Sound ~ How To

Your Linux computer has been set up to offer you professional level sound quality and management and there are a number of ways to regulate or control sound. Here our interests are basic. We are interested in having quality sound working, with our main focus on "PulseAudio Volume Control" as the sound app to rule them all.

Before starting out, check your audio hardware. Be sure any speakers or headphones are properly connected and turned on.

Volume Control

The volume control icon should sit at the lower right of the screen near the clock and other system icons. This icon provides access to system wide volume. Clicking on it opens the mixer. Here you can quickly adjust the volume. It's also a fast way to mute sound on the computer. Just set it to zero.

If you are not hearing any sound at all, this icon is the first place to check. However its function is very basic. If you want to fine tune or troubleshoot in depth, this is not the tool for you. For that you need PulseAudio Sound Control.

PulseAudio Volume Control

PulseAudio Volume Control, or Pavucontrol for short, gives you an in depth look at your sound system. It's worth every minute you spend to get to know it.

To open PulseAudio Volume Control, click on the icon in the far lower right corner of the screen and navigate to Sound & Video --> PulseAudio Volume Control.

Fine Tuning

The Volume Control dialog will appear. This dialog contains a number of settings. To experience exactly what each setting will do, it's best to open an app that uses sound so you can hear changes as you make them. You should also add any devices you might want to try out, such as headphones, microphones, or speakers. Play a movie with VLC, open a YouTube video or a Netflix movie in Firefox, or play a music album with Clementine. While listening to the sound track from any of these, test out the various settings. Be sure to remember the original setting so you can return to it later if you need to.

Now we can start to explore the PulseAudio Volume Control interface. At the top of the dialog you'll notice the categories Playback, Recording, Output Devices, Input Devices, and Configuration.

Similarly you can click on any of the other tabs to see what settings are available. Which selections appear will depend on your particular setup. For example, if you don't have a microphone, that setting will not appear in Input Devices.

Playback gives you a way to regulate system sounds. System sounds are sounds your computer makes for alerts, system notifications, and sound effects such as closing a program or emptying the recycle bin. It also shows you what apps are using sound. In the example in this image, both Zoom and Firefox are using audio. Use the sliders to adjust each volume independent of the others. If there are no apps running using audio, none will appear here.

Recording gives you options if you are recording sound. Again, nothing will be listed if no apps are engaged in recording audio.

Output applies to external speakers, headphones, or smartphone speakers if any of these are connected, sound going out. In the picture, The Output Devices tab is highlighted. Speakers is selected, meaning sound will be played using the speakers. Clicking on the inverted triangle at the right of the tab will allow you to select other options that might be available such as headphones. Below this tab is a slider where you can adjust the volume. Advanced configuration options may also be available.

Input refers to sounds going in, and under this tab you would control microphones, for example.

Troubleshooting -- With either output or input, be very sure the speaker icon at the upper right IS NOT grayed out. This mutes the volume. To test output, try listening to music, radio, or a YouTube video. Testing input is a little trickier and will require a musicapp that allows recording, or engaging in telephony with a partner such as by Zoom. But a simple test you can easily do is to speak into your microphone and see if there is any movement on the line below the line that measures volume from Silence through 100%. If the microphone is working properly you will see back and forth movement in blue (or another color depending on system theme).

Configuration is a little more complex and it's really recommended you leave this alone unless you have a very good idea of what you are doing, or nothing else you tried has worked. There may be quite a number of configurations to choose from but not all of them are going to work as it depends on your setup. Usually, as in the image, the configurations that won't work will be marked as unavailable.

If you do try any of these out, be sure to remember the configuration you started with in case you have to go back to it!

See if the ProAudio option is available as a configuration. As the name implies, this is a setting for professional quality audio and worth giving a try on our computers where Pro Audio often works well. Otherwise, give "Analog Stereo Output" a try, a better choice for laptops. Test the sound quality on your own ears and choose what sounds best. But remember what the previous working setup was if you need to return to it.

Within the App

Audio apps or websites, such as VLC, Clementine, Netflix, or YouTube have ways of adjusting sound within the app or website itself. It's useful checking their volume settings if you are experiencing problems.

Special Cases

Zoom is a special case among apps. First, it is widely used across many devices and platforms. Many Zoom users have little knowledge of the app itself as often they simply click on a link to join a meeting. If you are going to use Zoom more than that one time, it behooves you to become familiar with the app and its settings. Zoom is also an app that gets frequent updates.

The difficulty with Zoom on Linux is that many users, especially those who have simply clicked on a link in an email to open it, are unable to find the Settings. In fairness, it's not that intuitive. In what is called the system tray in Linux, likely at the bottom right of your screen unless you have chosen to autohide it or put it somewhere else, sits the Zoom icon if Zoom is open.

Perhaps you can guess which is the Zoom icon -- it's usually blue (depending on the system theme) with a white movie camera inside. Right click on it and choose "Settings..". The Settings dialog opens.

You might find it enlightening to go through all the various settings. There's a lot here you might have been missing out on! But for now we're interested in audio so click on the Audio tab (with the headphones icon). Speaker and Microphone are of particular interest. You may find that you have more speakers and microphones than you realized. Webcams usually have built-in microphones as do quite a few computers, not to mention headsets. Choose the one you want to use here and click "Test Speaker" to test it. If you don't hear the Zoom ringing sound, something's not right. Be sure the speaker is properly connected. Be sure the speaker is set up in Pavucontrol (above). Test sound in other apps like a YouTube video to see if it is working.

Testing the microphone is a bit of a different story. One way to test the microphone is to speak into it and see if there is any movement under "Input Level" in the Microphone section of the Audio settings. If there is any input you should see a blue line (or another color depending on theme) moving back and forth where it says "Input Level". If you don't see this, it means your microphone isn't working and you'll have to troubleshoot. If you see movement, there is still no guarantee how it is coming through to the person you are zooming with. You might want to test it out on a Zoom practice run with someone.

As an aside, the "Automatically adjust microphone volume" option can be a bit hit or miss. Unchecking this box and setting Input Volume manually to the maximum (as in the picture) can make a dramatic improvement. If maximum proves too louod, try other levels.

Advanced

Your Linux computer has been set up to offer you a professional level of quality sound management. This can be very complex with much depending on needs. Are you creating music? YouTube video? Are you after the highest possible audio quality for pure musical enjoyment? Naturally, there is a lot on the web, even Linux music communities. But before you start exploring having a good idea of what audio hardware and software you are using will serve you well.

Inxi can give you a good start. In the terminal type

  
    inxi -A
  

Inxi will give you a list of any audio devices either built into or connected to your computer, which can include webcams, microphones or speakers, and the driver controling them. Inxi will also give you the sound servers and Linux kernel you are running.

  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.19.13-zen1-1-zen
    running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.59 running: yes

     
       sudo pacman -S inxi
     

Further Research

Shallow Thoughts Blog
While this is for PulseAudio and your sound server is the newer Pipewire, this is about Pavucontrol, which our computers use.