[CentOS] how do I make my headset work

How do I make my headset work.
Before I try it with anything else, I'd like to make it work
with arecord and aplay.
VLC and movie player can make sounds with my external speakers.
though not in my headset yet.
I've got an insignia NS-PAH5101 headset.
As directed, the red connector is in the pink spot and
the green connector in green spot in the back of my computer.
arecord folloed by aplay just gets me static.
To the best of my knowledge, my singing is distinguishable from static.

I'm running CentOS 6
[hennebry at localhost notes]$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.32-504.1.3.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 11 17:57:25 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

hennebry at localhost notes]$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
   Subdevices: 0/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 2: ALC883 Alt Analog [ALC883 Alt Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I'm at a loss how to debug this.
Any ideas?


-- 
Michael   hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
"SCSI is NOT magic. There are *fundamental technical
reasons* why it is necessary to sacrifice a young
goat to your SCSI chain now and then."   --   John Woods