From soundcard to Audacity
For a long time now I have been looking for a way to record directly off the soundcard. While I had no difficulty with this in Windows, Linux proved a little more elusive.
I trawled the Internet and came across a lot of solutions, such as hot-wiring the speaker socket to the microphone socket, or lengthy sessions with Terminal.
The other day I found the solution I had been looking for, and as I suspected, it was simplicity itself.
My sound editing programme of choice is Audacity. That gives the option of selecting the source for recording and this is where I was making my big mistake. The trick is to leave that alone.at its default setting.
Open up Audacity and also Pulse Volume Control. In Audacity, click the wee drop-down by the microphone symbol and select ‘Start Monitoring’
Now select Pulse Audio Control and go to the Recording Tab.
In the resulting screen, you will see Audacity listed as ALSA Plug-in [Audacity]
All that is required now is to make your selection from the drop-down list provided. Select one that starts “Monitor of ..” and you should be OK.
That’s all.
Simple.
UPDATE
I just replaced Linux Mint 10 with Mint 11 and to my surprise, Pulse Audio Control was missing. It took a bit of research but I fond that the package I was looking for was pavucontrol. I tried installing it from the Software Manager but it kept getting stuck at 12%. I then tried
$ sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
That worked perfectly!
I’ve always found the linux sound system to be convoluted and buggy. It seems to be getting better, but it still needs some help.
Ah, the love/hate relationship with Pulse Audio goes on. Cause of most sound problems in Linux although some are just knowing the right settings. Admittedly in can be a poke and hope situation at times. The good thing is that Linux based Operating systems like Mint will always have the settings somewhere that will correct a sound problem when it crops up. The trick is to find the correct setting.
Kory – One thing to keep in mind though is that just shy of 99% of all Windows systems came with Windows preinstalled so it’s pretty much guaranteed that everything works out of the box. Give a user a PC with a blank hard drive and a Windows install disk however and see what happens. 😉
What I meant by my previous comment was that a fresh install of Windows is bound to have as many problems with sound as a fresh install of Linux Mint for example. Should have said that in the first place. Head’s not working right.
One of the little quirks of Linux is the necessity occasionally to do a lot of research to fix something. Often it is a simple fix, but the odd time I come across a problem with tons of solutions, none of which works. It at times like these that I post my hard-to-find solution here, partly as a record for my own sake, and partly to offer a little help to others.
Thanks, thanks, thanks. What an elegant and simple solution. I’ve just installed Mint 11 on a old Dell Inspiron 1300 I picked up for cheap. I had originally replaced the WinXP with Mint 9. Version 11 seems kinda slow with older machines. I may end up switching back to 9 or trying 10. Anywho, your posting was just what the doctor ordered for my audacity/recording issue.