
SoundBlaster Pro (and newer!) volume control tool:

https://www.bttr-software.de/products/sbmix/

It does not seem to work in DOSEMU2: Running

emusound -e

there (note: emusound /e now fails silently??)
sets my BLASTER variable to A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
which looks okay, but unfortunately, SBMIX only
says "Hardware I/O error" before even showing
the /? help screen!

Which is strange, because all things which it SEEMS
to do according to the source code do work in DEBUG.

Note that SB Pro could also be called SB 1.5, so
the tool is supposed to work on all SoundBlaster
compatible cards newer than SB 1.0 and on most of
the clones as well.

It would let you set the master, DSP, FM, CD,
line and microphone volumes, optionally left
and right channel separately for all except
the microphone and show the current volume
settings at the end, non-interactively.

Which leads to the question: Can you recommend
free OPEN SOURCE tools like SBMIX which could
be included in our distro? For example volume
control mixer tools with both scriptable and
interactive mode? You know, that text graphical
style with cursors and bargraphs :-)

And how about free open source tools to activate
PnP soundcards, so people do not have to install
proprietary drivers as long as they have one of
the more widespread cards? Is that relevant for
emulators? Or do those tend to simulate non-PnP
cards anyway?

Thanks for your thoughts :-) Eric