Hi all - here's an ALSA-related problem, maybe. The microphone input on my sound card works, I know, because when I turn up it's level, and the master output level, I can talk through it, make feedback, etc. *BUT* - I can't record from the mic to save my life! I've tried Audacity recorder, 'arecord', but absolutely ZERO sound is on the resulting .wav file. The card PLAYS great. Yes, I HAVE run alsaconf, but still no microphone capture for recording.

My HW is - Ensoniq ES1370
My kernel - 2.6.8.1

lsmod output is:

Module Size Used by
ppp_deflate 4800 0
zlib_deflate 22424 1 ppp_deflate
bsd_comp 5184 0
ppp_async 8896 1
ppp_generic 24276 7 ppp_deflate,bsd_comp,ppp_async
slhc 6592 1 ppp_generic
snd_seq_midi 8608 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6720 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 50960 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss 54248 0
snd_mixer_oss 19520 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_ens1370 17256 1
snd_rawmidi 22692 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_ens1370
snd_seq_device 7752 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd_pcm 85448 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ens1370
snd_timer 23364 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_ak4531_codec 7424 1 snd_ens1370
snd 51364 13 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ens1370,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_de vice,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_ak4531_codec
soundcore 7008 1 snd
isofs 31544 0
ircomm_tty 21832 0
ircomm 11972 1 ircomm_tty
irda 120060 2 ircomm_tty,ircomm
crc_ccitt 1728 2 ppp_async,irda
raw 6624 0
sg 33568 0
sd_mod 18752 0
scsi_mod 103372 2 sg,sd_mod
nfsd 189664 8
exportfs 4928 1 nfsd
lockd 57608 2 nfsd
sunrpc 126756 2 nfsd,lockd
parport_pc 30912 0
lp 9324 0
parport 33736 2 parport_pc,lp
md5 3712 1
ipv6 229188 10
snd_page_alloc 9288 2 snd_ens1370,snd_pcm
af_packet 16136 0
ip_vs 90592 0
floppy 54416 0
ide_cd 36640 0
cdrom 35932 1 ide_cd
loop 12296 0
ext3 107112 7
jbd 48920 1 ext3
via_agp 7104 1
agpgart 27752 1 via_agp
usbmouse 4288 0
usbhid 41280 0
uhci_hcd 28432 0
usbcore 98980 5 usbmouse,usbhid,uhci_hcd
rtc 6676 0

##############################################################################
output from amixer -c 0 scontents
##############################################################################
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 21 [68%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Master Mono',0
Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Limits: Playback 0 - 7
Mono: Playback 3 [43%] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: volume pswitch cswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Front Left: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',1
Capabilities: volume pswitch cswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Front Left: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
Capabilities: volume pswitch cswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Front Left: 24 [77%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: 24 [77%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'CD',0
Capabilities: volume pswitch cswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Front Left: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Front Right: 28 [90%] Playback [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Capabilities: volume volume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Mono: 31 [100%] Playback [on]
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost (+30dB)',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Bypass',0
Capabilities: cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Aux',0
Capabilities: volume pswitch cswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Front Left: 24 [77%] Playback [on] Capture [on]
Front Right: 24 [77%] Playback [on] Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mono',0
Capabilities: volume volume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Mono: 24 [77%] Playback [on]
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mono1 Bypass',0
Capabilities: cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mono2 Bypass',0
Capabilities: cswitch
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mono',1
Capabilities: volume volume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch
Playback channels: Mono
Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: 0 - 31
Mono: 24 [77%] Playback [on]
Front Left: Capture [on]
Front Right: Capture [on]
Simple mixer control 'AD Input Select',0
Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Mono
Mono: Playback [on]
###############################################################

I'd sure appreciate any clues...

this is so hard because sound card drivers are so different and the words alsa project uses to describe things seen off the wall to me
also and more to the point i don't have a soundcard like this
this is just an uneducated guess -- from where you are at now
try
amixer set Aux nocap
amixer set Mono nocap
amixer set 'Mic Bypass' nocap (i really don't know what Mic Bypass does ? anyone else know ?)
amixer set 'Mono1 Bypass' nocap
amixer set 'Mono2 Bypass' nocap
so now you just have Mic capture on and try that
if that doesn't work i think i would try
amixer set PCM cap
first along with the Mic to see if that works
then go from there turning on more captures and turning off or not turning off the ones i tried till you discover the secret combination

Alright, I think I figured it out. Decided to hook up a mic to my SBLive and see if I could get it to work.
Took some effort, but here is what I found.

Looked over your settings and they look ok to me. Although you may want to pull up either "kmix" (GUI) or
"alsamixer" (CLI) and verify that all of your relevant capture settings are on.

Next, when recording with Audacity go into preferences and set it to "ALSA: <your_soundcard>"
not: "OSS: /dev/dsp" for both playback and recording. The OSS setting was the default, this may be why
you weren't getting any output.

Then record some audio via the mic.

Convert it to a wav (it is saved as a .aup by default) and save it.

Then playback the .wav file or any wav file on your HD for that matter. I found that no .wav would play back
by default, they all were blank (or muted).

The following error in the shell that I started kaboodle from gave me the clue I needed:
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:494: (snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe

Go back into either "kmix" or "alsamixer" and turn your pcm volume up and enable it (it is muted by default).

All .wav's play now, even the one recorded from the mic.

HTH,
/Les

I tried the nocap settings, to no avail, thanks anyway, but as for the Audacity preferences... well, this is pretty freaky. When I look at the hardware settings, I get only ** 1 ** device in the listbox - "/dev/dsp". There are ** NO ** ALSA soundcards in the list! I ** WAS ** able to get mic recording, though, in Audacity, after running kmix as NOT root.

So I'm a lot happier now, but almost as ignorant as before... guess I need to learn how Audacity thinks about hardware, and how priviledges affect sound resources.

I'm grateful for the help, foo_bar_foo & linuxles!