Is it possible to make audio from both channels come out of the "front left" on pulse audio?

Quills@sh.itjust.works to Linux@lemmy.ml – 34 points –

I hope it's fine to ask this here, I'm using endeavor os with KDE and got some little speakers for my pc, they however only seem to play sound from the "front left" channel, is there a way to make pulse audio send all audio on it? Like, mono mode? I couldn't find anything that does that...

Edit: Found a solution! Like i said before in a comment on this post turned out i was running pipewire-pulse, so i could use pipewire solutions! tried easyeffects and it perfectly fitted my needs, thanks for all the responses everyone!

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I haven't checked, but I assume PulseEffects must have a module to convert stereo to mono.

Pulse effects, is that some sort of addon to pulse audio? Will look into it, thanks!

It's an application that runs in the background and applies all sorts of filters and effects to your sound before it goes to the speakers. It's actually quite cool, it can upgrade a crappy set of speakers/headphones to a mediocre one by applying the right adjustments.

https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects

Oh i see, tried to install it here but it didn't work, the app doesn't start, Lots of people are recommending switching to pipewire, i think i may try that

I see. I've never used it but it sounds like a good suggestion :)

hey! So, i ended up trying to download this again and it worked perfectly, it was exactly what i needed, i think it didn't work before cuz i had downloaded the wrong app, didn't saw that the name was "easyeffects" and downloaded this "pulseeffects-legacy" one, which didn't work probably cuz turned out i was using pipewire-pulse all along, so yeah, your suggestion was the one i needed soo, thank you!

I'm glad it's working! Yeah, right after posting that message I also noticed they forked it with a new name.

If you use pipewire instead of pulse audio then you can install pipewire-jack and then use any of the jack patchbay applications to rewire the channels. Currently I use qpwgraph but there are several options.

Hmm, the easy way would be to simply set the balance to 100% left, but that's just the left channel and not both. Maybe combined with some of the other's suggestions it could work.

First, change to pipewire, old man, pipewire is the new kid in the block and works great with Bluetooth headphones.

Then use streambay to do whatever you want with your audio.

Check this video: https://youtu.be/Zv1P6-kUn0c

You can also use Helvum, it's a patchbay native to Pipewire

after some messing around to see how the app works i got it, it's working thank you so much!!

Great! I agree it's a little rough for now, and it seems development is kinda slow, but it works for what it tries to achieve already

Give qpwgraph a try, does the same thing

Oh thanks, didn't know there was a Qt counterpart, it looks pretty good!

yeah
And i just noticed that, it doesn't work like i thought, tried correcting it with the help of a sink it almost worked but as they disappear after a reboot it reverts everything i did, saaaad it was so close of working

Ah that's annoying, so as I understand it should just be down to having persistent sink and routing right? Not sure if this what you want as I haven't tried, but could this thread be helpful?

Yeah i want the sinks and helvum configurations to persist between reboots, this thread does look interesting, will try that later when i get on my pc

either install an old version of pulseeffects or update to pipewire and set a mono filter

qjackctl

I use qpwgraph that have the same Idea for pipewire. You can change all your inputs and outputs, I initially used to send the sound of programs to my discord input in order to stream with sound, but I also use to invert L and R when I'm watching on my couch and the wire does not fit to put the right speaker on the right so I just switch.
It is very easy.
Here some video, but I don't think you will need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDBGsbwMo40

Good god I remember doing this like 10 years ago. I don't remember what I did, only that it was a nightmare. I only hope the situation has improved.

https://blog.desdelinux.net/en/pulseaudio-como-cambiar-a-mono-en-lugar-de-stereo/ this looks like something similar to the solution I came to in the end. Here's some more information https://askubuntu.com/questions/17791/can-i-downmix-stereo-audio-to-mono and this https://askubuntu.com/questions/71863/how-to-change-pulseaudio-sink-with-pacmd-set-default-sink-during-playback/72076#72076

Good luck.

Unfortunately I do not remember how, but I did this a few years back. However, I used jackd instead of pulseaudio on that machine, so that might be one of the requirements.

Just found out my system is actually running pipewire, so that's why everything i tried didn't work right! But when i checked i remember seeing pulse-audio
Or maybe i just read it wrong... well that makes things easier, will look into y'all suggestions about pipe, thanks!

How much latency can you endure? There are several patch bays for Jack that will let you do this, maybe requiring a mixing plugin or something. Gstreamer also has your back https://stackoverflow.com/a/16480476/9331018

Vlc or ffmpeg can probably do something similar

I play osu! So latency is something I'd want as small as possible

Oh, i didn't thought about that, won't any solution have some sort of latency? Oh well, let's see, i always play it with headphones so I'd Like to go with with a disablable method or something of that sort tho

Hmmm have you considered a hardware solution? If you're using wired headphones you can get a few adapters to play the left channel in both ears.

Edit: wait that's the opposite, you can get adapters to (electrically incorrectly) connect both outputs to one side, or better yet get a tiny mixer that can do it correctly like this: https://a.co/d/9guRG3A you'll need a stereo splitter cable to get left and right outputs into separate channels, and maybe an adapter for the output

sadly buying things would not be viable as i could just buy better speakers if i was going to spend more money anyway, but thanks for the suggestion!

I see, is this a broken speaker situation? Maybe time to crack them open and do some fixing? Do you own a soldering iron?

Nah i just bought them, just made a bad choice and got a low quality product, two speakers that only play one channel in both haha