[PLUG] Audio Recording Problem(s)?

[tomas.kuchta.lists at gmail.com]

You do not say what distribution you are running on that Thinkpad.

So, I am going to guess that you are using pulse audio and have pavucontrol, and
pulseaudio-utils installed.

If that is the case try this guide:
https://ro-che.info/articles/2017-07-21-record-audio-linux

If you use pulse audio, alsa, ... just about anything and you are fan of ffmpeg
- you could try:
Check supported ffmpeg devices:
ffmpeg -devices true -f dshow -i dummy

if you use PA - use pavucontrol to select microphone and set its gain:
ffmpeg -f pulse -i default output.mp3
ffmpeg -f pulse -i default output.wav

if you use alsa - use alsamixer to select microphone and set its gain:
ffmpeg -f alsa -i default output.mp3
ffmpeg -f alsa -i default output.wav

If your distro is really old and still uses oss - just replace alsa/pulse with
oss in ffmpeg options.

Hope it helps,
Tomas

On Mon, 2019-10-28 at 15:50 -0700, Dick Steffens wrote:
> I'm having problems using Audacity or Ardour5 to record audio on my 
> Thinkpad X200 Tablet. Both programs hang in different ways.
> 
> Using Audacity, sometimes, when pressing the record button, it will 
> start and stop in one second. Pressing record again does the same thing. 
> But sometimes it works, and I can record.
> 
> Using Ardour5, I click on New Session, giving me a Session Setup window. 
> Using the Empty Template, assigning a name, Test-3, and clicking Open 
> gives me an Audio/MIDI Setup window. Clicking Start gives me a small 
> window that says, "Failed to open audio device." Clicking OK Takes me 
> back to the Audio/MIDI Setup window. Closing that window gives me 
> another small window, Loading Error, that says, "Could not create 
> session in /"home/rstreff/Documents/Ardour/Test-3" Cannot connect to 
> audio/midi engine. Clicking OK takes me back to the Session Setup window.
> 
> How can I tell if I've got a hardware problem or a software problem?
> 
> And, is there a simple record program I can use that will let me record 
> and monitor the recording on the fly?
>