Audacity Forum

You cannot directly connect RCA jacks to USB - RCA are for analogue audio and USB is digital data. Your DELL 4550 is a tower system (not a laptop)? There should be some mini-jack sockets, probably on the back of your computer, that are for connecting to the sound card (which may be built into the mo...

OK, so this is a Windows sound system problem rather than specifically Audacity. Since you are dual booting, lets stick with XP while we sort this out. I presume that you can play audio? (yes/no) Go into the Windows Control Panel and open up "Sounds and Audio Devices" Click on the "Au...

Can you record at 48 kHz 24 bit? If so, use that option.
Down sampling your final mix to 44.1 / 16 will have negligible impact on the sound quality and is standard practice in the recording industry (44.1 / 16 is required for CD's, but recording and editing are usually done at higher rates).

There may be some useful hints about getting a good recording level from a Helix board in this topic: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2428&p=10043&hilit=helix#p10214 Also, if you are using a microphone with a mixing desk, you should use the 3 pin XLR (Cannon) sockets r...

At present Rode microphones are not supported on Linux - hopefully either Rode, or the ALSA or other sound developers will come up with a solution in the near future.

The Samson C01U seems to be a popular inexpensive solution for simple microphone recording. Here's a comprehensive review of them: http://www.macintouch.com/samsonc01u.html There's also a good selection of other USB microphones here http://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir.html?gk=MI&bn=&sw=usb&a...

Found this "solution" for dealing with monitoring a USB mic without latency: The only problem that I am facing is latency issues. (Not being able to listen while recording). But there is a simple fix; just place that hand over you ear, aim your palm toward your mouth while you announce a l...

Double click on the audio mixer icon in the sys tray (probably looks like a loudspeaker, near to the clock).
Check that "Wave" and "Master" are not muted (the only thing that you may want muted for normal use is the microphone).

Have a look at these pages first: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mixer_Toolbar_Issues and http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mixer_Toolbar_Issues#Windows_Problems If you still have problems, try to record something with Microsoft Sound Recorder and see if you can get that wor...

kozikowski wrote:Do you know where Windows Audio Recorder is? Can you run that and get the problem? I think the software is crippled so that it has a restricted record time. Wouldn't want you stealing music or anything.

http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2660