Recording with a microphone

Recording with a microphone

arecord -vv -f S16_LE -c1 -r48000 -d 120 test.wav

* Run this command: alsamixer -V all
Highlight all controls with the word ‘IEC958′ in them and mute them with the m key.
Use arrow keys to highlight the ‘Mic’ control in alsamixer.
* Unmute the ‘Mic’ control with the ‘m’ key.
* Set ‘Mic’ control volume to 70 to test,
after successful test set volume to 30 or less for best quality.
* Set ‘Mic’ control to capture by pressing the ’spacebar’ key on keyboard;
the word ‘capture’ will appear at the bottom of the ‘Mic’ control when capture is set.
Use arrow keys to highlight ‘Mic Boost’ control.
* Unmute ‘Mic Boost’ control with ‘m’ key.
Use arrow keys to highlight ‘Mic Select’ control.
* Select ‘Mic1′ with up/down arrow keys.
Use arrow keys to highlight ‘Capture’ control.
* Unmute ‘Capture’ control with ‘m’ key.
* Set ‘Capture’ control volume to 70 to test,
after successful test set volume to 30 or less for best quality.
* If you have a ‘Channel Mode’ control in alsamixer set it to 2 channel (2ch).
* Watch the volume meter in the terminal for movement when you run this command:
arecord -vv -f S16_LE -c1 -r48000 -d 5 test.wav
talk into Mic for 5 seconds.
* Run this command: aplay -test.wav
Do you hear your voice when test.wav is playing?
If you do NOT hear your voice when test.wav is playing then
* Run this command: ls -l test.wav
Is test.wav’s size larger than zero bytes?
Run alsamixer and change the ‘Channel Mode’ control to 2ch and
retry: arecord -vv -f S16_LE -c1 -r48000 -d 5 test.wav
and then run: aplay test.wav
Recording what the sound card is currently playing:
Read: man alsamixer for info about keys and commands used on this page.
* Run this command: alsamixer -V all
Use arrow keys to highlight the ‘Mix’ or ‘Aux’ or ‘Mux’ control in alsamixer;
You must have one of these three controls
to record what the sound card is playing: ‘Mix’ ‘Aux’ ‘Mux’.
* Set ‘Mix’ or ‘Aux’ or ‘Mux’ control volume to 70 to test,
after successful test set volume to 30 or less for best quality.
* Set ‘Mix’ or ‘Aux’ or ‘Mux’ control to
capture by pressing the ’spacebar’ key on keyboard;
the word ‘capture’ will appear at the bottom
of the ‘Mix’ or ‘Aux’ or ‘Mux’ control when capture is set.
* Unmute ‘Mix’ or ‘Aux’ or ‘Mux’ control with ‘m’ key.
Use arrow keys to highlight ‘Capture’ control.
* Unmute ‘Capture’ control with ‘m’ key.
* Set ‘Capture’ control volume to 70 to test,
after successful test set volume to 30 or less for best quality.
* If you have a ‘Channel Mode’ control in alsamixer set it to 2 channel (2ch).
* Run this command:
speaker-test -c2 -Ddefault -t wav
Allow this command to run until after you run this next command.
* Watch the volume meter in the terminal for movement when you run this command:
arecord -vv -f S16_LE -c2 -r48000 -d 5 test.wav # command records for only 5 seconds.
* Run this command: aplay -test.wav
Do you hear any sounds when test.wav is playing?
If you do NOT hear any sounds when test.wav is playing then
* Run this command: ls -l test.wav
Is test.wav’s size larger than zero bytes?
Download tsalsa using the link listed at the bottom of this page.
Run this command: bash ./tsalsa
Post the tsalsa URL in #alsa and ask for help.

Recording IEC958 (digital) output:
* Run this command:
arecord -Dplug:iec958 -d 5 test.wav
* Run this command:
spdif in to analog out: arecord -D opticalIN -f dat | aplay -D playback_device