soundcard inactive in Audacity

[coyotl]

A little weird. Common intel integrated audio on desktop machine, alsa works fine, playback fine.

But Audacity cannot see the soundcard, so I cannot record audio. What to look for?

[gapan]

In Preferences, Devices page, you can select the Recording device. You need to pick the right one. You can also do that from the main toolbar, next to the microphone icon.

[coyotl]

It actually appears that I don't have this setting.. I have scrutinized both the menu and the Control Panel.

Now, this problem could in fact be a limitation of this el cheapo integrated chip. On another pc the mic simply did not work on a similar chip, and trying to use a desktop recording program together with Webex led to spectacular crashes in win7. Probs vanished after putting in a SB Audigy.

[gapan]

Post the output of

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arecord -l

[coyotl]

stein@darkstar:~$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1988 Analog [AD1988 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1988 Alt Analog [AD1988 Alt Analog]
Subdevices: 2/2
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1

my OS version is Salix 14.1 Xfce in case that is relevant.

[coyotl]

have tried to enable capture in alsamixer. rec from cli fails with cryptic messages

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 arecord -f cd -t raw | lame -x -r \u2013 out.mp3
Recording raw data 'stdin' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo
Could not find "u2013".

have tried selecting various devices but this has always worked in audacity -am suspecting hw limitation. pc is in good order though, a good late xp era lenovo desktop

[gapan]

You are confused. What is that command, where did you find it and what are you trying to do? Copy-pasting stuff you don't understand at all will not fix your problem. If you just want to test recording, keep it simple!

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arecord -t wav test.wav

The output of "arecord -l" shows that you do in fact have recording devices in your PC. These are most certainly somewhere in the audacity GUI, you just have to look for them. Actually they should be right where I told you they are.

[coyotl]

Sorry I did this without paying attention, I think even the copypaste went wrong..

Thanks, your command returns a soundless wav, could be just sound level at 0? have to go through all mixer and other settings and see

[gapan]

Yes, you should open alsamixer, make sure recording levels are up and the channels are not muted.