Unfortunately with all the playing I have done in the past with mixer levels (several hours at different times) I have been unable to get an acceptable quality. Hence I have been considering the brute force filter approach. Toby P.S. my main laptop is a toshiba dynabook RX1/T7E (portege r500), but I am having similar issues with an asus eee 901a, has anyone had specific experience with those models? <div class="gmail_quote"> 2009/6/3 Jud Craft <<a href="mailto:craftjml@gmail.com">craftjml@gmail.com</a>> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> 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. <div class="im"> </div></blockquote></div> -- This email is intended for the addressee only and may contain privileged and/or confidential information