how to hear mic sound over speakers- Ubuntu karmic

I want to hear the sound that goes into the notebook's mic from the notebook's speaker itself.

I am on Ubuntu 9.10

ashishsony

Posted 2009-12-25T12:25:57.133

Reputation: 652

I think this should happen by default. Make sure volume levels are up and channels are unmuted. – alfplayer – 2009-12-25T17:36:12.270

volume is up but i really don't hear what i am speaking in mic.. – ashishsony – 2009-12-26T18:55:31.583

Answers

The global fix for this issue (i.e. not a piped solution running in the foreground) is more or less described in the article linked from Archon, but I keep forgetting and ending up back at this page so I'll provide a summary:

pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1

This command will load the loopback module and enable global loopback of all input devices through your output (I believe, though I've only used it to solve routing my sound card's input through its output, so YMMV... not sure if this picks up all bluetooth inputs).

To permanently load this each time you restart your session (I believe pulseaudio works based on user login, so session restart not machine restart) add the following to your pulse audio config file. I chose the default config affecting all users, which is '/etc/pulse/default.pa' on my Ubuntu machine. Add the following line to the bottom:

load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1

peterporter

Posted 2009-12-25T12:25:57.133

Reputation: 161

old answer, but still useful and working also on Ubuntu 15.04 – Pisu – 2015-09-25T18:43:54.473

2I found on Ubuntu 12.10 adding the latency value I get lots of static noise in the audio but running just pactl load-module module-loopback works perfectly, thanks. – Cas – 2012-12-23T19:19:37.050

Excellent. Line In was non-functional for me. Fortunately with this, two Mic In now can serve as general Line In, and, what's more, the one Mic In is at the front of the computer! After executing the pactl command, a number is output. This is the module number that may be used to unload the module with later. pactl unload-module n. A script that can unload modules by name is here: http://umonkey-tools.googlecode.com/hg/bin/pactl-unload-by-name

– kbulgrien – 2013-03-09T23:03:27.917

This seems to be the best solution. Should be the accepted answer IMHO. – RolandiXor – 2013-08-31T16:49:00.267

Things like this (I mean, the fact that this is the simplest way to achieve such a simple task, with no GUI at all when it would only imply a checkbox) makes linux distros be lightyears away from becoming a decent desktop environment. – Esteban – 2013-10-12T16:00:01.613

@peterporter can we change the channel map of particular device so that we can hear the live audio from that particular channel like right or left – Prakash V Holkar – 2014-04-28T08:20:41.690

I use the following command (found at: http://efreedom.com/Question/3-127276/Play-Mic-Speakers-Ubuntu-Karmic):

pacat -r --latency-msec=1 -d alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo | pacat -p --latency-msec=1 -d alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo

Where:

alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo is your input device
alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo is your output device

Use paman to find these device names.

Gideon Redelinghuys

Posted 2009-12-25T12:25:57.133

Reputation: 101

My solution however was simpler. If you use the audio settings gui to specify the input and output, then you just need to use the following: pacat -r | pacat -p --fix-rate --latency-msec=10 – qwerty9967 – 2013-08-23T02:13:04.670

This is a problem with pulseaudio. See this thread for a cludgy fix.

Archon

Posted 2009-12-25T12:25:57.133

Reputation:

Thanks, this did work for me (at the end of the thread you cited): http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9850856&postcount=10 [basically use alsamixer]

– Theraot – 2011-08-27T10:13:47.537

#To stop sound loop find module number e.g. 4 and unload.
=========================================================
# pactl list | grep "Source\|loopback"
# pactl unload-module 4

Pieter

Posted 2009-12-25T12:25:57.133

Reputation: 21

2$ pactl unload-module $(pactl list short modules | awk '$2 == "module-loopback" { print $1 }' - ) – kbulgrien – 2013-03-09T23:39:16.527