[kwaveview - features] how to generate wav file

Hi group, I am working on a project on quality assurance of sound (as a volunteer). I am playing around with the alsa-system and I like it very much. I can - on my Siemens-Fujitsu Amilo notebook - receive the sound thru the double channel microphone and here what I input on the inbuilt loudspeakers ... I also use kwaveview which is almost what I need. However I would like to generate wav-files from the sounds which I generate via the microphone. I used "arecord" but without success. there is no sound in the wav-file when I replay it with "aplay". The problem seems to me rather trivial ... however where is the clue? tia for answering soon Jörg