Hi,
I am running Ubuntu Precise 64 bit and would be grateful for some help. I am trying to transfer some old tapes to MP-3, and on some of them the left-right channel balance is not right, and sometimes the line-in signal from the tape deck is too weak. There is no adjustment to be had from the source device.
So I tried to adjust the recording from the Audacity control panel. The gain and balance simply have no effect! The sliders slide up and down but the wave form on the screen does not amplify nor does the recorded balance between the left and right channels. It did not appear to have any effect whilst recording, and a sample playback of some of the track confirmed this.
I have the line in from the tape deck going into the blue input (line in: no sound card, default Asus P5L- VM 1394 mobo input) on the back of the PC (the lead consusts of 2 mono phono plugs into 3.5mm stereo jack plug). I have software play through switched on (the only way I can monitor what I am recording,) overdub switched off (both these in “Edit - Preferences- Recording” option panel), and in Edit- Preferences - Devices I have Host: ALSA (Port Audio V19-devel), Playback: pulse, Recording: default:line0, stereo.
The Track Control Panels are for adjusting gain and pan for playback and export.
The Mixer Toolbar input slider adjusts the gain, assuming it has control of your input device.
There is no balance control in Mixer Toolbar. Do you want to vote for one?
After recording, you can also use Effect > Normalize with “Normalize stereo channels independently” checked to make a correction. This is peak normalization so may not “sound” equally balanced.
If you use the name drop-down in the Track Control Panel to “Split Stereo Track” and pan each channel separately, see the caution here Audacity Manual .
Gale
Thanks Gale I think that answers my question, I suspected there would be a workaround!
I could be mistaken but I am sure that last time I did some home recording a few years ago, again in Ubuntu with Audacity, that these controls did what I logically assumed they should.
A memory trick 
Audacity has always recorded straight in from the computer sound system. No real time recording effects in Audacity, it records exactly what the computer sound system gives it.