sound: very low volume when recording from the microphone

From: Alain Rey (amrey_at_free.fr)
Date: 11/13/04

  • Next message: Jack Brule: "As a Windows Users - thx VectorLinux" 
    Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 03:47:15 +0100

    Hi,
    I can't get a decent sound when I record from the microphone.
    When I do:
    arecord -t wav -d 3 test.wav
    and speak in the microphone, then playback with:
    aplay test.wav,
    the volume is very low, and the quality of the recording very bad.

    It's only when recording in Linux.
    - recording from the microphone under Windows XP works perfectly well, I'm
    sorry to say.
    - playing streams and sound files works well under Linux (xmms and realplay)
    - when I speak in the microphone, I hear my voice in the speakers and the
    qualtiy of that echo is good (well, perhaps this is part of the problem:
    there should be a way to cut this echo, as my sound card is full-duplex).

    I've tried various volume settings in alsamixer, but that doesn't help.
    I haven't tried recording from line-in.

    I don't know what to look after (and I wish the ALSA documentation was a bit
    more extensive, apart from the 5-years old minihowto).

    My sound card is a Xwave-7000, the chipset is C-Media CMI-8738/PCI-6CH.
    I'm on SuSE 9.1.

    Some config data:
    # cat /etc/modprobe.d/sound
    options snd-cmipci enable=1 index=0 soft_ac3=1
    # y9as.leFtcOMtGx0:CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
    alias snd-card-0 snd-cmipci

    # lsmod | grep snd
    snd_seq_oss 30976 0
    snd_seq_midi_event 7680 1 snd_seq_oss
    snd_seq 54672 5 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
    snd_pcm_oss 56868 0
    snd_mixer_oss 18688 1 snd_pcm_oss
    snd_cmipci 33204 4
    snd_pcm 96776 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_cmipci
    snd_page_alloc 11012 1 snd_pcm
    snd_opl3_lib 10880 1 snd_cmipci
    snd_timer 25476 3 snd_seq,snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib
    snd_hwdep 9732 1 snd_opl3_lib
    gameport 4736 1 snd_cmipci
    snd_mpu401_uart 7808 1 snd_cmipci
    snd_rawmidi 24992 1 snd_mpu401_uart
    snd_seq_device 8328 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
    snd 59524 22
    snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_cmipci,snd_pcm,snd_opl3_lib,snd_timer,snd_hwdep,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
    soundcore 8800 1 snd

    There is a second sound-related problem, less important: many "system
    sounds" (like the melody when logging in or logging out of KDE) are very
    distorted, although applications like xmms play with a good quality.

    Any help greatly appreciated.

  • Next message: Jack Brule: "As a Windows Users - thx VectorLinux"

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