I downloaded Audacity as the recommended application from the record player manufacturer instructions. My record player is a Retrolife and does just fine as far as playing a vinyl. But I’ve had nothing but trouble trying to record audio. The record table is accepted by Audacity as the recording device (microphone) and it records, but the sample is incomplete. It’s mostly vocals with very little instruments. Also it seems to lag while recording. I love Audacity and have used it in the past for school and personal projects. I’m just vexed that this simple task is not working. Any help is welcome.
Audacity is only recording in small wavelengths, vocals primarily, and other programs work just fine
Make sure Windows “Enhancements” are turned OFF (for that particular input/device). Microsoft seems to be getting “good” at filtering out everything except spoken voice.
Hopefully, that’s also related to “enhancements”.
I assume you mean height (amplitude or loudness) rather than length. 
Wavelength is related to frequency (pitch) and you can’t really see the individual “waves” until unless you zoom-in to a very-short time-window.
Thank you that seems to have fixed it.