hello, I'm trying sending this again because it didn't go straight through the first time even though I am subscribed to the list.
I've set up an old pentium box in my living room to play mp3's through my hi-fi, tape records to cd and stuff like that. Playback is working fine with the alsa sbawe module, but I can't work out how to get a decent quality recording. The card is an isa-pnp soundblaster 32 awe. The soundcard is plugged into the tape2 output of an old rotel amp. I've also tried the tape1 output, which works fine when connected to my analogue tape recorder, so I don't think it's that. I've been trying to do test recordings from vinyl records by selecting tape2 and phono on the amp, then setting the line input to capture, and using 'arecord -f cd -t au foo.au'. Something does get recorded, but it is very distorted, and nowhere near good enough for what I want. I'm assuming this is because the soundcard's ADC is clipping the signal. I've looked for a control in amixer or alsamixer which will set the line recording level, but nothing works. I have tried: - using the 'Capture Volume' control. This has only 4 levels, 0-3, and makes no difference to the recorded sound as far as I can tell. I can't believe that a decent-ish soundcard like this doesn't have a more sensitive input gain control than this, so I'm not sure what this control does. - setting the Line playback volume lower when Line is switched to capture. This does affect the recording, but not in the way I'd hoped - the signal is still distorted/clipping, but it just gets harder to hear. (I set the level back to normal for playback, so it is something in the recording.) There is another control called 'Line Capture Route' which has four boolean parameters - I have no idea what this does. An odd thing happerns when there is a record playing into the Line in input - if the card is set to capture, there is no sound from Line out, but if the card is set to playback, a faint trace of the input sound can be heard over the speakers. below is a dump of the output from amixer - these settings give a very loud distorted recording from phono. andy. monkey:/home/andy# amixer contents numid=2,iface=MIXER,name='Master Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=25,25 numid=4,iface=MIXER,name='Tone Control - Bass' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=15,step=0 : values=8,8 numid=5,iface=MIXER,name='Tone Control - Treble' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=15,step=0 : values=8,8 numid=6,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=25,25 numid=22,iface=MIXER,name='Synth Tone Control - Bass' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=11,step=0 : values=5 numid=23,iface=MIXER,name='Synth Tone Control - Treble' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=11,step=0 : values=9 numid=8,iface=MIXER,name='Synth Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=0,0 numid=7,iface=MIXER,name='Synth Capture Route' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=4 : values=off,off,off,off numid=26,iface=MIXER,name='FM Chorus Depth' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=255,step=0 : values=0 numid=27,iface=MIXER,name='FM Reverb Depth' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=255,step=0 : values=0 numid=13,iface=MIXER,name='Line Playback Switch' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=2 : values=off,off numid=14,iface=MIXER,name='Line Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=25,25 numid=12,iface=MIXER,name='Line Capture Route' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=4 : values=on,off,off,on numid=10,iface=MIXER,name='CD Playback Switch' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=2 : values=off,off numid=11,iface=MIXER,name='CD Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=0,0 numid=9,iface=MIXER,name='CD Capture Route' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=4 : values=off,off,off,off numid=16,iface=MIXER,name='Mic Playback Switch' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=1 : values=off numid=17,iface=MIXER,name='Mic Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=0 numid=15,iface=MIXER,name='Mic Capture Switch' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=2 : values=off,off numid=18,iface=MIXER,name='PC Speaker Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=3,step=0 : values=0 numid=19,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=3,step=0 : values=3,3 numid=20,iface=MIXER,name='Playback Volume' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=2,min=0,max=3,step=0 : values=0,0 numid=3,iface=MIXER,name='3D Enhancement Switch' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=1 : values=off numid=21,iface=MIXER,name='Auto Mic Gain' ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw---,values=1 : values=off numid=24,iface=MIXER,name='Chorus Mode' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=2 numid=25,iface=MIXER,name='Reverb Mode' ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---,values=1,min=0,max=31,step=0 : values=4 numid=1,iface=PCM,name='16-bit DMA Allocation' ; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw---,values=1,items=3 ; Item #0 'Auto' ; Item #1 'Playback' ; Item #2 'Capture' : values=0 P.S. I've gone back to OSS for the time being, because this does have an input level control with a decent range on it, but I'd still like to get alsa working on this machine if possible, so help would be appreciated. -- Please don't send me html mail or un-notified attachments. These will be automatically filed under 'probable spam' unless I'm expecting an email which hasn't come. If you do need to send an attachment or html mail, put [attachment] or [html] in the subject line. Thanks, andy. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
