Problem with Echo/Noise-Cancellation

My Lenovo T495 laptop has dual microphone inputs and I am struggling to activate microphone noise-cancellation.
I have read Section 6.4 in the Arch Wiki but I cannot understand Pulse Audio Control because my knowledge of Linux is very basic. I noticed a line of text that seemed to suggest Echo-Cancellation was present and could be enabled. But how to do this is a mystery to me.
I would be grateful for any helpful comment.

System:
  Host: raymond-20njcto1ww Kernel: 5.10.83-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64
    Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.23.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20NJCTO1WW v: ThinkPad T495
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 20NJCTO1WW v: SDK0J40700 WIN
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO v: R12ET58W(1.28 )
    date: 06/11/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 44.9 Wh (87.2%) condition: 51.5/50.5 Wh (101.9%)
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 3300U w/ Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx
    bits: 64 type: MCP cache: L2: 2 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1221 min/max: 1400/2100 cores: 1: 1221 2: 1222 3: 1222
    4: 1222
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Picasso driver: amdgpu v: kernel
  Device-2: Acer Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.21.1.1 driver: loaded: amdgpu,ati
    unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor driver: N/A
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.83-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: 80:32:53:8b:b0:64
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
  IF: enp3s0f0 state: down mac: 98:fa:9b:b8:ce:98
  Device-3: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
  IF: enp4s0 state: down mac: 98:fa:9b:b8:ce:97
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 Bluetooth Adapter type: USB driver: btusb
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 23.62 GiB (5.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: SK Hynix model: HFS512GD9TNG-L5B0B
    size: 476.94 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 274.12 GiB used: 23.59 GiB (8.6%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p5
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 256 MiB used: 29 MiB (11.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C mobo: 0.0 C gpu: amdgpu temp: 47.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Info:
  Processes: 210 Uptime: 25m Memory: 13.64 GiB used: 1.01 GiB (7.4%)
  Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.10

    ~                                                                                 ✔ 


Nobody can explain better than how Arch linux wiki has it.

Make sure you only run one sound server tho … If you want to use PulseAudio, make sure you have manjaro-pulse installed. If you want to use Pipewire, make sure you install manjaro-pipewire then follow PipeWire - ArchWiki instead as will explain to install noise-suppression-for-voice from AUR.

Thank you for your comments
.
Am I correct in assuming that there are two alternatives?

  1. If I want to use PulseAudio, then I should disable/remove the PipeWire server.
    Or
  2. If I want to use PipeWire, then I should disable/remove the PulseAudio server.

And does the the “noise-suppression-for-voice” package from AUR work in both scenarios?

No, is only made for pipewire …

Archwiki/PulseAudio/6.4 Microphone echo/noise cancellation is about use of PulseAudio module module-echo-cancel

noise-suppression-for-voice is mentioned in 6.5 Recurrent neural network noise suppression (RNNoise)

GitHub page noise-suppression-for-voice has information about how to use the LADSPA plugin with PulseAudio and PipeWire

There are also GUI controls NoiseTorch and Cadmus

1 Like

Thanks, didn’t go there, hence i did not read about. Definitely helpful for OP.