Daily Archives: 2007 February 1

Running Audacity under Ubuntu 6.10 Linux

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As a “budding” radio journalist (self-styled freelancer), I quickly realized the need to practice and learn the art of audio documentaries. So I decided to upon keep radio diaries.

For recording, I am using Audacity, an open source sound editing program. Running Audacity under Ubuntu Linux 6.10 proved a bit problematic. After a bit of poking around the Ubuntu forums, and Launchpad, I finally figured out a solution.

At first running audacity refused to work with my soundcard. Having installed alsa-oss already, I ran:

> aoss audacity

The minute I started recording, audacity crashed. This time a problem with the esd mixer many Gnome applications use. I need to turn off esd, by running Gnome instead of KDE.
I then ran System > Preferences > Sound and unchecked the esd mixer option. ESD problem fixed.

But the recording still did not come through. Turns out the volume was turned down to mute. Duh. I ran alsamixer:


After some experimentation, I found I needed to unmute the Line In, and change the Input So option to Front Mic. To turn up the volume, I pressed Tab and increased the Capture volume.


With audacity worked flawlessly, and I can record myself.

Links:
Audacity – an open source (and free) sound editor
Ubuntu Forums – excellent community with support for Ubuntu problems.
Launchpad – Canonical’s bug and developer network, and used heavily for Ubuntu development.

The Plague (Part 3): Recovery & Headaches

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Ah the third part of our series…
Today I do feel better, even with the occasional headaches and tiredness. Everyone is more or less on the road to improvement. Kind of too tired to write about this much, and I still am waiting for my “wakeup” tea to cool enough to drink.

Lets me go down and check… Much better. Its funny how a cup of orange pekoe tea can wake a person up. The miracle of caffeine, good thing the decaf folks did not outlaw that substance. Cause if they did, half the people would not get up and go to work the next day. And they would have to close the universities down for the day… Hmm… I feel an evil plan coming on. Muhaha!

In other news, I started keeping a radio diary of myself. Its harder than it looks. Keeping the noise down, speaking clearly and making sense at the same time, all of these create a challenge. Hopefully, by doing daily diaries I can figure this challenge out. And not sound like a cross between Adam Sandler and William Shatner. Yes. Really.