[gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[Ezequiel Garcia]

Damn!

I've been all morning struggling with this.
I have an analog microphone wired to my hda intel onboard sound card.
Also, I have a genius webcam (gspca_pac7302) with a builtin mic.

I tried arecord but couldn't capture anything from any of it, so I guess
I'm doing something wrong. But what?

Below is arecord list output.

Is arecord appropriate for this test or there is another tool I can grab?

Thanks!
Ezequiel.

localhost ~ # arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC887 Analog [ALC887 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC887 Digital [ALC887 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 2: ALC887 Analog [ALC887 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


localhost ~ # arecord -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default:CARD=SB
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Digital
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output

Re: [gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@gmail.com> wrote:
> Damn!
>
> I've been all morning struggling with this.
> I have an analog microphone wired to my hda intel onboard sound card.
> Also, I have a genius webcam (gspca_pac7302) with a builtin mic.
>

I have on-going problems with the mic on my system also. Alsa always
sets the mic controls I need back to 0 and won't ever save what I was
using.

Each time I need the mic I have to enable 3 settings in KDE mixer.
(which also exist in Alsamixer if you prefer to use that tool - hit F4
once in it)

--- Front Mic - turn it on. My system has 4 settings. I raise it by
one click at least. Note that in KDE I must grab the one on the right.
The one on the left won't raise the pair. Alsamixer only shows one
control.

--- Capture - turn it up to 80% or so

--- Digital - turn it up to 80% or so

These settings work for me but Alsa won't save them on my system like
it save headphone/PCM/Master settings so I have to turn them on by
hand every time..

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[v_2e]

  Hello!

On Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:32:43 -0300
Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@gmail.com> wrote:

> Damn!
> 
> I've been all morning struggling with this.
> I have an analog microphone wired to my hda intel onboard sound card.
> Also, I have a genius webcam (gspca_pac7302) with a builtin mic.
> 
> I tried arecord but couldn't capture anything from any of it, so I
> guess I'm doing something wrong. But what?
> ...
  My personal experience shows me that most of the time all the
"silence in mic" is because of the muted (or very too quiet) or wrong
selected recording device.

  I prefer to check this in 'alsamixer'. If you have several
microphones on your PC, there should be a possibility to choose the
device to record the sound from (on my system there are 'Line',
'Internal Mic' and 'Mic' options).

  If you choose a correct device, then check if it is not muted as well
(a symbol 'M' in Alsamixer means 'muted'). 

  If the device you need is un-muted, then raise the volume level (or
maybe 'Mic Boost' as well).

  If none of the above helps, then perhaps your device wasn't properly
set up. You need to specify you soundcard model by hand in some cases.
For example, on my laptop I added the string

    options snd-hda-intel model="targa-8ch-dig"

to the file '/etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf' and rebooted, after which I got
an access to all of the features of my soundcard.

  Hope this helps.
  Regards,
    Vladimir


----- 
 <v_2e@ukr.net>

Re: [gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[Ezequiel Garcia]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 6:33 PM,  <v_2e@ukr.net> wrote:
>  Hello!
>
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:32:43 -0300
> Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Damn!
>>
>> I've been all morning struggling with this.
>> I have an analog microphone wired to my hda intel onboard sound card.
>> Also, I have a genius webcam (gspca_pac7302) with a builtin mic.
>>
>> I tried arecord but couldn't capture anything from any of it, so I
>> guess I'm doing something wrong. But what?
>> ...
>  My personal experience shows me that most of the time all the
> "silence in mic" is because of the muted (or very too quiet) or wrong
> selected recording device.
>
>  I prefer to check this in 'alsamixer'. If you have several
> microphones on your PC, there should be a possibility to choose the
> device to record the sound from (on my system there are 'Line',
> 'Internal Mic' and 'Mic' options).
>
>  If you choose a correct device, then check if it is not muted as well
> (a symbol 'M' in Alsamixer means 'muted').
>
>  If the device you need is un-muted, then raise the volume level (or
> maybe 'Mic Boost' as well).
>

This was exactly the case. Some alsamixer tweaking was needed.

Strangely, I needed to change "Channel mode" from "6 ch" to "2 ch" for
my intel-hda soundcard.

I still can't get the webcam mic to work.... :-(

Thanks a lot!

[gentoo-user] Re: Can't get any microphone to work

[walt]

On 06/12/2012 03:05 PM, Ezequiel Garcia wrote:
 
> Strangely, I needed to change "Channel mode" from "6 ch" to "2 ch" for
> my intel-hda soundcard.
> 
> I still can't get the webcam mic to work.... :-(

Are you running pulseaudio, and do you have the pulseaudio USEFLAG set?

If yes, /etc/pulse/default.pa has a variable "set-default-source" that
might be of interest.  I have no idea what you should set it to, though.

Running "pactl list" might give you a hint about how to fix it.

Re: [gentoo-user] Can't get any microphone to work

[v_2e]

  Hello!

On Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:05:45 -0300
Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@gmail.com> wrote:

>  ...
> I still can't get the webcam mic to work.... :-(
> 
  Perhaps, your webcam microphone appears as a separate device. Start
'alsamixer', press 'F6' and see a list of your sound cards. I'm not
sure about it, but maybe your webcam would be there, in which case you
should just choose it and tune the volume for it.

  Good luck!
    Vladimir


----- 
 <v_2e@ukr.net>

[gentoo-user] Re: Can't get any microphone to work

[Ezequiel Garcia]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> localhost ~ # arecord -l
> **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC887 Analog [ALC887 Analog]
>  Subdevices: 1/1
>  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC887 Digital [ALC887 Digital]
>  Subdevices: 1/1
>  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 2: ALC887 Analog [ALC887 Analog]
>  Subdevices: 1/1
>  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>
>
> localhost ~ # arecord -L
> null
>    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
> default:CARD=SB
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    Default Audio Device
> front:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    Front speakers
> surround40:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
> surround41:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
> surround50:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
> surround51:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
> surround71:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Analog
>    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
> iec958:CARD=SB,DEV=0
>    HDA ATI SB, ALC887 Digital
>    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output

Hi again!


I don't have pulseaudio and my device doesn't appear as a separate device.

What I really can't get is why arecord -L shows me info about speakers
when it's supposed
to show only capture devices.

Also, could someone please give me an example of arecord
usage to capture from a (non-default) device named 2,0 in vlc.
(I *did* read the man page but it's still a bit unclear)

Thanks for your help,
Ezequiel.

[gentoo-user] Re: Can't get any microphone to work

[Ezequiel Garcia]

>
> Hi again!
>
>
> I don't have pulseaudio and my device doesn't appear as a separate device.
>
> What I really can't get is why arecord -L shows me info about speakers
> when it's supposed
> to show only capture devices.
>
> Also, could someone please give me an example of arecord
> usage to capture from a (non-default) device named 2,0 in vlc.
> (I *did* read the man page but it's still a bit unclear)
>

arecord -D hw:1,0 -f S16_LE -c2 -r48000 | aplay

:-)