/dev/dsp inaccessible

[epilogue at attcanada.ca]

hello all,

i have been playing with FBSD for almost a year now.  i would very much like to use
it for music recording and editing.  i have installed several programs (audacity, spiral
synth modular, etc.) which all want to access /dev/dsp, however that device only
responds with error messages like 'device busy' or 'invalid playback device'.

uname -a
<snip> 4.8-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE-p3 #9: <snip> i386

relevant lines from kernel config:
device          pcm
device          sbc		<--- i recently added these two lines and recompiled,
option          PNPBIOS    <--- hoping it might make a difference.  it didn't.   :(

relevant lines from dmesg:
pcm0: <ESS Technology Maestro-2E> port 0x1400-0x14ff irq 5 at device 8.0 on pci0
pcm0: <SigmaTel STAC9721/9723 ac97 codec>

cat /dev/sndstat 
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <ESS Technology Maestro-2E> at I/O port 0x1400 irq 5 (4p/0r/0v channels duplex)

cat /dev/dsp ---> cat: /dev/dsp: Device busy
fstat | grep dsp ---> provides no info

neither esd nor any other sound daemon of which i am aware is running.

xmms works fine (however it seems to access OSS drivers, not /dev/dsp directly.

i have hunted all over trying to find a solution for this, but to no avail.  i came across the
following Problem Report --> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=48338, but am
neither sure it is the same thing nor certain about how to follow-up on open PRs. 

finally fixing this would really make my week.  any suggestions?


thank you so much,
epilogue