POOR RECORDING QUALITY
Posts: 13
hi everyone, I am an italian guy on his way to linux. I treid a few distributoins before and I always had configuration problems on my laptop (compaq presario 2580us P4 2.3Ghz 512 RAM), before installing mepis. It is by far the best I used. it works just fine without much work, but there's one thing I just can't figure out: the sound recording quality (using audacity) is very poor. My voice comes out very disturbed, a lot of cracking and frying, if you know what I mean. I'm sure it's not my mic since in windows it works ok. playing music is quite ok though, nothing like that usually happens (even though i tried a "sound check" in "OS center" and the sample came out with two evident pauses, which are not supposed to be therem, I guess). I tried playing a bit with the mixer, but it was of no avail.
windows says I have an AC-Link Conexant audio device, and down here there's the result of kudzu -p (I am a newbie, I got it following some forums about audio problems)
class: AUDIO
bus: PCI
detached: 0
driver: snd-ali5451
desc: "Unknown vendor|Generic snd-ali5451 device"
vendorId: 10b9
deviceId: 5451
subVendorId: 103c
subDeviceId: 0850
pciType: 1
pcidom: 0
pcibus: 0
pcidev: 6
pcifn: 0
the soundcard information I found at the "info center":
sound driver: 3.8.1a-980706 (LASA v.1.0.8 emulation code)
kernel linux 2.6.10 elvis #1 ...date... i686
config options: 0
installed driver:
type10: ALSA emulation
Card Config:
ALI5451 at 0x1000, irq 5
Audio Devices
0: ALI5451 (DUPLEX)
SyntH devices: NOT ENABLES IN CONFIG
Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Timers
7: System timer
Mixers:
Conexant Cx20468 rev1, Conexant
Thank you very much to everyone that's giving a look to this.
g.
(feel free to email me at )
You might be right!
Posts: 13
Yes, reording from console is definitely much better than under KDE! I did what you suggested and the quality of my sample file was absolutely acceptable.
Do you think there is a way to fix that keeping KDE? I mean, being a newbie, I love KDE as much as I am intimidated by a shell 
thanx a lot bob
Re: You might be right!
Posts: 49
Yes, reording from console is definitely much better than under KDE! I did what you suggested and the quality of my sample file was absolutely acceptable.
Do you think there is a way to fix that keeping KDE? I mean, being a newbie, I love KDE as much as I am intimidated by a shell
thanx a lot bob
I don't know much about how it works, but Kde use the aRts sound server. This sound server allows you to play more than one sound at the same time. But while you are doing a recording, you may not want anything to interrupt it.
You can turn off the sound server (and back on when you want).
Open Kde control center, then choose --> Sound --> Sound Server --> General tab, Then uncheck Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup.
It will prompt if you want to shut down the sound server.
Or you may be able to change some of the aRts settings so that it works for you
Bob
Re: You might be right!
Posts: 13
I have a Sound and Multimedia in my Kde Control Center, but no Sound Server in it. There is a Sound System, which freezes all of my applications involving sounds if disabled, so I guess it's not what you were talking about
kde control center
Posts: 5
glaco,
Look in Sound System under Sound and Multimedia. Click on the hardware tab. If the quality setting is at 8 Bits (Low), change it to 16 Bits (HIgh). If the sound skips after this change click on the general tab and move the sound buffer slider to approx the half-way point. If you have not tried this already, I hope it works. Let us know if this does the job.
still there
Posts: 13
quality was already 16 Bits, I tried the buffer thing as well but my problem is still there. Playing music is ok, sometimes it jumps when I open some application (Skype for xample) and XMMS' commands have about 1-2 seconds delay (maning that if I lower the volume it takes 1-2 seconds to set where I want it, or, say, if I skip to the middle of the song) but that does not bother me too much, since quality is fine. and setting the buffer from top to half the way gave me a better "test sound". What isn't working is the recording: Still too disturbed (using audacity)
Re: POOR RECORDING QUALITY
Posts: 49
You can try to narrow down where your problem is.
The noise may be related to the Kde soundserver.
You can test a simple recording using sox.
First log out of Kde.
Then, ctrl+alt+F1 to a console login.
After you login and are ready to record enter this command:
$ rec sample01.wav
It will give you directions on the screen to end recording: ctrl+c.
There are also many options and effects that you can use with this program.
After you are finished, you can test the wav file you created:
$ play sample01.wav
Bob