HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

Valkyri9 · 2012-01-20 15:02:05

I looked for a while to find a comprehensive how-to for this on the forums but only found bits and pieces scattered here, there and elsewhere on the internet, so I tried to combine everything I found that worked for me into one complete how-to. If this is a duplicate of another how-to in the #! forums that I somehow missed I apologize in advance. big_smile

Open a terminal window and type the following to open the mixer:

alsamixer

Make sure you have the correct sound card selected. In my case it was the default sound card, but you can press F6 and use the arrow keys to select the one you want from the small window that pops up in the alsamixer, or the Esc key to leave the window and return to the mixer. This screenshot shows my current working alsamixer configuration:

Press F5 to view all devices - typically they will not all fit on a default size terminal window, but you can extend the window or maximize it so you can view everything on one screen if you so wish. Alternately you can use your right and left arrow keys to move between each section as you jump from device to device.

Use the right and left arrow keys to navigate to Mic. If you see MM at the bottom of the volume indicator, that means the microphone is muted, otherwise it should display 00. Press the M key on your keyboard to toggle to unmuted if it is not already displaying 00. Also use the up and down arrow keys to change the volume, I recommend setting it to 100 with the up arrow key.

Now use the right or left arrow key to select Mic Boost (there may be two entries) and lower the volume (on each) to 0. Mic Boost is likely to cause problems by creating distortion and noise interference - only if you find your recording volume is too low should you raise the volume on these devices.

Verify that Input source is set to the correct device. In my case, Input Source is set to Internal Mic, and Input Source 1 is set to Mic (to allow me to hook up an external microphone if I so choose). To change either, use the left or right arrow keys to select each device, then while selected use the up and down arrow keys to select your preferred option.

Next, select Capture using the left or right arrow key. Raise the volume to 100. If you do not see the word CAPTURE in capital red letters, press the Spacebar to toggle it enabled (you should also see a capital L and R above the word CAPTURE). This is important - if your system is a laptop equipped with a stereo microphone, press either the ; or the ' key to toggle either the left or the right channel off (only one needs to be disabled - you will know it is disabled when the red capital L or R disappears). If this does not work, you may need disable CAPTURE on this device, and enable it on Capture1 or Digital instead (sometimes these devices are not labeled correctly and some trial and error may be necessary to determine which one matches your audio card's microphone).

Press the Esc key to quit out of the alsamixer. This would be a good time to test audio recording using something like RecordmyDesktop or YouTube's web camera recorder. YouTube's web camera recorder is particularly helpful because it will display microphone activity even if you are not recording. Note that if you have Mic Boost set to any level above 0 you may get a false indication that your microphone is recording sound, when in fact it is merely picking up internal feedback and not recording any external audio at all.

If you intend to use Google Talk's video chat, Google Voice or Google+ Hangouts you will need to do the following. If you have already installed the GoogleTalk Plugin skip down to the next step. Download the GoogleTalk Plugin here: http://www.google.com/talk and select the correct .deb file for your system (32-bit or 64-bit). Install it with Gdebi Package Installer by right-clicking the downloaded file in the File Manager and selecting this option. Enter your password when prompted and allow the install to complete.

Enter the following commands into your terminal window:

cd ~/.config/google-googletalkplugin

cp options options.bak      #there may be no options file yet so you may get a file not found error

nano options

Look the following entry (if you are creating a new options file or this entry is not present skip to the next step):

audio-flags=3

And change it to the following (or simply add this line if it is not in the options file):

audio-flags=1

Then press CTRL+X to Exit, and save your changes when prompted by pressing the Y key. This will disable the Google Talk Plugin's auto-sensing mic volume adjust, which will potentially alter your mic ALSA settings. Enter the following into your terminal window to return to your home directory:

cd

Now you need to figure out the hardware name of your microphone by typing this command:

arecord -L

This should generate something that looks like the following:

card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC60 Analog [ALC670 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

In my case, the device name I was looking for was to the right of card 0: - Intel. Now it's time to create an .asoundrc file if you don't already have one.

nano .asoundrc

Copy and paste the following into your new .asoundrc file (if you already have a .asoundrc file you may wish to copy your file to something like .asoundrc-old first as a backup):

pcm.internal   #named for internal mic, could be pcm.anything
{
   type hw
   card Intel   #Change the name of your card here as appropriate
   playback.pcm
}
pcm.!default
{
   type asym
   playback.pcm
   {
      type plug
      slave.pcm "dmix"
   }
   capture.pcm
   {
      type plug
      slave.pcm "internal"   #must match the name selected on the first line after 'pcm.'
   }
}

Click CTRL+X to Exit, and save when prompted by pressing the Y key. Reload ALSA by typing the following:

sudo service alsa-utils restart

You should now be able to use your microphone via the Google Talk plugin in Google Talk, Google Voice or Google+ Hangouts. I stopped using Skype after Microsoft acquired the company, so I have not tested this setup against it, but in theory this should help get your Skype working also. If anyone could let me know whether this helps their Skype config I'd appreciate it.

Narvey · 2012-02-22 00:42:36

So, why do you need the .asoundrc file if the microphone is already working? When I added mine, it made it so I couldn't mute my speakers anymore, and alsa complained that the file was old or corrupt.

Also, as a side note, what is Microsoft doing bad with Skype that made you switch?

ivanovnegro · 2012-02-22 01:26:36

Nice how-to and indeed it will work also with Skype, always wanted to make a how-to about it but the steps are the same.
But as @Narvey mentioned there is normally no need for an extra .asoundrc, you can even configure your mic withing Google itself, on your Gmail page, you just go to Options on the top right and you can also test the mic.

@Narvey: I have to say, Google Talk is working better for me than Skype and I would like to ditch it also but I need it for some of my friends who rely on it. It is sometimes buggy and not really supported in the sense of the actual upstream development under Linux. Linux users are unfortunateley second class citizens for Skype and I think Microsoft would even ditch it for us if there were not clients that pay for it.

Valkyri9 · 2012-02-22 17:41:06

ivanovnegro wrote:

Nice how-to and indeed it will work also with Skype, always wanted to make a how-to about it but the steps are the same.
But as @Narvey mentioned there is normally no need for an extra .asoundrc, you can even configure your mic withing Google itself, on your Gmail page, you just go to Options on the top right and you can also test the mic.

In my case (at least on Ubuntu) there is an auto-sensing volume feature built into the Google Talk plugin that would automatically enable and link both microphone volume channels together, undoing my alsamixer settings. If I went back into alsamixer while the plugin was active and reset them, it would revert my changes within a few seconds. I found it rather annoying so I disabled it entirely.

I think I may have created the .asoundrc file before discovering that I could disable one of the channels in alsamixer, so you are probably correct in that it is probably not necessary. I'll need to test my setup with it removed to find out.

madwoollything · 2012-03-16 15:38:38

I'm a little puzzled.

The microphone on my acer aspire one seems to work fine with Skype but not with Google Chat .... seems odd or is this quite normal?

If I make the above changes to get Google Chat working, will this then break the microphone settings for Skype?

ivanovnegro · 2012-03-16 16:15:32

^ Why should it break? Try it, I do it always from the Gmail page anyway.

madwoollything · 2012-03-18 09:33:57

ivanovnegro wrote:

^ Why should it break? Try it, I do it always from the Gmail page anyway.

Thanks .... both Skype and Google Chat (my preference too) are working nicely ..... great post!

I too didn't need the .asoundrc config file. Just setting the alsamixer settings seems to be fine even after a reboot.

soiledostrich · 2013-03-16 03:17:35

Thank you so much for this guide!

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#1 2012-01-20 15:02:05

HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#2 2012-02-22 00:42:36

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#3 2012-02-22 01:26:36

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#4 2012-02-22 17:41:06

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#5 2012-03-16 15:38:38

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#6 2012-03-16 16:15:32

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#7 2012-03-18 09:33:57

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

#8 2013-03-16 03:17:35

Re: HOW TO get your laptop's internal stereo microphone working in #!

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