MIC+ and Pi Zero Problem [resolved]

RASPIAUDIO
#1

Hi,

I’ve been having a major headache getting the assistant to work with the pi zero. I’ve followed the installation guide from here and the test script

sudo wget -O - test.raspiaudio.com | sudo bash

plays and records audio fine. However, when I run

arecord --format=S16_LE --duration=5 --rate=16000 --file-type=raw out.raw

and play it back with

aplay --format=S16_LE --rate=16000 out.raw

there is only a silent 5 second clip.
If I change the .asoundrc file to the one in the google guide then I can record audio by specifying the device

arecord -D mic --format=S16_LE --duration=5 --rate=16000 --file-type=raw out.raw

and play it back fine. But running without “-D mic” results in 5 seconds of silence again.

I’m confused as to why the test script works, but the arecord doesn’t. I think this is leading to the voice assistant not being able to record audio properly.

This has been driving me insane, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

#2

in the script I am using this command to record, does this commands works for you?

arecord -d4 --rate=44000 /home/pi/test.wav&

if yes try to add your parameter one by one to check which one is causing the failure, maybe (not tested) this is the low sample rate that you have set.

#3

Thanks for the reply.
I’ve found that the problem is related to permissions somehow. The audio only records when arecord run with sudo privilege. I noticed this when running your test script locally without using wget. Strangely, I don’t get a permission denied when I try to record, it just doesn’t work. Also pi is in the audio user group and aplay works fine without sudo.

I don’t recall this was a problem when I set-up the hat on my pi4. Do you have an idea of how to fix this? As the google-assistant still can’t access the recorder.
Thanks again

#4

I seem to have solved the problem with a simple apt-get update + upgrade.
Silly me.

#5

No problem, the update things happend to all of us at least once in our life :shushing_face: