No sound recording

[Richard Urwin]

On Friday 17 November 2006 03:48, H.S.Rai wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Mohindar Rao, Raavi Mohan Rao <mraavimohanrao at mician.com> 
wrote:
> > > lspci gave following output:
> > >
> > > 0000:00:1b.0 0403: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High
> > > Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
> >
> > Can you able to play other sound files?
>
> I can play MP3 and all other audio and video.
>
> > or... Can, you check once again the alsa-mixer values.
>
> In "Capture", against "line" it show capture (L R), but novalue is
> there and nothing adjustable is there, against "Mic" is shows
> "-------", then against capture it shows 100 value.

I had exactly the same problem and I spent ten hours yesterday on this. Here 
are the fruits of my labour.

Start alsamixer. There is a GUI for gnome, but it doesn't appear to offer all 
the functionality you need.

Hit the TAB key to get to "Capture" mode.

There are three Capture columns in Capture mode.These are "Capture", "Capture 
1" and "Capture 2". You can only select one for capture at any one time, so 
using the space key select the first and deselect the others. Leaving two 
selected may make it work the first time and fail thereafter.

While you are still in the Capture mode take note of which Mic channels you 
have. One of them will be your microphone. Mine is called "Front Mic", but I 
think they vary depending on the sound card. Set its level to the top of the 
green, and similarly with "Mic Boost" if you have it. That may be too high, 
but it'll prove things are working.

Now in Playback mode there are three Input Source columns that correspond to 
the capture columns. Change the first one to "Mic", or whichever channel you 
think is your microphone. If you unmute ("m" key) that channel in playback 
mode you should be able to hear the microphone in the headphones (test it by 
blowing into the mic or you wont hear it over the sound of your own voice.) 
Not what you want normally, but again a good test. This works while alsamixer 
is up, without running a sound recorder program.

Press Esc twice to exit, then bring up sound recorder and try it out. An 
annoying squeal on top of a successful recording just means you still have 
the playback microphone channel unmuted.

If it works:
$sudo alsactl store 0
will save the settings.

HTH

-- 
Richard Urwin