Managing Audio input and output on Raspberry Pi

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It's well known that Raspberry Pi hardware does not include any support for audio input. If you want to use a microphone on a Raspberry Pi, you will need to take some extra steps. Two common options are:

1 of 2- Use a bluetooth headset. All of the most popular Raspberry Pi operating systems support the well-known "bluetooth" protocol, and low-cost bluetooth headsets can be purchased through many retailers. It's easy to buy a bluetooth headset that includes a bluetooth microphone.

2 of 2- Use a USB headset. All of the most popular Raspberry Pi operating systems support industry-standard USB sound cards and USB headsets, and low-cost USB headsets can be purchased through many retailers. It's easy to buy a USB headset that includes a microphone. Plug one of these USB headsets into an available USB port on your Pi (or in an appropriate USB hub) and re-boot.

If you use either of the two options described above, your Raspberry Pi operating system may need some extra configuration to ensure audio OUTPUT is routed through the hardware of your choosing. You'll probably want to right-click on the "Speaker" icon that's generally prominent in your "kicker panel" or within a desktop dropdown menu. Right-clicking on that icon should display a list of all of the hardware that can be used to generate sound. That list should include any new Bluetooth or USB audio adapter in addition to whatever you were using previously, like the usual "HDMI" audio that asks your video monitor (or TV) to generate sound. Among the listed items, left-click on the one that best describes your preferred audio output device.

If you end up installing more than one audio INPUT hardware device, you'll use a very similar procedure to designate the one you prefer as your default microphone. Just right-click on the prominent microphone icon and from the list of audio input hardware devices that will result, left-click on the item that best describes your preferred audio input hardware, which will be used by default thereafter.

LAC users generally want to hear sound effects from LAC (like engine noise, wind noise, machine gun noise, and tutorial audio narration) and they will also want to hear voice sounds from other players through Mumble. As a general rule, you'll want to designate just one audio output device and just one audio input device, whereupon your operating system will "mix" all of the sounds for you so you'll hear them all through your headset or speaker-equipped video monitor exactly as you might expect.

Mumble has prominent, detailed menus that allow you to designate any audio input and any audio output device as alternatives to your designated "default" devices, but usually you won't want to fiddle with those details within mumble unless some unusual hardware incompatibility forces you to experiment. Mumble will generally assume you want to use the operating system's default devices, and that's usually best.