Respeaker 4 Mic Array - Raspberry Pi 2B Rev 1.1 Mic Issues

[david.swarbrick9]

I was recently bought a Respeaker 4 Mic Array for Christmas, and have been attempting to use it with a Raspberry Pi 2B Rev 1.1.

The install of drivers completed successfully, and I have managed to get the pixels_demo.py working so the connection to the board seems to be working, however I have not yet managed to get the microphones working.

First, the ac108 was not recognised at all by the Raspberry Pi, the output of arecord -L was:

Code: Select all

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server

I noticed in the boot up of the raspberry pi that the seeed-voicecard.service was not being started due to an issue :

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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ dmesg | grep seeed
[    3.371837] systemd[1]: Found dependency on seeed-voicecard.service/start
[    3.434067] systemd[1]: Breaking ordering cycle by deleting job seeed-voicecard.service/start
[    3.798699] snd_soc_seeed_voicecard: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
[   65.104551] seeed-voicecard soc:sound: ac10x-codec0 <-> 3f203000.i2s mapping ok

So I fixed this by starting the service myself:

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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl start seeed-voicecard.service
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 

This then allowed the ac108 to appear in the arecord options:

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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ arecord -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
default
playback
ac108
sysdefault:CARD=seeed4micvoicec
    seeed-4mic-voicecard, 
    Default Audio Device
dmix:CARD=seeed4micvoicec,DEV=0
    seeed-4mic-voicecard, 
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=seeed4micvoicec,DEV=0
    seeed-4mic-voicecard, 
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=seeed4micvoicec,DEV=0
    seeed-4mic-voicecard, 
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=seeed4micvoicec,DEV=0
    seeed-4mic-voicecard, 
    Hardware device with all software conversions

However this does not match the tutorial output and the arecord test command fails as so:

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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ arecord -Dac108 -f S32_LE -r 16000 -c 4 hello.wav  
Recording WAVE 'hello.wav' : Signed 32 bit Little Endian, Rate 16000 Hz, Channels 4
arecord: set_params:1297: Unable to install hw params:
ACCESS:  RW_INTERLEAVED
FORMAT:  S32_LE
SUBFORMAT:  STD
SAMPLE_BITS: 32
FRAME_BITS: 128
CHANNELS: 4
RATE: 16000
PERIOD_TIME: 125000
PERIOD_SIZE: 2000
PERIOD_BYTES: 32000
PERIODS: 4
BUFFER_TIME: 500000
BUFFER_SIZE: 8000
BUFFER_BYTES: 128000
TICK_TIME: 0

What else should I adjust to get the arecord working? Also, enabling the seeed-voicecard.service via systemctl has not fixed the issue of the ac108 appearing, I have to start the service automatically to get it to appear each time, which harms its potential usage as part of an automatic home assistant.

I hope there will be some way to get the array to work with the RasPi 2B (as it is advertised), otherwise I will be launching a complaint with amazon and requesting a refund. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated.

[sudira.kevin]

Hello, I have exactly the same issues on my pi3B.
Did you or someone found a solution?

[bill.yu]

Hi there,

the led is controlled through SPI. it does not relate with sound card driver.

we generate a image with driver install and you can download and give a try. if it works, the hardware is good and something wrong with the installation process. thanks.

https://v2.fangcloud.com/share/7395fd13 ... 8000207913