Hi everyone!
I'm not sure if this is a hardware or software question, but here goes....

Can anyone point me in the direction of some kind of explanation of all of the options that appear in alsamixer? I am trying to figure out how to record using the mic jack and faced with all of the different options for my soundcard (intel8x0) I am not sure what needs to be muted or unmuted, etc. because I don't know what all of the controls mean (man alsamixer and man amixer don't help because they say how to change the controls, not what they are). For ex., what are 'headphone jack sense' or 'line jack sense?'

Here's what I've done:
unmuted 'Mic' and set it to 'capture'.
When I plug in an mp3 player to the mic jack I can monitor what it is playing in the speakers. When I try recording with arecord to a .wav file I just get buzzing noise.

Anyone have any suggestions or anywhere to look for more on understanding how to control a soundcard?

Thanks,
geomatt

Further question:
after googling around a bit I have discovered that my lack of recording ability may be a result of using an old or mismatched version of the alsa drivers. I have version 1.0.6 in a slackware package (I am running Slack 10.0) that were from the original kernel which I have since replaced. The driver package is for 2.4.27 and I am running 2.6.11. I guess I should upgrade the alsa drivers. But the kernel has alsa built-in and not in module form. So am I right in thinking that I should recompile the kernel with the alsa options as modules and then compile a newer version of the drivers from source to provide updated modules?

Thanks, and sorry for this thread being unfocused - I am a bit confused by it all.

-geomatt

you are not alone in the alsa mystery...
it's like a music instrument -- you never understand it you just figure out how to play it by fiddling with it.

the controlls that come up when you type amixer are hardware specific so i can't really speak directly to you about your card. Alsa basically finds and labels all the controlls it finds. And it labels them very strangly.

when you install the new kernel you get the new alsa drivers but you still have the old alsalibs and alsautils but i wouldn't assume they are not compatable just yet -- i have never had to upgrade those yet but i also never have taken an old distro so far as you have so those might be an issue but don't assume that.

it has been my experience that when you can hear the sound out of the speakers you have the mic capture set correctly. make sure you turn the capture volume up some
amixer set Mic 10 cap
or something like that ??
you might also have to turn on something else like
amixer set Capture 10 cap
? like i said it's a mystery

so for now assume you are not using arecord or aplay correctly
try
arecord -d 10 -f cd -t wav /your/soundfile/directory/foo.wav
that should record for 10 seconds
then
aplay /your/soundfile/directory/foo.wav

foo_bar_foo,
thanks for the response.
I was afraid of that.....
Not that I don't like mysteries or fiddling, but I also like to be able to RTFM

Well after much fiddling (summary: recompiled the kernel a couple of times, broke alsa, fixed it - now I have alsa-lib, and utils 1.0.8 and alsa components set in the kernel as modules) recording didn't work until some advanced fiddling with alsamixer and amixer. So all that mucking around in the kernel was maybe unnecesary. It seems that it was the Capture control that was set to 0. Funny thing is alsamixer version 1.0.8 doesn't show capture controls completely unless I am not running it from X. Now I just have to adjust the level to clean out some noise in the recording process.

All of this for the sake of trying to get a digital version of an out of print song that I have only on an old cassette.

Cheers!
-geomatt

PS I saw on some other thread that Linux Journal's Aug 2005 issue has a lengthy article on alsa that might have some interesting info. I haven't read it - either I'll have to wait a month until the free version is available or cough up the money for a subscription....