Until recently, I had two microphone channels in kmix: a "mic" and a "front mic". One was the built in microphone, and the other was the 3.5 mm microphone input. Now, I just have one "Capture" channel, although I still have a "mic boost" channels for the aforementioned microphones.

When the Capture channel volume is turned up all the way, I can hear nothing coming through my built in mic-- even with headphones. I also tried increasing both mic boost channels, but still nothing.

I am using KDE 4.3.4 from Debian squeeze.

Try right clicking in empty space in the KMix Mixer window and select "Channels" check to see if the second Capture channel is listed on the left side.

It doesn't appear to be:

Can you view the second "Capture" channel in alsamixer?

There are:

Front Mic Boost Mic Boost Capture Digital

In this case, the cause of the channel disappearing from KMix is it disappearing from alsamixer, which means that the fault is in ALSA.

At any rate, neither mic channel works. I got a 3.5mm mic and plugged it in, and made sure nothing (and I really mean nothing) was muted or turned off. I believe this was the "front" mic channel. It doesn't work, nor does the built-in mic.

Unfortunately I do not know much about fixing microphone related issues, especially within ALSA. assuming applications such as Pulseaudio are not interfering, and the correct sound driver is being loaded.

I doubt Pulse is interfering since it isn't installed.

I tried recording with the mic in Audacity, and it works. I just can't hear the sound through the output (in this case headphones) while it's recording-- only when playing it back.



As you can see, my sound card is detected, and the correct drivers appear to be in use:

Code: Select all

snd_hda_codec_si3054     3182  1
snd_hda_codec_realtek   235359  1
snd_hda_intel          17985  6
snd_hda_codec          53148  3 snd_hda_codec_si3054,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               5244  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss            32531  0
snd_mixer_oss          14022  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                59736  6 snd_hda_codec_si3054,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_midi            4144  0
snd_rawmidi            15283  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      4620  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                41109  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              15702  4 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          4501  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    45110  20 snd_hda_codec_si3054,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore               5119  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          6081  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm


I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but I am using the xine backend for phonon.

Which application are you using to test that the Microphone works with Phonon? Given that Audacity works, and it is listed in the Multimedia control module, it should work.

bcooksley wrote:Which application are you using to test that the Microphone works with Phonon? Given that Audacity works, and it is listed in the Multimedia control module, it should work.

Well, ideally, I would like to be able to hear the mic input through headphones without any specific application running; i.e. the input is sent to output unless I mute one or the other.

This feature was never implemented in the KCM... Unfortunately I don't know how one would do that using ALSA either....