Choosing Audio Device in Audacity 1.3.4

[nlavon]

I ran across this site when looking for documentation on the Audacity program installed in the new beta Ubuntu studio.

First off, new to Linux, but love what I have seen so far. I am no programmer but know a little bit about command line and can follow instructions, thankfully for which there seem to be a lot in the Linux world!

I resuscitated an old computer system lying around (P4, 1GB RAM, Asus P5GD1, DVD burner/CD player, and more importantly for here, I ditched the motherboard Sigma Tel audio chip for an old SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card. This way I can connect both the CD and DVD to the soundcard's audio inputs. The motherboad, I think, just has the one CD input.

I installed Ubuntu Studio on Hardy and had some problems with both Audacity and the Alsa mixer. Im Alsa Mixer, I keep getting tons of error messages about an illegal character in Sigma Tel along these lines:

"Bad key or directory name: "/apps/gnome-alsamixer/slider_display_names/SigmaTel_STAC9708,11-Master": `,' is an invalid character in key/directory names"

Also get the Audio Device issue talked about at length in this forum.

I am going to get the QAMixer since Stevethefiddle recommended it for SoundBlaster. Maybe that will help.

As far as choosing an audio device in Audacity (basically I want to record sound on the computer--wave input--What U Hear kind of stuff--there are about ten ALSA choices; ADM and others I cannot recall at the moment; I don't remember a "default" unless that is the first ALSA choice listed after OSS. I tried several choices, but still got the error message and there is nothing listed in the Audio Device box under Help.

So I am ready to try the JACK solution although I'm still (unfortunately) a little fuzzy as to what JACK is and how it works, but if it gets Audacity going to the point where I can record and playback things, no problem.

Though I didn't do it last night, the thought occurred to me: do you have to have sound running so Audacity works? I am not at the Linux now, but would a sound be running and an input selected for the application to click in or are these error messages symtopmatic that it wouldn't go?

Anyway, playing around in Linux is fun and I hope to get Audacity working. BTW, Sound Recorder seems to work fine, FWIW.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[steve]

"Bad key or directory name: "/apps/gnome-alsamixer/slider_display_names/SigmaTel_STAC9708,11-Master": `,' is an invalid character in key/directory names"

It's the comma (,) before the word "11-Master" that is causing the problem. Your set-up is a bit different from mine in that I think Ubuntu Studio uses the Gnome Desktop, whereas I'm on Xubuntu which uses xfce.

There are a few issues with the current build of Audacity in Hardy (including the lack of any display in "Help > Device Info")

The first thing you need to do is to be able to access the mixer settings, preferably without getting errors.

I've got Audacity going reasonably well, though it will sometimes crash if I run other audio software at the same time. "Jack Control" is very effective in making Audacity crash, but is also very useful for setting up the Jack audio system.

What I do, is to start Jack Control, go to "Setup" and make my choices about sample rate and stuff, then restart the Jack server as indicated by the pop-up message. After checking that it is running OK with generating errors or Xruns, I press stop, and close Jack Control. I then open Audacity, set Playback and Recording to use Jack (in "Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O") and set the sample rate the same as I used in Jack Control (in "Edit > Preferences > Quality").
Do not try to do anything with Audacity yet!!!
For the new settings to take effect, you must close and restart Audacity.
Then cross your fingers and click the record button. If a track appears and you see the cursor progress along the time line, the Audacity is working.

Selecting the correct recording inputs is then done through your mixer application (I use "QAMix")

[nlavon]

Thanks, but using one of your older posts, I beat you to it and configured the Jack server the way you described (more or less). And I started using QAmix instead of ALSA Mixer.

And...it...worked!

I changed the audio device to Jack, changed the sample rate to 4800, and voila! Track working. I still have to figure out what Jack is (grin) but I'll get there. I did go to the page but I'll get there eventually in figuring out what it is and what it does.

That's the interesting thing about Linux...an entirely new world of things but at least the community is willing to post and document so there is always a chance to get it right.

So long Alsa Mixer. No need to mess with it now. BTW, I did notice the syntax errors and wondered why that happened and how to fix it, but QAMixer should do the trick.

Thanks for the suggestion, it did work...