Recording hi def audio

[jackpf]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use my Pi to record audio input at the best possible quality.

I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I ... ge_o01_s00
and am using ALSA (arecord) to record the audio.

This all works, but the sound quality isn't great. I'm wondering, is this due to limitations of ALSA, the Pi, or the USB sound card (it was very cheap)?
I'm also wondering what my options are - is it possible to record via HDMI for better quality? Or is there a better solution?

Any help is very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Jack

[fruitoftheloom]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use my Pi to record audio input at the best possible quality.

I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I ... ge_o01_s00
and am using ALSA (arecord) to record the audio.

This all works, but the sound quality isn't great. I'm wondering, is this due to limitations of ALSA, the Pi, or the USB sound card (it was very cheap)?
I'm also wondering what my options are - is it possible to record via HDMI for better quality? Or is there a better solution?

Any help is very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Jack

The Raspberry Pi all models have no Audio Inputs.

Depending on model of RPi there are Cirrus/Wolfson Audio Cards available at around £35.00

[fruit-uk]

Depending on model of RPi there are Cirrus/Wolfson Audio Cards available at around £35.00

My Wolfson is still going strong but I'm not sure I'd buy another, their support has been almost non-existant

[jackpf]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use my Pi to record audio input at the best possible quality.

I bought one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I ... ge_o01_s00
and am using ALSA (arecord) to record the audio.

This all works, but the sound quality isn't great. I'm wondering, is this due to limitations of ALSA, the Pi, or the USB sound card (it was very cheap)?
I'm also wondering what my options are - is it possible to record via HDMI for better quality? Or is there a better solution?

Any help is very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Jack

The Raspberry Pi all models have no Audio Inputs.

Depending on model of RPi there are Cirrus/Wolfson Audio Cards available at around £35.00

Yeah that's why I'm using a USB sound card. But my question is, what's causing the sub-par quality? Would the Wolfson audio card provide superior sound quality?

[DougieLawson]

Depending on model of RPi there are Cirrus/Wolfson Audio Cards available at around £35.00

My Wolfson is still going strong but I'm not sure I'd buy another, their support has been almost non-existant

It's worse than non-existent, all of the support came from folks who had the virtually unsupported board so had to do it themselves. You can't get beyond a 3.18.9 kernel because the support stops there.

Any other audio board has to be a better choice.

[fruitoftheloom]

http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspberrypi

[blc]

What's poor about the audio quality? Is it:

Quiet
Loud
Distorted
Low bitrate
....
?

I don't know too much about Linux audio so I'm afraid I can't suggest much in that regard, but if you've got access to another PC, preferably a Mac or Windows machine (i.e. not Linux), then try using this soundcard on a different machine - if you get the same results then it's a hardware thing, either a fault or just poor hardware.

What are you recording from? Is your recording source introducing any problems/distortion/interference/etc?

I've not tried it in Linux, but for what it's worth I've been running a Behringer UCA-202 audio interface for years and, paired with an analogue mixing desk, it's served me very well indeed. Also it's dirt cheap at £20 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UCA20 ... B000KW2YEI

[jackpf]

Ah that looks decent, good brand as well.

I think its just my cheap sound card, the recordings just seem to have less definition and frequency range compared to the original recording.

However turning down the gain in ALSA has helped a bit.