Best Screen Recorder for Ubuntu in Capturing Ardour Recording & Mixing Sessions

d.) Now click “Advanced” and go to “Sound” tab. Under the Device. Enter: “hw:” + the name of the sound card as shown above. For example if the sound card is CA0106 (as provided on the above results), so the device is entered as hw:CA0106. See screenshot below:

Sound card device configuration

Sound card device configuration

2.) No sound when recording JACK audio applications when using Ardour.

Solution: The good thing is that “Record my Desktop” allows JACK audio applications as the source of the audio. Follow the steps:
a.) Launch Ardour.
b.) Prepare all audio files and mixes.
c.) Now launch Record my desktop and then click “Advanced”. Go to Sound tab. Make sure “Use JACK for audio capture” is checked.
d.) Configure your jack connectivity to accept audio capture.

In some instances, you will see this error:

Recording is finished. RecordMyDesktop has exited with status: 281
Description: Improper Window Specification

If you see this error, then you will not be able to continue to record the screen output of your Ardour with sound from JACK. So what are the possible causes of this problem?

Possible Cause #1: The Window you have selected is very large causing your RecordMyDesktop to crash because of insufficient memory and CPU resources. Take note that if JACK will be enabled, JACK consumes almost the entire RAM and CPU to get minimal latency and lag. So enabling both JACK and recording with a large window using RecordMyDeskop will possibly cause the screen capture to return that error.

Possible Solution#1: Try selecting a very small window and repeat the process above. For example , see the screenshot below:

selecting small window in recordmydesktop

selecting small window in recordmydesktop

Possible Cause#2: If the solution above will not work. Then mostly it has something to do with configurations in RecordMyDesktop. These configurations are the video and audio quality settings.

Possible Solution#2: Try the tweaks below:

a.) In RecordMyDesktop, change the video quality settings to 5. This is a very low quality video settings only appropriate for troubleshooting purposes. Low quality forces the program to use low system resources.

b.) Now do the same thing with Sound quality, change it around 10.

c.) Select a small window.

Possible Cause#3: The last possible cause is in the performance settings of RecordMyDesktop.

Possible Solution#3: To minimize CPU and memory usage, the following are recommended:

a.) Encode on the Fly= uncheck
b.) Zero compresion = check
c.) Quick subsampling= check
d.) Full shots at every frame= uncheck

If all attempts fail to correct this issue. This is most likely a bug in the RecordMyDeskop that relates to the JACK audio environment. Feel free to submit a bug report or join the discussion here. I have the tried all the possible solutions and none of them seems to work except if you turn off the audio (unchecking the box beside Sound quality) in RecordMyDesktop and the screen capture will be OK. It might work for you.

3.) Still no sound from ALSA applications.

Solution: You need to make sure the capture is enabled and has enough volume. In this case, you need to install Gnome ALSA mixer. Go to System – Administration – Synaptic Package Manager. Enter your root Linux password and then type in the quick search box: gnome alsa mixer

Proceed to install it to your computer and then confirm if it is successfully installed by going to Applications – Sound & Video – Gnome Alsa mixer. Now make sure the capture is NOT MUTED and should have adequate volume. For example , the screenshot below shows that capture is muted:

Screen capture volume muted

Screen capture volume muted

Content last updated on June 27, 2012