Alternatives to outrec?

[halfnote5]

Hi everyone!

Simple question: are there any good alternatives to outrec? The PPA repository they give on the sourceforge site doesn't want to cooperate (PPA and Debian don't usually really work well together in my travels, anyway - your experience may differ.) and although I've gotten it working on a couple LMDE machines, I feel there might be a better native solution. Maybe even a quick mencoder script or something?

[äxl]

Simple question: are there any good alternatives to outrec?

Difficult question: What do you want to do? Radio, internet, chat stream?

The PPA repository they give on the sourceforge site doesn't want to cooperate (PPA and Debian don't usually really work well together in my travels, anyway - your experience may differ.)

I concur.

and although I've gotten it working on a couple LMDE machines, I feel there might be a better native solution. Maybe even a quick mencoder script or something?

Good approach! Gstreamer also comes to my mind.

[halfnote5]

Thanks, äxl. = )

Actually, I was hoping to record all of the output stream. For example, If I was playing a song in the background while someone was talking on Skype and I was simultaneously talking into the mic (with mute off/echo on), I want it to basically record... ALL of it.

Anything that would otherwise be coming out the speakers, I'd like to capture to a sound file. I have LAME codecs installed, but I don't mind capturing to .ogg, either.

On Windows, (yea, yeah, I know. But they DID get this particular thing very, very right) you can go into the sound settings and tag "output mixer" as the record source, and it'll capture everything from TeamSpeak chatter to the little "ding!" it makes when you adjust the volume. On Linux and Audacity that... doesn't work. Not for all intents and purposes for making it simple and easy. (I'll eventually be instructing non-programmers on how to do this)


As an aside, I'd also be interested to know if there was a way to record only when sound is detected. I don't usually need such functionality, but I can see someone else asking, so I thought I'd bring it up while we were discussing it. It's a secondary concern to simply getting the capture of the output stream to work.

Cheers!

[Habitual]

This may help...
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=51425&hilit=+sound#p374881

[äxl]

With GStreamer you can encode it in one line:
http://files.kral.ws/Tobias/Gentoo/mumb ... reamer.txt
Maybe if someone could write a bash script.
Or a python script: http://hoegners.de/Maxi/micro/

[DrHu]

Any good? alternatives to outrec
Good is in the eye of the beholder, however one can always check a comparison/suggestion list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_L ... o_software
http://sound-editing-software.findthebest.com/d/a/Linux

http://cristalinux.blogspot.ca/2010/06/ ... troduction

[halfnote5]

Axl: The GStreamer page looks like it's going to be very handy, and I can alter it to do some really cool things. Thank you!

That said, I'd like to also say a HUGE "thank you" to Habitual. The page you posted had a link near the bottom to the following site:

http://drsjlazar.blogspot.com/2009/02/t ... utput.html

Which looks like EXACTLY what I'd like to do, although I didn't think I'd be able to do it this way, nor did I think it'd be that easy.

The gist (in case the page I've linked to goes down) is that you

Edit /etc/asound.conf and added the following at the end. This creates a device which copies another.

Code: Select all

# copy device for output recording
pcm.copy {
type plug
slave {
pcm hw
}
route_policy copy
}

2) Restart ASLA with:

Code: Select all

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

3) Get the 'numid' of the 'Capture Source' and the Item number of the 'Mix' device (you will have to go through the long output)

Code: Select all

amixer contents

The part you are looking for looks something like this:

Code: Select all

numid=22,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw------,values=2,items=8
; Item #0 'Mic'
; Item #1 'CD'
; Item #2 'Video'
; Item #3 'Aux'
; Item #4 'Line'
; Item #5 'Mix'
; Item #6 'Mix Mono'
; Item #7 'Phone'


4)Then set the copy device to copy the 'Mix' device (5) by running this:

Code: Select all

amixer cset numid=22,iface=MIXER 5

That's it!

The disclaimers to the above being that I haven't actually tried this out yet, AND I'd like to also grab mic input (which I don't mind grabbing as a separate file, and running the processes side-by-side).

Either way, between both of these solutions, it looks as though I have what I need to get started. I'll play with these and let you know the result.


Oh! and also a thank you to DrHu for the huge list of audio recording software. It doesn't really help with this question, but it's REALLY handy to have, anyhow. Thanks!

[Habitual]

Glad it all worked out.

[halfnote5]

Oh, and full disclosure, the site I got that previous tidbit from actually modified it from here:

http://carthick.wordpress.com/2007/11/2 ... g-arecord/

(Credit where credit is due, and all that. Plus, the second site gives a little more background info).

[äxl]

Thanks for mentioning me.
Thanks also for the documentation of process and please report with the full result!

[halfnote5]

Well, I can't really mark this as "Solved" because with each of the possible solutions, I've made some headway, and gotten good partial results on some systems, but not on others. However, it occurs to me that there IS one VERY easy way on just about any system to record the output as input.

It's a hardware solution:


(picture of Y splitter cable - headphone jack style. 2m 1f)

You have to use headphones (or you could use your speakers, on a desktop) to monitor it, since plugging one of the ends into the headphone port will kill your speakers, but it's not as bad as one would fear, and it's worked on quite literally 100% of the systems I've tried it on, which is better than our track record for any of the software solutions.

These things are available at your local Diode Hut (Radioshack) for about 4 bucks. Plug one end into mic (or line-in) and the other end into your headphone jack. Use the female port for a pair of headphones, and you're 100% likely to record what the computer is playing, provided you have your mic (or line-in) port selected as the record source.

This also assumes your headphone/line-out port works.