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Recording external audio source to laptop (or anything)

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edy:
This may seem like a silly question, but I am dumb-founded by the lack of decent external audio inputs on my ASUS laptop and almost any modern laptop I can find in the house. Back in the day, I copied all my tapes and vinyl to digital files on a desktop PC with proper stereo inputs (line-in). Now I have my gear in the basement and occasionally want to transfer stuff over to computer, but I don't want to carry my big desktop downstairs for the task. I was looking for a quick way to record stuff onto my laptop (or any other device you can suggest, for that matter)... yet these things only have those TRRS 4-contact 3.5mm ports with stereo audio output but mono microphone input. What gives????  |O

Does anyone have a suggestion or idea that may be up to the task? Do I need to go out and buy some kind of digital recorder, or some kind of USB audio capture card? I'm using Linux on my laptop so getting a USB audio capture device that works on Linux may be difficult. Why have they crippled modern laptops so badly that you can't add a tiny line-in jack anymore for stereo input?  :scared:

NiHaoMike:
If you can figure out what audio chip it uses, there's a chance the headphone output can be reconfigured as an input. Look up the program "hdajackretask".

--- Quote from: edy on July 30, 2020, 03:42:40 am ---I'm using Linux on my laptop so getting a USB audio capture device that works on Linux may be difficult.

--- End quote ---
Not difficult at all, USB audio has become pretty standard nowadays.

edy:

--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 30, 2020, 04:32:47 am ---If you can figure out what audio chip it uses, there's a chance the headphone output can be reconfigured as an input. Look up the program "hdajackretask".

--- End quote ---

Yes thanks, I tried it... apparently it is already part of "alsa-tools-gui" so it's installed on my system already. Looks like I can change around and override some of the ports on the computer.

For now I've managed to find a old HP laptop (probably ~10 years+ or more) which actually had separate stereo headphone and microphone/input jacks. I'm able to record fine on that machine. The problem is I have an old cassette tape that I want to transfer, but every 5 minutes of play the sound starts to get muffled and dull... I open up the deck, and the head is covered in a brownish dust that I have to wipe off. Put the tape back in, plays nicely again... then 5 minutes later, muffled and dull, head covered by same brownish crap. Clean the head and repeat!!!  |O

So for now I need to keep stopping the tape, wiping the head, playing again and will have to piece back the audio in Audacity later. It's frustrating,  I'm not sure what is happening to this cassette but no matter how many times I play it, more brown dust comes off of it onto the head, ruining the playback sound gradually the longer it is played..... Yet the minute I clean the head, the audio on the tape sounds fine again. It's all there but somehow the top layer of the tape is disintegrating or losing iron oxide!

james_s:
Many laptops can accept audio in via the headphone jack using one of those plugs that has an extra ring on it. You can also buy USB sound cards for a few dollars though that can do a reasonable job.

jfiresto:

--- Quote from: edy on July 30, 2020, 03:42:40 am ---... Does anyone have a suggestion or idea that may be up to the task? Do I need to go out and buy some kind of digital recorder, or some kind of USB audio capture card? I'm using Linux on my laptop so getting a USB audio capture device that works on Linux may be difficult....
--- End quote ---

At the moment, I am using an Alesis Multimix 4 compact USB studio mixer to record long term audio in .ogg files on a Raspberry Pi 4:


--- Code: ---args = """sox -d -q -V0 -C 2 -c 1 -r 22050 --buffer 131072
       """.split() + [get_filename()]

--- End code ---

Is that close enough? It was plug and play and has proven quite adaptable.

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