Pi: USB sound card nightmare

As a follow on to the previous post about the raspberry Pi

I bought two USB sound cards from Matrix Warehouse. They were these two C-Media based chipsets:

7.1: http://www.amazon.com/Channel-External-Sound-Audio-Adapter/dp/B007HISGRW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1382967519&sr=8-3&keywords=usb+sound+card
5.1: http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-5-1-surround-External-Sound-Card/dp/B000N35A0Y/ref=pd_bxgy_pc_img_y

The 7.1 was only giving static. It turns out that the mic I was using was broken, but I learned quite abit about Linux sound tool sets.

These posts were very helpfull:
http://computers.tutsplus.com/articles/using-a-usb-audio-device-with-a-raspberry-pi--mac-55876
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=314611#p314611
http://www.linuxcircle.com/2013/05/08/raspberry-pi-microphone-setup-with-usb-sound-card/

the 7.1

dmesg:

    3.303196] usb 1-1.5: new full-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg

[    3.434770] usb 1-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=013c

[    3.449598] usb 1-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0

[    3.473047] usb 1-1.5: Product: USB PnP Sound Device

[    3.479635] usb 1-1.5: Manufacturer: C-Media Electronics Inc.      

[    3.513315] input: C-Media Electronics Inc.       USB PnP Sound Device as /devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.5/1-1.5:1.3/input/input0

[    3.551191] hid-generic 0003:0D8C:013C.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Device [C-Media Electronics Inc.       USB PnP Sound Device] on usb-bcm2708_usb-1.5/input3

[    3.997860] udevd[156]: starting version 175

[    6.413474] bcm2708-i2s bcm2708-i2s.0: Failed to create debugfs directory

[    6.848620] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ cat /proc/asound/cards 

 0 [Device         ]: USB-Audio - USB PnP Sound Device

                      C-Media Electronics Inc. USB PnP Sound Device at usb-bcm2708_usb-1.5, full spee

 1 [ALSA           ]: bcm2835 - bcm2835 ALSA

                      bcm2835 ALSA

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ lsusb 

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. 

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. 

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0d8c:013c C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM108 Audio Controller

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ amixer 

Simple mixer control 'Speaker',0

  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined penum

  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right

  Limits: Playback 0 - 151

  Mono:

  Front Left: Playback 136 [90%] [-2.88dB] [on]

  Front Right: Playback 136 [90%] [-2.88dB] [on]

Simple mixer control 'Mic',0

  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined cvolume cvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined penum

  Playback channels: Mono

  Capture channels: Mono

  Limits: Playback 0 - 127 Capture 0 - 16

  Mono: Playback 98 [77%] [18.37dB] [off] Capture 14 [88%] [20.83dB] [on]

Simple mixer control 'Auto Gain Control',0

  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum

  Playback channels: Mono

  Mono: Playback [on]

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~ $ aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

card 1: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]

  Subdevices: 8/8

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1

  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2

  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3

  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4

  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5

  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6

  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7

card 1: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~ $ arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****

card 0: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/pi_scripts $ arecord -f S16_LE -c1 -r44100 -t wav test.wav

Recording WAVE 'test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Mono

^CAborted by signal Interrupt...

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/pi_scripts $ aplay test.wav 

Playing WAVE 'test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Mono

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ arecord -D plughw:0 -r 48000 test.wav

Recording WAVE 'test.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono

^CAborted by signal Interrupt...

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ arecord -D plughw:0 -r 16000 test.wav

Recording WAVE 'test.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 16000 Hz, Mono

^CAborted by signal Interrupt...

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ arecord -f S16_LE -D plughw:0,0 -r 48000 test.wav

Recording WAVE 'test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono

^CAborted by signal Interrupt...

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ 

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $ cat /boot/cmdline.txt p. 

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 dwc_otg.speed=1 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait

pi@pi-roshnee-lm ~/recordings $