[Scroll down for the meat of the problem in bold letters].

This is so confusing. Having all of these different Mixers available to me just makes things worse because I don't know which one to use. I'm likely going to do some searches on whether I should switch from my previously preferred mixer or not.

In the meantime though, I've upgraded from Oneric to Precise and lost my shortcut menus and personalized buttons. I used to have a button that perfectly muted my mic when pressed but for the life of me I don't know what it was tied into. And trying to figure it out just now led me through a maze of Gnome-Alsa Mixer, Mixer-HDA Intel, and the "Audio Mixer" for the XFCE Desktop.

I wish I had remember earlier on what the name of the audio mixer was that I had used to use primarily. But it wasn't until playing with all three for about fifteen minutes that a lightbulb went off in my head and I remember that it was Gnome-Alsa Mixer that I had settled on several months ago when I had went through this before.

That's water under the bridge now. My current condition is a mix of two of my biggest problems being a Front Mic Boost which keeps automatically going up on it's own while I fight with it in real time, and some really bad audio noise when recording.

Can anyone help me with sorting through this? If not I'm actively going through the forums even as you read this and I'll likely come up with a solution eventually. But help in getting through this sooner rather than later would be appreciated since I am a father of three and don't have the time to simply enjoy the trouble-shooting process like I used to in my mid twenties.