Hi, I have just started to use Audacity and I am trying to record from LP to digital. My preamp does not have a Line Out so I am recording from the preamp-amp outputs connected via RCA plugs/mini stereo jack to a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card in my Win7 laptop. All works fine except that the waveforms of the L and R stereo channels appear to be identical. I have looked at the various Audacity and PC Sound settings but cannot detect a reason for this so would be grateful for advice … thanks.
to a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card in my Win7 laptop.
Did you miss a word or two? The Mic-In of your laptop? Most Windows Mic-In are mono, not stereo. You’re watching “Left” of the stereo show duplicated to the right. The Right music is discarded. There’s also possibly distortion to the loud parts of the sound.
As a general rule, the best and cheapest way around this is the Behringer UCA-202 stereo USB adapter. Any work-alike should be OK.
You should look in the fine print of your instructions. Some fancy laptops will switch between stereo and mono with a setting. Most don’t.
Koz
Thank you for quick comment.
Connection is to the ‘optical’ input of the PCMIA card, ‘A combined Line-In/Microphone-In and Optical-In jack provides the flexibility to record from virtually anything!’. The specs also state:
‘RECORDING - 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of stereo analog inputs at 96 kHz sample rate. Supports Sony/Philips Digital Interface (SPDIF) format of up to 24-bit/96 kHz quality at selectable sampling rate of 44.1, 48 or 96 kHz.’
Laptop is a Lenovo T500. The Internal Microphone Properties include the setting: ‘2 channel, 24-bit 96000 Hz (Studio Quality)’ which was set.
I have already started looking locally (NZ)for a Behringer USB adapter …UCA222 seems to be the follow-on from the 202. However I still do wonder why I can’t get the stereo input working as the specs seem to suggest it should be possible.
In the Windows Sounds control panel, there is an option to set the sample rate and number of channels for each input device (for example, “44100 Hz CD quality Stereo”).
Ensure that it’s set to stereo.
Also ensure that you are using up to date Windows 7 compatible drivers from Creative Labs for the sound card. (see here: http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?prodID=4915&prodName=Audigy%202%20ZS&page=0 )
Control Panel settings appear to be correct and the captured file size indicates 96kHz recording. I downloaded the latest Creative Solutions Win 7 drivers for the device (should have done that first of course!) but still not getting correct two-channel stereo capture through the Audigy PCMIA card. I recorded using an Xitel USB adapter I have and the two-channel mix is correct. However it and the other USB phono adapters such as Behringer, Alesis, ART are 16/44 and I would have liked to get 24/96 which the Audigy card is capable of.
Does the Audigy 2 ZS work if you set it to 16/44.1?
How about 16/48?