Getting into Deep DooDoo, Audio DooDoo, That Is

The deep doodoo, for me at least, is getting my USB microphone working with Linux. I’m planning to do many screencasts over the next few months, both for my day job, and for the Skillshare courses I intend to create, and I’m trying to get my old Samson C01U working. My Skillshare courses will be all about programming languages.The irony here is that I’m talking about left-brain stuff on my art project blog.

After several days of tinkering I got my old Samson working. This mic works without any hassle with WIndows or OS X, but getting it to work on Linux requires putting on a pointy wizard hat and waving a magical staff at several configuration panels. The fact is, I was lucky to get everything working.

USB audio is a real pain on Linux. When I think of the time I’ve spent getting this old mic to work, I realize that I could have spent that time better by buying a low-end XLR setup that would sound better than any USB mic. But you know what, I like to get old equipment working. The computer I’m writing this on is one I built five years ago. It just feels good to keep the old electronics alive rather than junk them every time a pretty new gadget comes around.