How does one record audio?

Jim Durham jim.durham at nepinc.com
Sun Oct 26 12:31:47 PST 2003


On Sunday 26 October 2003 11:02 am, RexFelis wrote:
> I am using FreeBSD 5.1-p10, and recently I have
> need to record spoken sounds.  I have installed
> Audacity from ports, as well as KRec, but neither
> of these works.  Audacity shows nothing but
> silence for the waveforms.  The KMix applet menu
> in my taskbar shows the microphone as having no
> volume, presumably because there's something not
> properly connecting somewhere software-wise.  The
> microphone is plugged in.
>
> My motherboard is an Albatron KX400+ Pro, and I
> am using its on-board audio, which is a 6-channel
> capable Realtek ALC650 chip.  This chip responds
> beautifully to the 'device pcm' line being added
> to the kernel config file.  It does nothing for
> the recording capabilities.  A perusal of the
> handbook revealed almost no mention at all about
> recording audio, and certainly no mention I could
> find about actually doing it.  It did mention
> adding 'device csa' for crystal sound cards, and
> I thought the chip was a crystal chip, but doing
> this has not had any effect.
>
> A google search turns up nothing but a few other
> people asking the same question I have:  How do
> you manage this?  bsdforums.org has some stuff
> about this, but it's only talk that suggests that
> others have working audio recording in place;
> there is no mention of how to do this.
>
> I have even tried plugging the microphone into
> the other possible jack.
>
> I need to record a CD for someone, of me
> speaking.  I really don't want to do this under
> Windows, and while Audacity under Linux worked
> for a short time, it now only produces static.
> Something is obviously broken there.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas how I can get this
> working?  Have I left any information out that
> might have been useful?  I appreciate your help
> on this matter.

I record using Audacity all the time with FreeBSD 5.1.

I am using a Dell laptop with the Maestro 3 chipset, but I also use a 
desktop with the AC97 onboard audio.

I have found that the labels in kmix, at least, and probably other GUI 
mixer apps, are not to be trusted. In my case, the mic gain is 
actually the "rec mon" fader. I have to click the microphone LED to 
turn it on, but the gain is controlled by the RecMon fader. Neither 
of my machines has a line input. Also, the "microphone" fader 
controls the record monitor. 

I have my mixer set as follows:
Volume  1/2 way. PCM all the way up. Speaker off, Line Off, Microphone 
Off, but LED lit (selected), CD 3/4 up, RecMon 1/2up, OGAIN 1/2 up, 
Line 1 3/4up, phoneln off, phoneout off, video off.

Can you hear input audio at the output connector in a headset?

-JIm



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