Need to stop sending audio to the mic

General system Newbie
1

Hey there. I’ve been having certain issues while using my mic through Discord/Vesktop and I’ve sorta discovered audio is being broadcasted toward the mic, even when I physically disconnect the mic.

I’ve tried alsamixer, but anything I do either mutes my actual capacity to hear the mic or mutes the whole mic reception. I have no idea how to tackle this, I’ve read something about not selecting monitors as a way to avoid this, but neither alsamixer or pavucontrol let me choose on any of that, so I’m in need of help from someone that actually knows what’s going on here.

2

Perhaps you could share some basic information with us
What DE/WM are you Using
What is the Audio Card in Use? inxi -Aaz

3

KDE Plasma 6.5.4, should be default for Ganymede.

As for inxi -Aaz:

Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 21/23 HDMI/DP Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 0c:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:ab28 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 0f:00.3 chip-ID: 1022:1457 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.18.4-arch1-1 status: kernel-api
    tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.9 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl

I use Device-2

4

Within the task manager > volume controls > right click > configure audio devices , eventually you need to enable “show virtual devices”

Within the configuration ( which redirects to system > sound ) every playback device should be listed, I’ld recommend to deactivate those devices which are currently not in use (simply by switching the profile to off)

There you should also find the mic volume controls, which could be muted.

Generally, as pipewire is being used, there are further options for audio routing. And you may want to look into qpwgraph. But that would be an advanced step.

5

Yeah, the HDMI sound has an off profile there, did it myself.

Headset/line and mic are both set to Analog stereo duplex, the only option I’ve found to have both input and ouput working at the same time. I’m not entirely sure if that’s the source of the problem or not.

6

Alternatively, check this.

In terms of qpwgraph, it’s essentially an audio patchbay, which would need wireplumber as an dependency. coppwr would be an alternative that provides more info in the audio patch nodes,
in short, get familiar with PipeWire as well as WirePlumber :wink:

7

will look on all of those then and see what I can do. I’ve read about wireplumber, but it sounded way more advanced, so I wasn’t sure if I should go that route without guidance.

8

I installed qpwgraph without doing anything else. And, after organizing a bit, I got this graph:

imagen
imagen1443×742 112 KB

Headset/line and mic seem to have different devices, but there is still this reproduction of sound from one device to the other. There is nothing to disconnect here, so I’m not really sure what to do with the GUI itself.

Maybe the noise cancelling approach would be the solution, as I think I used to have a somewhat similar problem with Discord on Windows but it eventually went away when I played with volumes, which hasn’t affected anything on EndeavourOS afaik.

9

Have you checked the noise suppression for voice part I’ve linked earlier ?
There is that noise-suppression-for-voice package, after installation, follow the instructions on the associated github repo github repo.

I haven’t used that myself up so far as, so I can’t tell how reliable that is.
I can only see that the plugin could also being used via easyeffects.

10

I did what it says on the repo and I played with the new nodes on the graph. It doesn’t seem to do anything different.

I now realize this makes sense, because this never happened when I listened to an instrumental-only music video, so “noise” is certainly being suppressed, but not voice-like audio that’s being broadcasted to the mic. So, in essence, I don’t think the noise suppression route is gonna work for this.

I think I’d need some kind of filter that eliminates the whole system audio on the mic, if I can’t avoid this system audio being sent into the mic in the first place. I’m starting to think this won’t get solved.

11

Would largely depend on your actual headphone / headset.

As I can’t tell which one you’ve got, just based on the fact that you’re using analog stereo duplex, that might be already an disadvantage.

I only have a Sony WL-C100 bluetooth headset which I mostly use for occasional listening when it’s not paired to my phone. If paired to my Desktop, the Mic and the Playback channels are treated independently from each other. And I not using it for voice chat purposes at all.

12

The headset is HyperX Cloud Alpha. Any obvious tells?

13

It’s sold as gaming headset is a tell tale, indeed :wink:

But I’m just kidding. I can’t really tell. But the fact that the mic is detachable might be an disadvantage, generally spoken. And eventually there is some cross-talk between the mic input and audio output channel. Which means that along the length of the cable in its entirety , if the individual leads aren’t shield properly, the signal from the audio output to the headphones could be picked up by the mic channel.

14

I honestly picked it because it felt well enough for the price, but I guess that way of seeing things ended up biting me in the ass. (Un)fortunately, the cable recently got some damage on a plane trip, so I suppose this won’t be a long-term problem. Whether this problem was there before the damage or not, I’m starting to wonder.

I guess I’ll leave the thread in case someone can give me a definite statement about this. Thanks again! :slightly_smiling_face: