On 19-May-03 Ted Harding wrote:
I just installed a Creative Labs Sounsblaster Live! 5.1 digital, on a SuSe-7.2 system, and I'm driving it with ALSA.
No problem with playing .wav.files (using 'aplay'), nor with getting output on the speaker "Line Out" when playing audio CD or using input from microphone or speaker line from another source as input.
However, I also want to be able to _record_ input (from microphone or input line), generating a .wav file, and I have not been able to find out how to do this. All attempts seem to lead to a .wav file which stores many kilobytes of silence!
Any suggestions?
Thanks to the people who wrote with suggestions: John (yonaton), Charles,
Bryan, for 'record', 'arecord' and 'rec'. The problem remains the same:
though the input (whether from microphone or line input) can be heard
on the speaker, all of these commands produce the same result: a .wav
file which after the initial header contains data which are all zero-value
bytes, i.e. silence! It's as if either the recording program is reading
from the wrong device, or the sound-card is not making the audio data
available to be read by the program.
The corresponding "play" programs all work fine for playing .wav files
through the card, so they know where to send the data for playing, which
makes me think the "record" programs should also know where to get the
data for recording. This makes me suspect that the card may not be
revealing the data for the sound signals it is receiving via the inputs.
I've tried an assortment of "mixer" programs, to no avail.
On an old machine (SuSE-5.2 ... ) I had no difficulties of this kind;
but there I had installed a copy of OSS which I had paid for, since
at that time it was the only way to get sound to work decently. I'd
like to avoid that route this time, if possible!
With thanks, and hoping for further ideas!
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding)