Re: [tlug] Accessing microphone (back to actual microphone issues)

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

TLUG,

Making progress. Although I have no idea what's going on, really.

In Audacity, I went into Edit | Preferences and selected the Audio I/O tab.

After a little experimentation, I found that if I have the Playback 
Device set to /dev/dsp, and the Recording Device set to /dev/dsp1, I can 
record and playback my voice using my mike.

This is good, although I don't think I'm out of the woods yet.

I don't know what /dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1 are, outside of the fact that 
they are sound devices of some kind. But whether they point to ALSA, 
OSS, the HDA Intel device or the Realtek, and other questions are 
unknown. By the way, these are the only two options for devices in Audacity.

I'm not sure, but I think that the Realtek ALC882 that I reported seeing 
in my last post should be using an ALSA mixer, not an OSS mixer. 
Information on the web indicates to me that OSS is an old standard, and 
ALSA is the new one. I can't figure out how, or if it's even possible, 
to make the Realtek upgrade or change to ALSA.

The mike is actually picking up sound, but I basically have to swallow 
the mike and shout to record anything. It seems to me I still have no 
control over it's gain. Changing the volume sliders in the Gnome Volume 
Control does change the recording level. It's just that the maximum is 
much less than what I would think is normal.

Two steps forward, one step back...

--
Dave M G