Alsa Problem or Audacity Problem?
Question: Should Audacity have a switch to select between input sources
or rely on Alsamixer to make the selection?
Problem: On two Squeeze systems I have found two distinctly different
versions of Alsamixer both labeled version 1.0.20. One is capable of
selecting an input source which Audacity can record, the other cannot.
As I reported earlier this week on a Lenny system Audacity 1.3.5-beta
had no switch to select the source for input. I was able to check
Audacity 1.3.7 on a Squeeze system found it too had no switch to select
the source for input. However on the Squeeze system Alsamixer 1.0.20
had switches explicitly labeled as selecting capture for individual
sources. While playing a cd I tried selecting capture from cd with no
effect. When I switched to capture mix the vumeter bars on Audacity
became active and Audacity was able to record the signal.
To take advantage of this I changed the entries in sources.list from
Lenny to Squeeze and ran apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
Audacity was upgraded to 1.3.7 but still has no switch to select the
input source. Alsamixer is now version 1.0.20 BUT it appears unchanged
and does not offer the explict choice to select the input source.
To be precise in the version on my system upgraded to Squeeze there are
three volume bars labeled capture which can be toggled on/off with the
space bar. There are also three labels input source with no volume
bars, just a text entry in place of the volume bar. The text entries
can be toggled between mix/cd/mic/line/front mic with the up/down arrow
keys.
In contrast, the Alsamixer on the Squeeze system I tested before
upgrading has just one volume bar labeled capture which can be toggled
on/off with the space bar and two labels, mix and mono mix, which can be
toggled between capture and off with the space bar.
I would be content with this latter version of Alsamixer to select input
sources for Audacity but I didn't get it with the upgrade. On the other
hand not everyone uses Alsa so it would be logical if Audacity had a
switch to select the source of the input as it did in the past.
For the moment can anyone help me get Audacity record working?
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