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I have a Dell Inspiron 1520. Under Ubuntu 9.04, my mic is extremely quiet. Under Windows the mic is a good volume. I have crawled through alsa-mixer and all the sound options I can find in Ubuntu, but I can't get the volume above a whisper level.

Any ideas?

Update:

If I right click on a Volume Control icon and choose Volume Control I get This

Here is what is in this window. This is 2 levels, the first is the tabs, and the second is the things in the tabs

  • Playback (All three of these control my system volume)
    • Master
    • PCM
    • Front
  • Recording (All of these options are turned up to 100% and not muted)
    • Capture
    • Capture 1
    • Digital
    • Mux
    • Mux 1
  • Switches
    • IEC958 [Checked]
    • IEC958 Default PCM [Checked]
    • Analog Loopback [Not Checked]
  • Options
    • IEC958 Playback Source (Digital Playback, other choices are Mux and Mux 1)
    • Digital Input Source (Digial Mic 1, other choice is Analog Inputs)
    • Input Source (Mic, no other options)
    • Input Source (Mic, no other options)
  • Sound Theme (excluded)

I have checked everything in the preferences window that comes up from the button below.

3 Answers 3

16

I had this issue with Ubuntu 18.04. On Windows 10 (dual boot), microphone works as expected. On Ubuntu, I could yell into the microphone and you could barely hear anything on the other end. None of the built-in settings were working including boosting the microphone. I finally found this suggestion which originates from here.

  1. Install pavucontrol
  2. Run pavucontrol and go to the Input Devices tab
  3. Click the unlock button to unlock the channels
  4. Set the Right channel to 0 (left should be above 0, possibly 100%)

I hope this helps somebody.

2
  • Struggled hopelessly until we installed pavucontrol, and now it's fine. Thanks!
    – SusanW
    Dec 6, 2020 at 13:18
  • It didn't work for me, still very quiet, in regular video calls. Is there a way to amplify the mic from the terminal? Feb 11, 2022 at 14:58
2

Is 'Mic Boost' a valid option for you?

Click on the volume controller on the top right, choose 'Volume Control'. From the dialog, select 'Preferences' button, and fine '[ ] Mic Boost'. For some reason, it's under Playback (should be under recording), make sure it's not muted and raise it up.

3
  • There is no Mic Boost anywhere that I can find on my system. This is what I do in Windows to get it to be audible, but I can't find it in Ubuntu. Aug 25, 2009 at 3:05
  • Could you update your question to list what is there?
    – LiraNuna
    Aug 25, 2009 at 3:10
  • This sounds like a driver 'issue' (unimplemented feature). Would you mind trying to pop a LiveCD of the latest alpha to check if any new drivers are available?
    – LiraNuna
    Aug 25, 2009 at 9:01
0

I know this is over eleven years too late (and I'm sorry) but i fixed it by selecting the option that said multichannel instead of the one above it.this is the screenshot

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