arecord (alsa) record required sudo unless its set up right

Linux alsa tools (amixer, aplay, arecord) need access to resources in /dev/ which are not world readable, so your user won’t be able to run those commands without being allocated, in most cases to the audio group.

 

Check /dev/snd the owner is probably root, group is audio

 

See if the user is in the audio group (normally as a secondary)

groups <user>

 

if not

usermod –a –G audio

then logout/in for group change to be applied

 

Ref: (some not good advice, but add context)

http://www.sm5bsz.com/linarch/msg01684.html

http://alsa.opensrc.org/TroubleShooting