mark1978

System:

Acer Aspire 5315 laptop
Vista Home Basic 32bit SP1
Realtek 268 HD Audio (inbuilt)

I've been attempting to use this setup to record audio, and keep running up against the same issue. How do I monitor microphone input (either from the inbuilt mic or the 'pink in' socket) through the speakers whilst recording? There doesn't seem to be any way to enable this function, the result being that I can only hear what I'm recording by playing it back afterwards.

On most other systems, you can normally monitor mic and/or line-in input by simply clicking on the system tray speaker icon to get the mixer, then turning up the relevant slider. It seems that this option is now simply unavailable. All I get on the Vista mixer is volume controls for the speaker, Windows sounds and whatever applications that happen to be running at the time. The Realtek control panel has options for 3D sound, mic boost, default sample rates etc, but no mixer and no option to enable playthough for the mic.

I've tried a number of drivers, including the latest updates from both the Realtek and Acer sites, and also some older versions. While there are differences between these drivers, none of them seem to provide the option I need.

Having Googled this issue, it seems it is a common problem. A few places (like this one) give a workaround that involves changing a Registry setting. However, the settings given don't correspond with what I have on my machine. I've tried speculatively tweaking a few likely-looking things in my registry, but to no effect.

And yep, I've tried all the obvious fixes:

- In "Sound>Playback>Speakers Properties>Levels", there are only volume sliders for "Realtek HD Audio output" and "PC Beep", nothing else. Both set to full volume.
- In "Sound>Recording>Microphone Properties>Levels", the "Microphone" and "Microphone Boost" sliders are set at full volume and the microphone is enabled.
- In both the playback and recording tabs, "Show Disabled/Disconnected Devices" are both selected. Changing default recording device from "Microphone" to "Stereo Mix" had no effect, so I put it back to mic.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Pauldo

Hi and welcome to TSF forums.

I have noticed that you have posted in several other forums. Can I ask that if you get an answer that works from one of those sites that you post it here so that others may benefit. Thanks

Here is one to try and hopefully you have not already done this.

Do you have this registry key?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\Settings\ForceDisableID

Edit the Binary Value from "00" to "01" and reboot. This is supposed to add extra tabs, one of which is FrontLineIn. In this tab, click the Line in Playback button and modify settings to what ever you want.

Hope that does it for you.

Pauldo

mark1978

Hi there

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did have that registry key, so I made the edit you mentioned. It didn't give me the extra FrontLineIn tab you mentioned (do you mean on the Realtek HD Audio manger??), although it did have a few other strange effects - notably, the internal mic stopped working (although it was still showing up as a device). Still no playthrough!

Just on the off-chance, I then tried uninstalling the Realtek driver and seeing what happened if I just used the generic Vista one. However, the registry key you mentioned simply wasn't there under the generic driver.

So I'm still stumped...

Pauldo

Ya, in the Realtek Audio manager. Did you look in Mixer? My Vista machine has Sigmatel so I'm not sure how different the Realtek Manager is compared to XP. My thought was that maybe it added another section under Playback or Record.

It doesn't look good . I just saw another post in which the guy emailed Realtek and the response said that it is a hardware limitation with the ALC268 that won't allow audio passthru to the speakers.

I have run into this software from time to time and I saw that someone with this ALC268 problem used this and worked for them. I haven't had any experience with it but it does look like a viable work around.

Virtual Audio Cable

Hope that helps.

Pauldo

mark1978

Someone emailed Realtek support and got a reply?! I'm truly amazed.

OK, so in my Acer/Realtek HD Audio Manager I just have two tabs - Speakers and Microphone (a third, Stereo Mix, appears if I enable that option in Vista's Sound > Recording Devices tab). The Speakers tab has a slider for the main volume only; the Microphone tab has a slider for the recording volume only.

If I go to Vista's sound options, the Playback tab has the speakers as the only playback device. If I go into Properties > Levels for the speakers, the only volume sliders I have are Realtek HD Audio Output and PC Beep. The Recording tab has two devices: microphone and stereo mix. Neither of those have anything that would allow me to listen to the mic input.

The main Windows mixer (accessible from the System Tray) just has sliders for Speakers and Windows Sounds.

Like you say, it doesn't look good! I'll take a look at the VAC program, thanks for the tip. FWIW this is what the previously mentioned section of my registry looks like:



Can you see anything in there that looks remotely promising?

Pauldo

Have you played around with the Mute(?)_RearLineOutWave3?

If the ForceDisableID was to be changed from "00" to "01", maybe try that with the mute properties. And maybe fiddle with the Vol(?) settings if that doesn't work.

Is this with the Vista drives or the ones from Acer? Did you have to manually add the ForceDisableID? And were did you put that if you did? Just checking.

Pauldo

mark1978

Hi again

Just had a play around with the Mute and Vol properties as suggested. They didn't seem to do anything other than muting the speakers and PC Beep by default.

Just one more thing before I give up and go for the VAC option - the string PKEY_RtMicInWave shown above, with the value {0a4c481f-64ae-4755-b5a2-6eae7e4b05e0}. Might the latter refer to where some of the settings for the mic device are stored? A search for that string in the registry brought up this:



No idea where to start with this one to be honest, any suggestions?

mark1978

Oh - no I didn't need to create the ForceDisableJD string, it was already there with the Realtek driver. It disappeared with the generic Vista driver, so I went back to the Realtek which brought up the stuff above.

Pauldo

It said JD, not ID (for ForceDisableID)? I saw that in another post and the guy couldn't get his to work either.

I wouldn't think that Mic properties has anything to do with this (I don't really know for sure though). Most of the stuff I was looking at was needing a Lineout or Monitor setting(that was with Sigmatel audio).

Sorry I couldn't be of better help.

Pauldo

mark1978

One month later, a quick update on this - or an anti-update, really. I've tried using the Virtual Audio Cable with no real success. It works alright, insofar as it routes the mic signal to the speakers, but the latency is dreadful. When I play around with the settings, reduce the buffer size etc, the latency gets better, but the sound quality worsens dratically. So I'm no better than where I started.

Unless anyone can tell me different, the inescapable conclusion seems to be that the inability to monitor mic input is a feature of either Vista, Acer laptops and/or Realtek HD Audio. It's ridiculous. On every computer I've ever owned, going right back to a 1994 vintage Compaq, it's been possible to put the mic input through the speakers with a couple of mouse clicks. No latancy, no distortion, it just goes straight through like you're plugged into a PA. On that Compaq, I actually had to turn the volume down to stop the built-in microphone feeding back all the time! 15 years later, I'm sitting here with a machine that's ridiculously more powerful and sophisticated, and yet it's apparently incapable of performing that completely basic function. There MUST be a workaround, surely?

Gah. Sorry for the rant.

Pauldo

No problem on the rant, it is very frustrating when that happens.

I've seen a lot of posts that have that same problem and I have yet to see an answer that worked across the board.

Best work-a-round for onbaord audio troubles is to get a dedicated audio card. In your case that would be a usb one. I don't say that up front because so many people are put off by the prospect of spending $25-$50 even though it will save them many, many hours of frustration but in some cases it is the only option.

Pauldo

mark1978

That's a fair point, and I have considered looking at external soundcards. It's not just the money that puts me off though (although as far as I'm aware a good one would set me back more than 25-50 bucks). It's the principle. Why should I be shelling out yet more cash to do something that my computer should be able to do anyway?

I just can't believe that this isn't something my computer's already capable of somehow doing.

John Peterson

I agree. This is very strange. Hopefully Realtek will realize how strange this is and fix the ALC268 drivers. I have compared the ALC268 HD Audio drivers with the ALC888 HD Audio drivers that I have on my desktop PC if anyone wants to see the difference: