sound recording with Fedora 11

[Bill Davidsen]

Kevin Kempter wrote:
> Hi all;
> 
> my son (the musician) has Fedora 11 installed on an HP HDX-16 laptop.
> 
> He wants to record some of his band sessions, we tried using 'sound recorder' 
> and plugging the output of his mixer into the mic input on the laptop.
> 
> It does record but the sound is fuzzy and to say it was poor quality would be 
> an over-estimate, since it's there but barely audible.
> 
> 
> Can anyone give us some direction per sound recorders for linux in general and 
> specifically how to debug & correct this issue with the mic input?
> 
I have noticed using audacity that all my recordings made with pulseaudio have a 
large DC component. While that can be stripped and the level of actual audio 
boosted to useful volume, the fidelity is poor. Running FC6 (I still have it to 
dual boot) I do not have that problem with the same hardware. Any "it's your 
hardware" argument should include an explanation for that, mine is "pulseaudio 
sucks."

Note that the recorder function produces similar results, as does 'rec' from the 
sox package, so I'm reasonable sure the application isn't the issue. I've used 
'alsamixer -c0' to set levels to reasonable values.

This may be a settings problem, but the idea of having four interacting mixer 
features does seem to be "needlessly complex," although several people  have 
told me it's needed to be flexible. I think "usable" would be a good default, 
and people who want to "flex" should have to install PA as an option.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot