Why Is Sound Recording Such A PITA With Linux?
I am trying to dump some of my old LP's and cassettes to hdd, but GNU sound systems are so screwed up, I am finding it almost impossible. Before I resort to windows :( can anyone suggest a way of making a reasonable recording with Linux? I am running SuSE 8.0 and KDE3 on an Athlon 1.2Ghz box with 1Gb RAM and Creative Soundblaster Live. I have updated all the sound drivers, which seemed to make some improvement and I have tried several recording packages (gramofile, krecord, khdrecord, etc.). When I try record I get a message to the efect that /dev/dsp is busy or not available. I can defeat this obstacle by running "alsaconf", but then I can't get any playback under kde. When I do manage to create a wave file and recover kde playback, the resulting output is either double speed (squeaky tinny little squawks) or so distorted (regardless of the recording input level) that it is useless. I would welcome any suggestions or guidance from anyone with Linux recording experience. TIA Dave -- Registered Linux User #288562 http://counter.li.org
If you are using KDE I found that the aRts sound server has to be killed. Goto Control Center->Sound->Sound Server->General turn off the Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup. aRts works great for playing but screws the pooch on recording. good luck, pben On Thursday 13 February 2003 10:11 pm, Dave Barton wrote:
I am trying to dump some of my old LP's and cassettes to hdd, but GNU sound systems are so screwed up, I am finding it almost impossible.
Before I resort to windows :( can anyone suggest a way of making a reasonable recording with Linux?
I am running SuSE 8.0 and KDE3 on an Athlon 1.2Ghz box with 1Gb RAM and Creative Soundblaster Live. I have updated all the sound drivers, which seemed to make some improvement and I have tried several recording packages (gramofile, krecord, khdrecord, etc.).
When I try record I get a message to the efect that /dev/dsp is busy or not available. I can defeat this obstacle by running "alsaconf", but then I can't get any playback under kde. When I do manage to create a wave file and recover kde playback, the resulting output is either double speed (squeaky tinny little squawks) or so distorted (regardless of the recording input level) that it is useless.
I would welcome any suggestions or guidance from anyone with Linux recording experience.
TIA Dave
On Fri, 2003-02-14 at 15:40, Paul Benjamin wrote:
If you are using KDE I found that the aRts sound server has to be killed.
Goto Control Center->Sound->Sound Server->General turn off the Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup. aRts works great for playing but screws the pooch on recording.
good luck,
pben
Thanks Paul, that seems to be part of the solution. I have managed to play back a small sample recording with reasonable (to my tone-deaf ear) quality. But having played that sample, when I go back to make another recording I get a "/dev/dsp: Device or resource busy" error from the recording program. Regards Dave -- Registered Linux User #288562 http://counter.li.org
I hope that someone else has some ideas because I have had your problem and have also had limited success at recording. pben On Thursday 13 February 2003 11:05 pm, Dave Barton wrote:
On Fri, 2003-02-14 at 15:40, Paul Benjamin wrote:
If you are using KDE I found that the aRts sound server has to be killed.
Goto Control Center->Sound->Sound Server->General turn off the Start aRts soundserver on KDE startup. aRts works great for playing but screws the pooch on recording.
good luck,
pben
Thanks Paul, that seems to be part of the solution. I have managed to play back a small sample recording with reasonable (to my tone-deaf ear) quality. But having played that sample, when I go back to make another recording I get a "/dev/dsp: Device or resource busy" error from the recording program.
Regards Dave
On Fri, 2003-02-14 at 00:05, Dave Barton wrote: <snip>
Thanks Paul, that seems to be part of the solution. I have managed to play back a small sample recording with reasonable (to my tone-deaf ear) quality. But having played that sample, when I go back to make another recording I get a "/dev/dsp: Device or resource busy" error from the recording program.
Dave, Usually the error message above means that some other program is using your sound device. Make sure that no other program is using your sould device. I have a SB16 card and I found in order for mine to work I have to (for some reason) kill Kmix and use xmix. Expecially for gramofile. I was aboe to get a good recording with this program. Also I have had good luck with Audacity. It comes on your CD's/DVD. It doesn't split tracks though :(. If you need to resample the track to make a ogg or mp3 file, you can use a program called sox to help you with that. Hope that this helps in some way. -- Marshall "Nothing is impossible, We just do not have all the anwsers to make the impossible, possible."
On Friday 14 February 2003 06:05, Dave Barton wrote: [snip]
But having played that sample, when I go back to make another recording I get a "/dev/dsp: Device or resource busy" error from the recording program.
Use `lsof /dev/dsp' to see what process is still using /dev/dsp. Paul.
participants (4)
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Dave Barton -
Marshall Heartley -
Paul Benjamin -
Paul Uiterlinden