[pulseaudio-discuss] Microphone input filter

[Jud Craft]

Your microphone should have the same capability under ALSA that it
does under Windows.  It's the same hardware, it's just a little harder
to configure.  While it's possible that it has special "only make good
sound under Windows" drivers, you could still give Linux a shot.

With my laptop mic, I usually need at least 50% or 100% microphone
boost (100% is sometimes too strong).  Then I find an ideal volume for
my microphone/Front Mic (usually around 50%-60%) and stick with that.

Since it's your laptop microphone, odds are you're going to be in the
same physical position (in front of the laptop) when you use it.

So pull open the console and run "alsamixer -c0", then open up Sound
Recorder in your Applications menu, and just test the different
settings until you find something you can live with.  After you do
that, there's no need to worry about it again.  Hope that helps.



> Hi Maarten,
>
> There seem to be three levels that affect the mic, the 'Front Mic Boost'
> which is 0,33,66 or 100%, the capture input level and a mysterious input
> labeled digital. I have played with many combinations of the levels and
> cannot find any where my voice is audible but has an acceptable level of
> background noise.
>
> It is possible that these is some driver level thing going wrong, but so far
> I have not been able to identify it. The mic is built into the keyboard of
> my laptop just above the harddrive, so I am not surprised it is noisy, that
> is why I was wondering if some filtering would help.
>
> Toby
>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Toby Collett
>> > I am trying to use the internal microphone in my laptop to make VOIP
>> > calls
>> > (actually skype mostly). The quality of the sound is not good at all
>> > with
>> > large amounts of background noise when I have the levels up high enough
>> > to
>> > get voice. The microphone is usable windows, and I am wondering if this
>> > is
>> > due to software filters being applied there?
>>
>> Could it be that the mic-boost or some other switch of the soundcard
>> is differently initialized under Windows?
>> You can check in Linux with: alsamixer -c0