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WindPower
September 26th, 2009, 04:59 PM
Hi, I have a MacBook Pro that I bought about three weeks ago. Since it was very recent, I assumed all the while that it was a MacBookPro5,5 and followed the MacBookPro5,5/Jaunty instructions (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro5-5/Jaunty) instructions on the Wiki, and they have worked flawlessly. Yet, out of curiosity, one day I ran "sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name" just out of curiosity and it said "MacBookPro5,3"! Does that mean I did not buy the latest MacBook Pro model? I ordered it from Apple...

Anyway, sound was not working out of the box, so I followed the sound instructions on the MacBookPro5,5 page, which made both the sound and the microphone work. However, the microphone volume is extremely low. I have to shout very loudly in order to hear anything out of the recording. That, and I get a very noticeable (~500ms) audio lag in Windows apps running in Wine with the alsa driver, though that is a secondary problem.

Time passed and then I ran "sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name" to find out that I didn't follow the correct instructions page. So I thought that my audio would work if I followed the audio instructions on the MacBookPro5,3, but it turns out that the code to execute is exactly the same between the two pages, so this wasn't the problem.
So now I still have my microphone problem :(

Here's alsamixer -V all:
┌──────────────────────────[AlsaMixer v1.0.18 (Press Escape to quit)]──────────────────────────┐
│ Card: HDA NVidia │
│ Chip: Cirrus Logic CS4206 │
│ View: Playback Capture [All] │
│ Item: Master [dB gain=0.00] │
│ │
│ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ ├──┤ ├──┤ └──┘ ├──┤ ┌──┐ └──┘ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ └──┘ │
│ │OO│ │OO│ │OO│ │OO│ │OO│ │OO│ │
│ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ └──┘ L R │
│ CAPTUR │
│ 100 100<>100 100<>100 100<>100 100<>100 100<>100 │
│ < Master > Headphon PCM Front Sp Surround Surround IEC958 IEC958 D Capture │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────────────────── ┘
As you can see, I just turned everything to the maximum and my microphone is still way too low.
All my apps are using ALSA and there is no pulseaudio/esound/whatever daemon running, it's all pure ALSA.

I read about a "Microphone boost" option in alsamixer, but I can't seem to see it. Perhaps it is the solution to my problem, but how to enable it?

Running Kubuntu 9.04 64-bit with KDE 4.3 and kernel 2.6.28-15-generic.

crocowhile
September 27th, 2009, 11:40 AM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7959332&postcount=169

WindPower
September 27th, 2009, 01:07 PM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7959332&postcount=169I do not use PulseAudio, I am on Kubuntu which uses ALSA :(

WindPower
October 27th, 2009, 09:01 PM
I caved in and installed PulseAudio, but still couldn't set the volume to 150% in any sound mixer, or check a "Microphone boost" checkbox anywhere in alsamixer or KMix or whatever. I solved it by following this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/275998/comments/109
Basically, it creates an extra audio interface which can be software-amplified up to +50 dB (After following the instructions, you have to go to alsamixer and increase the volume of the input device that was just created).

Not sure if I should mark this as solved though, because this is really a hack, not a solution... I think?

proycon
October 29th, 2009, 07:28 AM
Crocowhile's instruction worked perfectly for me and seems a bit less intrusive than adding a boost device. I had to select "Internal Audio Analog Stereo" on my MacBook Pro 5,3 (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_08.0.analog-stereo). You may need to apt-get install paman .

But I suppose the setting will be lost at reboot again? Is there an easy way to make it stick?

WindPower
October 29th, 2009, 04:02 PM
Crocowhile's instruction worked perfectly for me and seems a bit less intrusive than adding a boost device. I had to select "Internal Audio Analog Stereo" on my MacBook Pro 5,3 (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_08.0.analog-stereo). You may need to apt-get install paman .

But I suppose the setting will be lost at reboot again? Is there an easy way to make it stick?

That's pretty cool, never saw you could increase the volume using this. :D