Hi,
I’ve installed today the current version of Audacity, 2.1.2, on a current Windows 10, 64bit machine. I’m playing a vinyl disk on a ION Profile XP player which is plugged into the PC with Line in. Audio is set up correctly (I guess) so that I can hear the album on the PC speakers. When I try to record it into Audacity things don’t go as planned. It seems to be recording because I can see it recording onto the Audio Track. The meter on "Playback Level goes off as it should also, I just can’t hear it either while recording or while playing back in Audacity. There are only two options for the Playback device, Speakers (Realtek High Def…) or Microsoft Sound Mapper. Also, when I pull the volume slider up past about .3 or so there is a loud hum coming from the speakers, getting louder as I increase the slider.
I’ve gone through the tutorials about setting up sound on the PC and on Audacity, but I must still be missing something. Help!!!
Thanks,
Morgan
Where and how are the speakers plugged in?
ION Profile XP player which is plugged into the PC with Line in.
Isn’t the ION a USB turntable? Any reason you didn’t connect it that way? In most cases, the analog connection is the emergency method if you can’t get the USB to work.
Is your machine a desktop?
Do you have your machine custom configured to record internet sound such as YouTube audio?
Koz
Where and how are the speakers plugged in?
They are plugged into the speaker jack on the back of the computer (Green one)
ION Profile XP player which is plugged into the PC with Line in.
Isn’t the ION a USB turntable? Any reason you didn’t connect it that way? In most cases, the analog connection is the emergency method if you can’t get the USB to work.
Yes, it has USB or Composite. I chose composite as a test, because I want to record some cassettes on a cassette player later, which is composite only. The tape deck is not working right now, so I’m just trying to get Audacity and my computer to work together for now.
Is your machine a desktop?
Yes, it’s an HP Envy desktop. This is my first “store bought” computer in many years. I got lazy and decided not to build my own. I wish I had.
Do you have your machine custom configured to record internet sound such as YouTube audio?
I don’t thinks so. If it is, it was not done by me, and there’s no one else around.
There’s more: As an experiment I plugged in some headphones (jack on top of computer) and it took over the speakers. There is only one device showing in the Playback tab, Speakers. Anyway, It took over the speakers and all of a sudden I could hear the sound on Audacity during playback. I unplugged the headphones and let the speakers take over again and it still worked on Audacity as well. I thought that was it, but now it has gone back to not working again. I repeated the headphone routine above, but it didn’t work this time.
I re-cut your posting. It’s insanely difficult to read your post if you scramble the quote tags and the screen turns into solid blocks of tan and brown.
Select and Copy the question from my post, click on the Quote block on the tool line above your new text window and paste.
It should look like this:
[quote]This is a line of quoted text[/quote]
Those are start and stop tags and you can totally type them in yourself. I do that when I get stuck on an unfamiliar machine. Left-bracket, letter q letter o…
Another way to do it is paste your text > drag-select it all > click the Quote button.
Then preview the post to make sure it looks like what you want.
~~
I asked about recording YouTube because those settings mess up straight, plain recording.
it took over the speakers.
You never described the speakers.
now it has gone back to not working again.
What’s “now?” Days later? Did you make a Skype call in the middle between those two events?
Koz
What’s “now?” Days later? Did you make a Skype call in the middle between those two events?
It was minutes later. Nothing else was done during this time.
I was hoping for a simple solution, something I had overlooked, but I think there may be more to it than that, probably related to Win10 Pro 64bit or more likely the Bang & Olufsen Audio on the HP machine, or something else. I’m going to keep messing with it, but if there are any other suggestions I’d sure try them too.
I hooked up the broken cassette player to my old home-built computer, Win10 Home OS. The composite connections don’t work on the cassette player anymore but I put the headphone jack from the cassette player into Line In on the old computer and it worked fine. Audacity worked as expected too. These are just voice audio tapes so sound quality is not a big deal.
It would be nice to be able to use Audacity on my current computer, but if that doesn’t happen I can get by without it.
Thanks for the posting tips…
more likely the Bang & Olufsen Audio on the HP machine, or something else. I’m going to keep messing with it, but if there are any other suggestions I’d sure try them too.
Closer. Bank & Olufson audio? Is that who made the soundcard or soundcard system? Audacity works its audio through Windows services. If sound is scrambled, you should go back to Windows and see what it thinks should be happening. In your case, you may need to become good with the B&O instructions and settings—in addition to Windows.
It’s unfortunate that when a company puts its name on a system, it feels duty-bound to Do Something Special to the sound to give you a sense of having gotten your money’s worth. It’s generally a good idea to find out what that is and turn it off.
Modern Plain Windows systems can create problems, too. Windows comes out of the shrink-wrap with echo cancellation and noise processing enabled ready for conferencing and chat. Those settings hate music.
I expect when you plug headphones in, the speakers mute and the show appears in the headphones. Unplug them and the speakers resume. If that’s not what you have, then digging in those instructions is a terrific place to start.
probably related to Win10 Pro 64bit
Audacity is a 32-bit application.
Koz
Well, after considering the random behavior that occurred with the headphones, etc. I decided to uninstall Audacity and reboot. I then re-installed it and Audacity took off and worked perfectly, right out of the box. I didn’t have to fiddle with anything.
Thanks so much for your interest and comments.
Morgan