Sound recorder?

English Multimedia
1

I am trying to record sound using a Logitech boom headset (don’t know the model).

I don’t see a sound recorder function in 11.4. The device appears in the audio mixer. Is there a simple sound recorder I can install? Or is that part of something else I haven’t discovered yet?

Thanks

George

2

To me it looks that krecord (in the OSS repo) could be what yiu mean.

3

I confess I like a REAL basic way to record. On my PC if I type:


arecord -l

I get this:


oldcpu@corei7:~> arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
**card 0**: Intel [HDA Intel], **device 0:** AD198x **Analog** [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 2/3
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
**card 1**: U0x46d0x821 [USB Device 0x46d:0x821], **device 0**: **USB Audio** [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

from which it is pretty clear that the record devices on my PC are hw:0,0 (analogue record) and hw:1,0 (usb record).

So to record from my analogue (external mic) I type:


arecord -f S16_LE -c 2 -D hw:0,0 new.wav

and play back new.wav with a media player, such as :


aplay new.wav

For example, for the USB mic I can type:


arecord -f S16_LE -c 2 -D hw:1,0 new.wav

and play back new.wav with a media player, such as :


aplay new.wav

Note - Pay ATTENTION to the error messages you get with ‘arecord’. Its possible the ‘2-channel’ option I use with ‘-c 2’ is not appropriate for your setup. Or its possible the format I use with ‘-f S16_LE’ is not appropriate for your setup. My experience is arecord is very good in saying what the error is.

Also, ensure you have the PROPER mic selected in your mixer. In my experience a misconfigured mixer is 90% of the problem with recording by GNU/Linux users.

4

Audacity is quite alright, it has much more functions than KRecord e.g. editing, support a lot of audio formats, effects etc. However, if you use PulseAudio you might run into problems. If you want to try it out, you should choose the Packman version which hasn’t the ‘restricted format’ limitation.

5

This is great! I ask a question this morning and when I get home, I have three different ways to try. Thanks much!

F_Sauce - I have Audacity on Windoze and I like it. I am reading up on PulseAudio. When you talk about the limitation, you are referring to Audacity or PulseAudio?

oldcpu - I may try your method first to get more terminal exposure. I am not very good if it isn’t gui so I have to practice. I think the Logitech headset i have is mono, at least for the mic. Thanks for the caution and the method.

hcvv - sounds like this might be the equiv product to Windoze Sound Recorder, which has a one or two second limit. I’ll try it out.

6

I may have interpreted your question wrongly and thus oldcpu’s answer may be the best. There are several ways of “recording sound” imho.

Recoreding it from a sound input device (micriphone). This is what oldcpu answered (and he knows how to do it because he improves his abilaty to sing with it rotfl! )

Recording what is output by a sound device. That is what my answer points you to. My experience is that it does only work with certain types of sound cards.

Recording sound coming from the internet. This does not involve any sound device at all. I use streamripper for it. It is a command line tool and thus I can start it from e.g. cron and let it then run for an hour. I thus can record an Internet radio broadcast while I am sleeping.

7

I have now tried all three ways and all three work - with an analog microphone into the front panel input on the little Compaq EVO D150 that I am using with SUSE 11.4. However, I am trying to use the microphone on the headset.

I have tried to switch to the USB microphone on the Logitech “Clear Chat Comfort USB Headset Analog Stereo” model H-390 or model A-0009 (seem to be the same). It shows up in the mixer like this:
http://www.ffwdm.com/test/suse-mixer-showing-usb-headset.jpg

So the Logitech shows under Capture Devices and it’s level is up. Curious that a speaker shows at the bottom and not a microphone but it does mute and resets if I push the speaker. Another thing about the Logitech, there is a pendant control with a puch button and an LED. Normally the LED is ON. If I push the button, the LED starts to flash. I have tried recording with krecord and with Audacity with both conditions, button LED flashing and not. Neither gives me a recording from the headset mic.

So try oldcpu’s method. It worked for sound from the mic into the front panel.

I have a listing of my sound devices from “arecord -l” as

george@linux-11-4:~> arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: I82801DBICH4 [Intel 82801DB-ICH4], device 0: Intel ICH [Intel 82801DB-ICH4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: I82801DBICH4 [Intel 82801DB-ICH4], device 1: Intel ICH - MIC ADC [Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: I82801DBICH4 [Intel 82801DB-ICH4], device 2: Intel ICH - MIC2 ADC [Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - MIC2 ADC]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: I82801DBICH4 [Intel 82801DB-ICH4], device 3: Intel ICH - ADC2 [Intel 82801DB-ICH4 - ADC2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Headset [Logitech USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
george@linux-11-4:~>

oldcpu didn’t tell me how to STOP the recording! I found that I could stop recording by closing the terminal window - same for the player.

I attempt recording from the headset mic by picking the usb hardware:

george@linux-11-4:~> arecord -f S16_LE -c 1 -D hw:1,0 test.wav

Changing the number of channels since the headset mic is mono. oldcpu - right about the error messages - thank you.

AND IT WORKS!

Now if I can just figure out the mixer and maybe I can get it to work in the other two gui recorders! :wink: Thanks!

8

F_Sauce - I have Audacity on Windoze and I like it. I am reading up on PulseAudio. When you talk about the limitation, you are referring to Audacity or PulseAudio?

Audacity uses portaudio which does not work with the pulseaudio soundserver (though there are some workarounds). If you haven’t enabled/installed pulseaudio, then Audacity should run quite fine.

The limitations I refered to was with the official built Audacity (from openSUSE -oss), which hasn’t support for restricted formats e.g. .aif, .mp3, wma, etc. . Audacity from the packman repo hasn’t been built with these codec restrictions.

Now if I can just figure out the mixer and maybe I can get it to work in the other two gui recorders!

There might be a hidden parameter in your mixer regarding that mic. You could try open ‘Settings > Configure Channels’ and see what you find.

Cheers

9

mea culpa ! I’m bad.

I typically just press <CTRL><C> and kill arecord that way (when it is recording).

10

F_Sauce - thanks! It works like you said. There is a row of drop downs in Audacity that I hadn’t noticed, probably too obvious?!

11

http://www.ffwdm.com/test/audacity-input-selectors.jpg

The Audacity I got yesterday from their website as an rpm is version 1.3.13 (beta) and it seems to include LAME since I was able to export an .mp3 and LAME indicated as installed in YaST.

I did not intentionally install PulseAudio. How can I verify it is installed or not?

Thanks

George

12

oldcpu - thanks for the excellent method. Nice to see how simple it can be. I don’t mind if you don’t tell me EVERYTHING. Helps me learn.

13

I would recommend to do it the ‘recommended’ way and add the packman repo to YaST sources. Go to: YaST Control Centre > Software Repositories > Click on ‘Add’ > Tick ‘Community Repositories’ > Tick ‘Packman Repository’ > And hit ‘OK’ (Accept ‘import’ …)
That is of course if you haven’t done so already:)

To see if Pulseaudio is installed, you can open the other tab in YaST CC called Software Management where you see all your installed packages, here you may search for pulseaudio packages. To see if it is enabled, if installed, go to: Yast CC > Hardware > Sound > (bottom right) Other > PulseAudio Configuration

OpenSuSE and multimedia can be a bit of a hassle, but there are some useful guides you may consult:
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide
NEW Users - openSUSE-11.4 Pre-installation � PLEASE READ
MultiMedia Checker or mmcheck - Check Your openSUSE MultiMedia Setup in Just 16 Steps

Following those guides will make sure you have a good multimedia system, and a system which overcomes the restricted format limitations of a purely OpenSuSE install.

Cheers