Unmuting Your Mic For Live Speaker Output. (PULSEAUDIO)

So i play guitar, and while im using my computer, i like to plug in my guitar to my mic jack, and play along with the drum beats that i make on Hydrogen. I noticed at first that when i plugged it in, i couldn’t hear the sound of it coming out of my speakers, and that the Pulse Audio Volume Control Settings didn’t have the option to unmute it. So i did some research, and found a way to temporarily loop the output from the mic jack to my speakers, from a command line. This way when i was done messing around, i could just turn it off, and things went back to normal.

Anyway! Here are the commands i did to make this happen!

1.) Open a Terminal

2.) To turn it on, type in “pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=10”

3.) To turn it off when you are done, type in “pactl unload-module (Module Number)”

Ok i need to explain something. After you type in the command to start it. A number appears right after you press enter. It’s the module number. Mine on my system says “24“. Yours might be different, but i am not sure. So whatever that number is that pops up, you add it the end of the kill process when you are done using it. EXAMPLE = “pactl unload-module 24”

This will turn off the output from your mic, and put your speakers back to normal. Note that if you are using the front jack on your computer (which some computers have), that you will have to go into your pulse audio settings, and change it to the jack that you are using. When i used the front, i got a feedback that made my cat take off running and hide behind the couch. Alot of front mic jacks have terrible feedback, haha.

Well i hope this helps you out!

-Orkultus-

PS: There is a way to make it always stay on from startup, but i will only post that How-To if requested. I dont really see the need to have it always on.