Audacity is nice, even for a relative newbie.

Story: Whirlwind Intro to Audacity on Linux: From Recording to CD in One Lesson Total Replies: 5
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Bob_Robertson

Mar 22, 2011
7:59 PM EDT
I've used Audacity in the past to modify MP3 files, specifically to clip unwanted material out of radio shows for my personal library.

I like it because it was obvious to me, quickly, how to do the "normal" things like zoom in for detail, "delete", that sort of thing.

Sometimes, getting a tool to do the things I consider normal is darned hard.

Anyway, I just put Audacity back on this system (don't know why it wasn't there) to try my microphone out with the Audacity built-in mixer settings. Oh well, have to try something else.

====

This is because my gnarly new motherboard has a fault that is driving me nuts: Microphones don't work. Or rather, I can't get sound _in_. Everything else works, in fact it has far higher volume output than the old mobo. And without some of the static that had shown up after that first power spike a few months ago that damaged the video.

The problem is that ASRock does not support Linux. I really, really do NOT want to install Windows on this just to see if it works then.

I have a Logitech headset that I bought for traveling, and it came with a USB adapter, with microphone and earphone jacks, and THAT works just fine. So it's not the headset microphone that's the problem, and it's not the front jack because the rear jack doesn't work either.

Sorry to vent, off to see if anyone else has this problem.
tuxchick

Mar 23, 2011
12:22 AM EDT
Did you check alsamixer settings? They are often wack for no apparent reason, and it usually takes some trial and error to figure out what works. Linux audio is weird.

If you haven't already looked, the alsa soundcard matrix shows what is supported http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main

Run lscpi to see what your audio chipset is if you don't know already.
SamShazaam

Mar 23, 2011
9:41 AM EDT
Microphone inputs on most sound cards are poor quality. I use a microphone with a USB Interface with no problems. Adapters are available if you use microphones with standard interfaces. I will have to try the alsamixer settings.

I agree with TC. Linux audio is weird.
gus3

Mar 23, 2011
10:51 AM EDT
Linux is weird. That's why we like it so much. ;-)
Bob_Robertson

Mar 23, 2011
11:22 AM EDT
TC, yes, the mixer settings have always been difficult to get set, but once set seem to work. (or have worked, anyhow) I've learned to tweak and fiddle till something works, but it just isn't happening this time. Strange.

lspci:

00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)

How about lshw:

*-multimedia description: Audio device product: SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) vendor: ATI Technologies Inc physical id: 14.2 bus info: pci@0000:00:14.2 version: 00 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=32 resources: irq:16 memory:f9ef4000-f9ef7fff

Intersting, the Alsa matrix does not list "SBx00".

lsmod (line wrapped for easy viewing):

snd 33713 15 snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep, snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq, snd_timer,snd_seq_device

Anyway, searching for SBx00, I found this:

http://tinyurl.com/4m7vm33

where it is suggested to pass a particular parameter to the module at boot time.

The linux-2.6.38/Documentation/sound/alsa/ directory also had some information, mostly about debugging, and neither SBx00 nor Azalia were listed in any file.

So I'm turning on sound debugging, as suggested in the linux docs, and hopefully the reboot will give me more information. Or I'll just pass "model=toshiba" to the snd-hda-intel module and see if that magic works.

Yes indeedee, Linux sound has always been weird. The arrival "alsaconfig" was a miracle of efficiency at the time, I was thrilled to have something correctly autodetecting at last!

...Hmmm... maybe I should try that, too...
Bob_Robertson

Mar 23, 2011
12:33 PM EDT
Ok, two more details.

Alsamixer hardware details revealed this:

Chip: VIA VT1708S

Which linux-2.6.38/Documentation/sound/alsa/HD-Audio-Models.txt lists as:

VIA VT17xx/VT18xx/VT20xx ======================== auto BIOS setup (default)

So there it is. It "should" just work. It's obvious that I don't know where to look for the debugging information after turning on kernel sound debugging. grepping the files in /var/log didn't work, I don't know what to look for.

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