[linux-audio-user] Unwanted "tremolo" on mic-in with SB Audigy

[Daniel James]

> What's the
> deal with the IGain setting, and how can I set things up
> properly to avoid the "tremolo overload"?

If it's anything like the SB Live, try setting the IGain to 1 out of 100, ie 
not zero but as low as possible. I think these cards have a really nasty 
pre-amp, but setting this value to zero switches off the input.

With IGain set to 1 (using the cursor keys in aumix I think) you can get a 
good recorded sound with the SBLive. The problem that lead me to discover 
this was distortion on recordings from an external mixer, even though the 
external mixer output level was set to a reasonable range using the on-board 
VU meters.

An ALSA-compatible mixer (eg alsamixer) will give you more control over the 
soundcard than the KDE mixer, which is usually an OSS mixer I think. 
Sometimes not all of the controls in alsamixer will work on your card, which 
can confuse matters. We've found aumix (an OSS mixer I think) gives us 
control over the variables which matter, presumably via the OSS emulation 
layer.

Cheers

Daniel