Mic - Pre-Amp - Audio Interface very unreliable

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bastian
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:46 pm

Mic - Pre-Amp - Audio Interface very unreliable

Post by bastian »

Hello dear Linux Musicians!

I have a question regarding my general system setup for an audio interface.

I have a laptop with Debian SID running. I have a microphone with preamp plugged into my computer via a simple audio interface (Roland duo-capture mk2). When I record something with Audacity, I can sometimes select the audio interface as input and sometimes not. When I can select it and do so, I can record through the microphone and everything works. But sometimes the option is not available in the drop down.

I am using the Cinnamon desktop environment. I can chose there besides the internal microphone either Digital Input DUO-CAPTURE or Analog Input DUO-CAPTURE. On both I sometimes don't see anything in the Input level display (I am wondering about the difference because the connection to the computer is always digital and the connection into the audio interface always analog).

When I open Zoom, I can choose as Input "Same as System", "Built in audio" and the Audio Interface. But when I choose the audio interface or "same as system" (and have chosen the audio interface in cinnamons sound settings) I also see sometimes no movement in the input level although I see it in the UI of the Cinnamon Sound Settings.

So the whole thing is super buggy or flaky and my question is: How can I make this stable? How would you set that up? Right now I am concerned about Zoom, but I would like to be able to use my mic in general without "sometimes it works, sometimes not". I have not encountered issues with the audio interface in combination with Mixxx - but I have also just used it a few times yet.

For me Alsa, Pulseaudio or Jack are things I have been playing around with 25 years ago but I don't remember the basic concepts anymore. But I'm fine to digg deeper, to work on the console, write some scripts and so on.

Love,
Bastian
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