Further to my previous posting I have, at last, got sound recording from a microphone working properly again.
I don't, however, dislike Alsa any less because I don't know exactly what I did to put it right. I had already run alsaconf twice before posting but tried it again for a third time. There was no indication of any change. I then ran alsamixergui and tried altering the levels of some of the controls. There are 25 sliders on alsamixergui which gives a very large number of combinations. Although the 'Microphone Boost' had no apparent effect in Kmix I tried it with alsamixergui and that together with a lower setting on the 'digital' slider gave me an acceptable result. I 'Transferred' those settings to Kmix and it's still working. USB audio recording still doesn't work at all. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain