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Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:20:44 +0100
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: Robert Ames <robertames@hotmail.com>
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Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Recording from sound card
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On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:17:57 -0500, Robert Ames <robertames@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm having problems trying to record from a sound card under
> 8.1-RELEASE.  The last time I tried this was many releases ago,
> possibly 4.x-RELEASE.  Back then I would do something like "cat
> /dev/dsp > file" but now when I try it I just end up with a 0 byte
> file.  I'm using a different sound card than before so maybe that
> has something to do with it.  Or possibly I just don't know which
> device to use.  Playing sounds using "cat file.wav > /dev/dsp0.0"
> works fine, but I can't get recording to work.  Does anyone have
> any suggestions?  Thanks.

My suggestion would be to install the port "sox", it will
provide a "rec" command that can be used to record WAV or
any other supported audio file format, e. g.

	% rec foo.au

or

	% rec bar.wav

And sox provides other excellent command line tools for
audio manipulation (sox, play, rec); see "man sox" for
details. Note that "play <filename>" is easier than
cat'ing the file to the dsp device directly (which may
require specific access permissions).



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...