ULTRA++ installation guide

Raspiaudio · August 10, 2020, 3:37pm

13/06/25
Automatic installation
Do you have this blue card with blue button? no driver installation needed the EEPROM recognizes it.
so you can go directly to the test section of this guide.

If it is detected you should see on top right corner :

if not just be sure to be updated with the last Pi OS version. Also update your Pi firmware:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo rpi-update

Test your ULTRA

to test open a window :

arecord -f cd -d5 > test.wav

Say something smart

aplay test.wav

you sholud hear something smart

to tweak setting open a terminal and run alsamixer select the WM8960 card by pressing F6

type in a terminal:

alsamixer

Device number
this will be usefull in the alsa mixer to understand what input is connected to which microphones
Onbard microphones:
Linput1
Rinput1

External microphone jack input:
Linput2
Rinput2

Line input
Linput3
Rinput3

External speakers/speaker output:
SPK_L
SPK_R

To save your own preset:

alsactl --file Mycustom_presets store

To restore your own preset:

alsactl --file Mycustom_presets restore

Presest (untested for a while, more coming soon):
Heaphones:

Speaker (run as bash)

External microphone input and headphones output

Onboard microphones input and headphones output

External line input and headphones output:

OPTIONAL Manual installation PI5 / PI4 / ZERO (ONLY if the auto install does NOT work)

Good news is that the driver is now directly included in the kernel, just be sure to be updated with the last Pi OS version. Also update your Pi firmware:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo rpi-update

Once done you should be up to date
open a terminal and type:

sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt

and at the end of the file add:

dtoverlay=wm8960-soundcard.dtbo

press CTRL X and save file and reboot

Pinout:

GPIO	PIN	FUNCTION
GPIO2	PIN3	I2C SDA
GPIO3	PIN5	I2C SCL
GPIO25	PIN22	LED
	PIN17	3.3v
	PIN25 39 6 14	GND
GPIO19	PIN35	I2S LRCLK
	PIN2 4	5v
GPIO18	PIN12	I2S CLK
GPIO20	PIN38	I2S ADC
GPIO21	PIN40	I2S DAC
GPIO23	PIN16	BUTTON (this pin as an external pull up)

leomarhor_uy · January 31, 2021, 3:20pm

I have just followed the installation guide for my RPi4 and it worked fine. I had to run the install script twice.
I would like to use this board on a Jetson Nano. Could you provide any guidance on doing that?
I am also replying on this because I noticed that the pinout seems to be wrong. Should not I2S CLK be PIN12? That seems to be how both the Nano and RPI configures their GPIO port for audio devices.

Raspiaudio · February 1, 2021, 11:31am

Hi and welcome!

Porting a the WM8960 codec on Jetson nano will involve some work as this codec usues some I2C commands to change volumes or to enable other options. Somebody already tried and I have found that:

Please share your results.

leomarhor_uy · February 1, 2021, 9:59pm

Yes, I have also found that and will try to see how it goes. Thanks for your response.

sallar · February 23, 2021, 1:09am

Hello there, thanks for the instructions. I have run the script on my raspberry pi 4 and it seems to be working (the soundcard gets recognized by alsa). But for some reason everything on the raspberry pi which has to do with the soundcard takes place really slowly. For example changing the volume works normal if the output is on analog (rpi onboard output), but if it is set to wm8960, after moving the volume slider it takes a few seconds for the slider to actually move! Some sound applications have also got really slow since I installed the soundcard. Audacity for example does not even launch after running and seeing the logo.
Besides I don’t hear any sound from the sound card. Neither from the speakers nor through the headphone jack. Do you know what’s the problem?

p.s I’ve run the second bash script from the end of your post as well.

Thanks in advance

Raspiaudio · February 23, 2021, 9:32am

Hi and welcome,
if you can’t hear any sound something failed, can you try in the download directory to run the uninstall script, and do install it again?

sallar · February 23, 2021, 12:46pm

I did, it did not work again. I got following at the end of the installation:

DKMS: install completed.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants/wm8960-soundcard.service → /lib/systemd/system/wm8960-soundcard.service.
Job for wm8960-soundcard.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See “systemctl status wm8960-soundcard.service” and “journalctl -xe” for details.

running the systemctl command will give out:

wm8960-soundcard.service - WM8960 soundcard service
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/wm8960-soundcard.service; enabled; vendor
Active: active (exited) since Tue 2021-02-23 13:33:00 CET; 5min ago
Process: 498 ExecStart=/usr/bin/wm8960-soundcard (code=exited, status=0/SUCCES
Main PID: 498 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Feb 23 13:32:55 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Starting WM8960 soundcard service…
Feb 23 13:32:55 raspberrypi wm8960-soundcard[498]: + exec
Feb 23 13:32:55 raspberrypi wm8960-soundcard[498]: ++ basename /usr/bin/wm8960-s
Feb 23 13:33:00 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started WM8960 soundcard service.

running the test script will give out:

–2021-02-23 13:34:26-- http://test.raspiaudio.com/
Resolving test.raspiaudio.com (test.raspiaudio.com)… 217.160.0.133, 2001:8d8:100f:f000::268
Connecting to test.raspiaudio.com (test.raspiaudio.com)|217.160.0.133|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 302 Found
Location: http://raspiaudio.com/s/test [following]
–2021-02-23 13:34:27-- http://raspiaudio.com/s/test
Resolving raspiaudio.com (raspiaudio.com)… 217.160.0.133, 2001:8d8:100f:f000::268
Reusing existing connection to test.raspiaudio.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 302 Found
Location: https://raspiaudio.com/s/test [following]
–2021-02-23 13:34:27-- https://raspiaudio.com/s/test
Connecting to raspiaudio.com (raspiaudio.com)|217.160.0.133|:443… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 1129 (1.1K)
Saving to: ‘STDOUT’
                0%[                    ]       0  --.-KB/s               -----> Test for Raspiaudio MIC+
------Please puch on the Yellow button to continue
              100%[===================>]   1.10K  --.-KB/s    in 0.002s  
2021-02-23 13:34:27 (598 KB/s) - written to stdout [1129/1129]

–2021-02-23 13:34:27-- http://27/
Resolving 27 (27)… 0.0.0.27
Connecting to 27 (27)|0.0.0.27|:80… amixer: Unable to find simple control ‘Micro’,0

amixer: Unable to find simple control ‘Master’,0

Raspiaudio · February 23, 2021, 1:18pm

Are you using the last version of Raspbian release 32bits 2021-01-11?

sallar · February 23, 2021, 1:52pm

I downloaded and installed the raspbian in november 2020, so I’m not sure… (kinda new to the whole rpi stuff)
but the command uname -a gives out:

Linux raspberrypi 5.10.11-v7l+ #1399 SMP Thu Jan 28 12:09:48 GMT 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux

Does this mean the release is from 2021-01-28 ? And should I use a specific verion of raspbian to get the soundcard work?

Raspiaudio · February 26, 2021, 8:05am

No it shouldn’t be limited to this release, but the idea is to try a tested working confirguration then add your other software components one by one to understand what make it fails. My advice is to start from a fresh copy of raspbian last version and run the install script again.

thx

drhennessy · March 19, 2021, 7:42pm

I have gone through all the steps to install Ultra on a Raspberry Pi 3 a few times, including uninstall and re-installs.
I get the following error messages at the conclusion of the install:

.

I don’t know where to go from here. Can someone walk me through the steps to correct this.

Raspiaudio · March 23, 2021, 10:10am

Hi Daniel,

Can you confirm that you are using :
"Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software

Release date: January 11th 2021
Kernel version: 5.4 "
?

drhennessy · March 23, 2021, 12:19pm

Using command uname -a, I get the following
Linux raspberrypi 4.9.35 - v7+ #1014 SMP Fri June 30 14:47:43 BST 2017 armv71 GNU/Linux

Raspiaudio · March 23, 2021, 12:26pm

this is an old version, is there any way you could do a a new sd with the last version or upgrade:

drhennessy · March 23, 2021, 4:30pm

When I
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

I get the same version response.4.9.35.

Raspiaudio · March 25, 2021, 3:13pm

Then I think you need to flash a new SD card with the lattest version.

bdn3504 · April 7, 2021, 10:36pm

I was having trouble using the device on a raspberry pi 3. I was still running raspbian stretch and it seemed that was a problem. So I updated to buster using

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo sed -i 's/stretch/buster/g' /etc/apt/sources-list
sudo sed -i 's/stretch/buster/g' /etc/apt/sources-list.d/raspi-list
sudo apt-get remove apt-listchanges
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get full-upgrade -y

After the update was finished, I also ran rpi-update to update the firmware. Unfortunately, I still was not able to use the device. To resolve the issue, I installed a fresh raspbian image to another sd card and installed the device on this system. There it worked flawlessly, so I tried to figure out the differences between the two systems.
Turns out, that a specific firmware version seems to work with the device. The firmware version is 5.10.17
To use this specific version in your raspbian OS, use the following command to install it:

sudo rpi-update 78c1429cc1d5a200d824d2629c3ceba4ba4617fe

It works for me, let me know if it works for you.

bdn3504 · April 10, 2021, 7:40pm

Another thing: If you want to persist the settings that you have made with alsamixer, save your settings to the file /etc/wm8960-soundcard/wm8960_asound.state. That way the settings will not get reset after a reboot. Use the command

sudo alsactl --file /etc/wm8960-soundcard/wm8960_asound.state store

Raspiaudio · April 12, 2021, 7:45am

thanks for your feedback, I will try that

shivasiddharth · April 19, 2021, 2:31pm

Here are some additional steps you may want to do:

Comment line dtparam=audio=on in sudo nano /boot/config.txt
sudo nano /etc/pulse/default.pa and then add the following lines and save.

load-module module-alsa-source device = hw: 0,0
load-module module-alsa-sink

The reason you want to disable onboard audio is because some version of Buster keeps changing the audio out to HDMI on reboot.

Thanks to RASPIAUDIO, I just received their hat. The above works for all the wm8960 based devices.

I have modified the asound.conf as well with a buffer. Will raise a PR in the git.