very poor sound after recording music

I installed the Audacity dvd and have had no luck as far as editing, noise removal, etc. In fact when I go to effect or edit, all of the menus are grayed out. The sound is very staticy alhtough on my 33 player it sounds great. I have Windows 7, 64 bit. This is very frustrating, as it should not be that complicated. I have tried the tutorials, tips, manual, etc. with no success. Thanks in advance for your help.

Which audacity version do you have?

Try downloading and installing the latest beta which is the recommended version for windows 7: http://audacityteam.org/download/beta_windows

Also note that you can’t apply effects in playing/recording/pause mode. Most menus will be grayed out. Hit stop and then apply the effects.

For a start you have posted in the wrong section of the forum - this section is for people having trouble compiling/building Audacity from scratch.

You say that you have installed from DVD, I infer from this that you acquired Audacity as a result of purchasing a USB turntable or USB tapedeck. If that is the case then you almost certainly have 1.2.6 - and this version is not good for Windows 7. Instead you should be using the latest Beta 1.3.12. You can get it from here: http://audacityteam.org/download/

See this sticky thread from the 1.3.7 section of the forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/windows-7/11350/1

Not sure if you’ve already seen this article in the Wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Windows_7_OS

WC