Internal Microphone Scratchy under Linux

English Hardware
1

I’ve been trying to use Skype for Linux on my Asus laptop. The sound from the microphone is scratchy and almost unreadable. I can dual boot Windows 7 on the same computer and the microphone is crystal clear using Skype for Windows, so it is not a hardware issue. I’ve fooled a bit with Pavucontrol, and turned the microphone volume down to various levels under 50% and it is still scratchy. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks.

2

I’m not a skype user, but a quick search online reveals numerous accounts of static/scratchy noise with respect to using skype and pulseaudio.

Some examples…
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=233909#p1242399

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/forum/skype_linux-skype_callms-skype_audioms/loose-contact-between-skype-and-pulseaudio/aa686d77-8dc4-4f54-aaeb-bee723d2493a

A common workaround mentioned is to include the PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC environment variable like these examples…

env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skypeforlinux

env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype %U

This archlinux wiki page may also be useful to you…

Static noise in microphone recording

If we are getting static noise in Skype, gnome-sound-recorder, arecord, etc.'s recordings, then the sound card sample rate is incorrect. That is why there is static noise in Linux microphone recordings. To fix this, we need to set the sampling rate in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf for the sound hardware.
In addition to the guide below, since PulseAudio 11 it is possible to set avoid-resampling = yes in daemon.conf.