Ideas to make Jack detect a tablet's microphone connected via USB (and present in Pulseaudio)? [ SOLVED ]

[LAM]

@Bluebell

Thank you for this other great suggestion... Unfortunately, with arecord -l I only get

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**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

This doesn't seem to me like something USB connected, but rather my broken built-in laptop mic....

However, one of the many things I found in Internet and tried without understanding too much:

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pacmd list-sources | grep -e 'index:' -e device.string -e 'name:'

gives

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    index: 1
	name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo.monitor>
		device.string = "0"
    index: 2
	name: <alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo>
		device.string = "front:0"
    index: 3
	name: <android>
		device.string = "/tmp/audiosource"
    index: 4
	name: <jack_out.monitor>
  * index: 5
	name: <jack_in>

Therefore the tablet gets detected by Pulseaudio (as index: 3, android)... but not as a hardware connection? Any idea why this might be? Hardware detection is another area where my knowledge is very patchy...

Thank you everybody for the great answers... Even if I don't finally get to solve this, Pulseaudio and Jack have stopped being the dark mystery they used to be for me...

There is no alsa device that you can use with alsa_in/zita, but a fifo sent from your tablet to your PC in PulseAudio.

My solution could work in theory (I haven't tested audiosource on my PC, but as long it's in the PA sources it should work??). At least it's worth trying, because if it works, it does exactly what you are looking for.

Before running my script set your tablet Mic/FIFO source as default source in pavucontrol or with

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pactl set-default-source android

[Impostor]

When I tap on the tablet's mic, the levels of "Unix FIFO Source /tmp/audiosource" move, but the levels on "Monitor of Jack Sink" do nothing (and neither do in Output devices > Jack Sink). Shouldn't those levels be moving too with the taps, given that the sink receives the tablet mic's output?

Maybe there's a selectable output setting on pavucontrol's playback tab for audiosource?

[erlkönig]

@erlkönig

Thank you for the idea, udev is something I've hardly used and I've always been curious to harness more its power... Perhaps your suggestion is more of the "stage 2" kind, "once you have it working, optimize it"... I'm still at stage 1 I'm afraid, trying to have something that works...

You're absolutely right, you should consider udev, when you have a scriptable solution.

[Nachei]

Thank you so much everybody!!! @LAM, your solution got this thing working; I had to select android as default source, then run your script, then connect MicOut to Reaper's inputs, and now the track records the Android's mic... Victory!

Unfortunately it has a whopping delay of 4 seconds, so after recording I have to trim the vocal to align it with the keyboard... But it's good enough for what I needed, to record something quick'n dirty, when inspiration strikes and you have to record it on the spot or you lose it...

Now I've started the script to automate this solution, and I'm stumbling upon a problem that I've been finding for a while and drives me crazy, I wonder if some of you know something about it, if not never mind...

When I execute

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qjackctl -p "preset_that_I_want"

it sometimes works, but more often than not it just opens an empty preset called "Default", with no parameters and in the latency field just says "n/a", so I don't even know what the hell is it doing. Any idea of why that is? I guess I'll just move to Cadence soon, but for these tests, to avoid overcomplicating things, I just stuck to the programs I knew better (Qjackctl, Carla)...

Thank you again everybody, having this tablet arrangement really helps my workflow... And of course all the best wishes for this new 2024!

[LAM]

Thank you so much everybody!!! @LAM, your solution got this thing working; I had to select android as default source, then run your script, then connect MicOut to Reaper's inputs, and now the track records the Android's mic... Victory!

Glad it worked.

Regarding Qjackctl preset loading it works fine here. I tried a few times with a couple of profiles and they load correctly.

Happy new year!

[Nachei]

Thank you for trying the Qjackctl thing... No problem, after all a GUI is sort of clutter for a script like this, I'll just learn to configure Jack from the terminal... Thank you for doing the test.