Audio Applications

Using XMMS

[Note]Note

Since audio applications are fairly intuitive, we will only document items which we think are of interest to the reader and leave out the most evident ones.

XMMS stands for X Multimedia System. With it you can play a variety of audio sources, such as regular music CDs, as well as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats.

To launch XMMS[11], access the main menu and choose Multimedia->Sound->XMMS.

Figure 11.1. XMMS Main Window

XMMS Main Window

The upper part of the window is called the title bar. The buttons at the right-hand end of the title bar do the following:

  • the leftmost button minimizes the window;

  • the middle button shrinks XMMS into “mini” mode: you will only see the title bar, the vu-meter, the elapsed time and the play controls.

  • the rightmost button closes XMMS.

Let's look at the different sliders. The one beneath the bit rate info is the volume slider. To its right is the left-right balance slider. The longest slider is used to browse through the current audio track, and is equivalent to the in-track rewind and forward functions.

To the left of the time display and the spectrum analyzer are 5 letters. Here are the letters and what they represent:

  • O: pops up the options menu;

  • A: means the XMMS window will always be on top of other windows;

  • I: pops up a file-info box containing the name of the song, the artist's name and other related information;

  • D: doubles the size of the XMMS window;

  • V: pops up a visualization options menu.

[Tip]Tip

You can also right-click on XMMS' window to access every possible option.

Playing Audio Tracks

In order to play your audio tracks, simply click on the Play button. A window will pop up from which you can browse to the files or directories containing the files you want to listen to. Clicking on the Eject button does the same thing.

Figure 11.2. Loading Files into XMMS

Loading Files into XMMS

Skins

You can change the look of XMMS by altering its skin[12]. To do so, open the Preferences menu and select Skin Browser. You can also press Alt-S.

The Skin Browser selects the (none) skins by default. Clicking on one of the skins will give you a real-time look at it.

Figure 11.3. Chaos Skin

Chaos Skin

If you wish to add skins to your Skin Browser, you can do so by visiting sites such as the XMMS site or the Customize site.

Once you have found a skin you like on a web site, download it into the ~/.xmms/Skins directory. Open the Skins Browser and XMMS will be wearing that new skin.

Streaming

You can listen to your favorite web radio sites, whether they be from Shoutcast, Icecast or plain radio sites.

When you have found a channel you like, save the .pls file to your hard disk and then insert it into your playlist. You can also choose to open the channel directly in XMMS.

Using Aumix

Aumix is a very small yet useful application which allows you to control your sound card's mixer and volume.

As a matter of fact, you might not be able to hear any sound from XMMS or KsCD. Adjusting Aumix will usually solve that problem.

To launch the sound mixer application, select Multimedia->Sound->AuMix.

Figure 11.4. Aumix Application

Aumix Application

Main Actions

The File menu lets you access the basic functions which allow you to load or save mixer settings. The available menu items are:

Load

Loads the default mixer level setting.

Save

Saves your new mixer level settings.

Load From

Allows you to load mixer settings from a file other than the default one.

Save To

Enables you to save settings in a file other than the default one.

Quit

Quits the application.

[Note]Note

When you launch Aumix, it loads the last configuration file you used. So, if you used ~/My_aumixrc the last time you opened Aumix, this file will be used. However, if you click on the Load sub-menu, it will automatically load the default ~/.aumixrc file.

View and Mute Menus

The View menu allows you to choose which components will be shown in the Aumix window. For instance, if you never use a microphone, you may choose not to view that entry. Clicking in the check-box next to Mic in the View pull-down menu would add or delete the Mic choice from the list. The Mute menu lets you completely mute the sound.



[11] The xmms package must be installed. Please refer to Chapter 19, Package Management through Rpmdrake.

[12] The xmms-skins package must be installed. Please refer to Chapter 19, Package Management through Rpmdrake.