No Source Selector

[TomGeorge]

There is no source selection (mike, line, other?) tool bar. I am trying to capture sound from a tape deck connected to the audio card input.

My system is Lenny with a 2.6.26-1-amd64 stock kernel and Audacity 1.3.5-Beta. The audio card is NVidia on the motherboard. In preferences the NVidia card is selected for both input and output. It works for output when I load an audio file from the hard drive but the output volume control has no effect. I must control the output volume with the alsamixer.

[TomGeorge]

When I click on Help/Audio Device Info the response is, "Stream is active . . . Unable to gather information."

[TomGeorge]

PROBLEM: SOUND BUT NO SOUND

Sound: alsaplayer plays cd's & totem plays videos. alsamixer adjusts
volume.

No Sound: Audacity has no input control - input options are determined
by the sound card so presumably Audacity doesn't see the sound card.

The system is Lenny and Audacity 1.3.5-beta was installed with apt-get.

FINALLY PUZZLED IT OUT:

First, Audacity shows no source bar because it only sees one source,
line in.

Second the proper selections must be made in Audacity's Edit/Preferences/Audio I/O window.
This is not obvious as when Audacity is first loaded the window shows
ALSA: HDA NVidia AD198x Analog (hw:0,0) is already
selected for both input and output. This works for input but not for
output. Other choices are offered but I ultimately found ALSA: default
works for both input and output.

Third, getting this far does not guarantee either audio capture or sound.
A careful study of the Alsamixer man page is necessary.
When the correct capture channel is selected (There
are at least three) and the proper output volumes are set and not muted
you are in business. The capture and play back volume levels must be
controlled with the Alsamixer, the Audactiy volume level settings have
no effect.

When all this is done Audacity works very nicely. Having only line input is
okay for me as the line is from my stereo system which includes phono,
tape, cd, radio and tv. Still it is annoying not to be able to capture
directly from the system's optical drive.

[steve]

Thanks for posting your findings TomGeorge.

I ultimately found ALSA: default
works for both input and output.

Yes, "ALSA default" is usually the best option on Linux systems. Usually this setting is chosen by Audacity from first installation, for anyone else with the same problem, you should try manually selecting "ALSA default" for both Playback and Recording device if it is not already selected.

Still it is annoying not to be able to capture
directly from the system's optical drive.

I think that all Linux users long for the day when hardware manufacturers provide Linux drivers for their hardware.