Sound input issue with skype, selecting a microphone?

Question

Ok, Skype yet again has issues with sound. This time, it is unable to record audio. The system is using PulseAudio and I am using a web cam as a microphone. Actually, I tried another web cam and had both plugged in at one point. lsusb shows the devices plugged in. Skype only allows selecting pulseaudio as the input device, with no other choices. Skype only seems to see the mic input on the analog sound card (which has no mic attached).

I have tried using KMix, the KDE phonon dialog (hidden in KMix's menus), alsamixer and even happened across pavucontrol. None seemed to be able to reorder the preference for device to use as the mic or at least select the desired mic. It could be a flaw in OpenSUSE 11.4, or I could just be missing something obvious. All would show that the webcam mic was available and allow me to set the input levels, for either webcam.

How do I select the webcam mic?

Solution

Try pavucontrol.

More information here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SkypeTroubleshooting#Selecting%20Microphone%20%28input%20device%29

yum install pavucontrol

You will have to select the right mic in the Recording tab of pavucontrol

Comments

[casualunixer]

Aha! The secret sauce is in the link you mention, Skype MUST BE ACTIVELY RECORDING while choosing the mic in pavucontrol. Thanks!