Stereo mic only captures in mono

[Capoeira]

hello guys,

i have a problem with my mic here. Sony ecm-ds70p Stereo-MIC, BUT I cant capture in stereo with it. first i thought that my shity onboard-souncard has only a mono-input but now i realized that there in alsamixer, under "mic select" i have two options: "Mic1" gives me the left mic on both channels, "Mic2" gives me the right mic on both channels. So, how can I capture from those 2 mics together?????????

[MattKingUSA]

Try the line in input, usualy mic is mono and line in is stereo. Unless your sound card is much different.

[Capoeira]

Thanks, but i don't have an amplifier, and i think this mic don't even gets energy on line-in.
but like i said, the soundcard captures both channels, only that it is not possible to use them both together

[dchurch24]

What are you capturing into? Ardour?

Which sound card do you have? Is it an Envy card of any kind (M-Audio?)

[Capoeira]

What are you capturing into? Ardour?

Which sound card do you have? Is it an Envy card of any kind (M-Audio?)

Into Ardour, Rosegarden but it doesn't matter because the problem is the soundcard-driver wich doesn't seem to have the option to support stereo-mics in mic-in. It understands the stereo-signal as 2 MICs and only lets me choose one of them, there is no option to choose both.

Like i wrote, i have onboard AC97 sound (yea i know....., but i am poor)

[MattKingUSA]

What are you capturing into? Ardour?

Which sound card do you have? Is it an Envy card of any kind (M-Audio?)

Into Ardour, Rosegarden but it doesn't matter because the problem is the soundcard-driver wich doesn't seem to have the option to support stereo-mics in mic-in. It understands the stereo-signal as 2 MICs and only lets me choose one of them, there is no option to choose both.

Like i wrote, i have onboard AC97 sound (yea i know....., but i am poor)

Well, if you don't have a mixer and a way to split the track when you input it into your system then I would just say that multi track recording is the best way to go. You just may have to record the same thing twice and then digitaly pan it to the left and right channels.

[Capoeira]

What are you capturing into? Ardour?

Which sound card do you have? Is it an Envy card of any kind (M-Audio?)

Into Ardour, Rosegarden but it doesn't matter because the problem is the soundcard-driver wich doesn't seem to have the option to support stereo-mics in mic-in. It understands the stereo-signal as 2 MICs and only lets me choose one of them, there is no option to choose both.

Like i wrote, i have onboard AC97 sound (yea i know....., but i am poor)

Well, if you don't have a mixer and a way to split the track when you input it into your system then I would just say that multi track recording is the best way to go. You just may have to record the same thing twice and then digitaly pan it to the left and right channels.

I hope ths is a joke , i can't sing 2 times exact the same way. ehehehh.
but i use it mono now, since i can do nothing. will try to get answer in more tecnical forum.
thanks

[MattKingUSA]

No it was not a joke. You can duplicate your track and then pan it also if double tracking doesn't sound like something you would be interested in doing. Sorry that you didn't find the help you needed with your mic situation. Maybe try finding a manual for your mic online or for your soundcard. That may solve this issue for you.

[raboof]

i have onboard AC97 sound

A quick google ('alsa AC97 stereo mic') turned up ubuntu bug 62855, which suggests a bug with stereo capturing was fixed between 1.0.10 and 1.0.11. What distro are you using? What version of alsa are you using?

You might also want to download and run www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh, and show the output to us and perhaps #alsa on freenode or some alsa-mailinglist to get more help.

[Capoeira]

(EDIT: this answer was for post from Matt)

don't get me wrong, i think this question is more like a question for software-developers, so it isn't the right place to ask here.
Because the problem isn't the mic or the soundcard but the linux-driver wich doesn't support stereo-capturing on mic-in jack although the soundcard defenitly does.
other thing is that that mic is condensator-mic but needs a powerd-jack because it has no battarie, so it can't be used directly on line-in jack.
BUT, what i am recording is only my voice, say it is one source from the front, so i really don't need the stereo don't I? Also the 2 mics are verry close together so I think the stereo-effect isn't really great. I only wanted to test it, but i can live without the stereo i think.
thanks

[Capoeira]

i have onboard AC97 sound

A quick google ('alsa AC97 stereo mic') turned up ubuntu bug 62855, which suggests a bug with stereo capturing was fixed between 1.0.10 and 1.0.11. What distro are you using? What version of alsa are you using?

You might also want to download and run http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh, and show the output to us and perhaps #alsa on freenode or some alsa-mailinglist to get more help.

thanks for trying to help,
but the problem is not on the line-in jack but on the mic-in jack!!!!
also i don't even have that "alsa-lib", although I really have a Ubuntu 8.4 based distro (64studio 3.0 beta). And this bug was on Ubuntu 6.06
however, i ran the script and this is the output: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=c8acd ... 9980b02e9e

[raboof]

ubuntu bug 62855

the problem is not on the line-in jack but on the mic-in jack!!!!

Actually, if you read the rest of the issue, it also affected microphone capture. But as you're running 1.0.16, you're facing a different issue.

also i don't even have that "alsa-lib", although I really have a Ubuntu 8.4 based distro (64studio 3.0 beta).

Actually, "alsa-lib" is the name of the source package. From this source package multiple binary packages are produced, among others libasound2 which you probably do have installed.

[MattKingUSA]

You might need a phantom power box for your microphone if I understand correctly.

EDIT: On the double tracking, this is what I was talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfDfqOTX6M

If you listen to the song on stereo speakers you can hear that Sido is using double tracking. But it sound really full. And I think this song ist sehr gut.

EDIT2: Nevermind, this version is mono. Well...nevermind...But the song is still good...If you hear the song on the radio or hear it on imeem or something you can hear what I mean. It's "ein teil von mir".

Here we go, http://www.imeem.com/aggrofan/music/pZN ... d-b-tight/ This is the version with doulbe tracking. It sounds cool.

[Capoeira]

I see Matt, but this is a classic teqnique fom Hip-Hop.
wenn du deutsch sprichst, like it seems than take a look at this too: http://homerecording.de/modules/newbb/v ... &forum=225

[raboof]

You might need a phantom power box for your microphone if I understand correctly.

Some more googling brings up http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=7121 ... =1&#712201 and http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s= ... entry87293 , which suggests this mic needs 'plug in power' a low-voltage variant of phantom power, not the full thing. http://www.felmicamps.co.uk/pluginpower.html suggests 'mic in' ports op pc's generally do provide this 'plug in power'.