Can't turn off microphone pickup of sound

System 7, Audacity 2.2.2, Trying to record from record player with USB cable to laptop.

I finally got the program to pick up audio from the record player, but the computer also picks up room sounds.

When I right click on the speaker icon on the bottom tray there are two input devices shown, Internal Microphone and Microphone Array (USB PnP Audio Device)

I have tried disabling each of these devices. Regardless of which one is disabled, the internal microphone still picks up sound from the other one. If I disable both, the program will not record from the record player, and I get the message, “Error opening sound device.”

How can I stop the built in microphone from picking up sound while I am recording from the record player?

Try setting the USB device as the default recording device …

and disabling all other recording devices.

I did this. It still picks up sound through the built in speaker. Really strange. The driver seems to be used for USB input and microphone input at the same time.

I finally got the program to pick up audio from the record player

After doing what?

I would not have thought it necessary to load drivers to record from a turntable. A turntable is a stereo “microphone,” Full Stop. It doesn’t pay music, it’s not multi-track (more than two) and it doesn’t have need for oddball sound specifications and file management.

What happened when you tried to initially record from the turntable?

Can we assume you did a “clean” Windows restart at least once in here? Shift-Shutdown > Wait a bit > Start. Shift-Shutdown does a long, slow shutdown and prevents Windows from making any “quick” assumptions of what’s there and device management.

Koz

Are we ignoring the elephant? I see a web cam in there. That will give you room noises. Next time you try this, you might do the scratch test to see where the sound is actually coming from.

Start a recording and scratch (never blow) each microphone in your system.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/ScratchTest2.mp3

Koz