Can't record audio when my earbuds are plugged in

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Win10/Audacity 3.1.3
I read this short topic Can’t record audio when my headset is plugged in
This week I embark on recording audio (singing) in time with a playing back a piano track. (I can’t read music, so the piano track gives me the notes, tempo and duration).
There is downstream, an audio-editor-person who cunningly matches my sung track with the previously recorded piano track.
The objective is to get my recording within 5% of the duration of the piano piece, making it easier for the audio editor to meld the tracks. Please don’t ask me how they achieve that!

I have a musical ear/memory, and I can get the singing spot-on aligned with the piano.

So rather than wait for a set of headphones to arrive by car from St John’s on Friday, this morning I went and bought me a $1.50 pair of earbuds.

The plug has three segments which I think means I can listen in stereo (if the piano track is in stereo).

I am supposed to sing/record while listening to the piano track.
The earbuds/headphones are supposed to divert the audio from my laptop speakers, so that the laptop microphone picks up just my voice, and not the piano.
Untitled.png
The image above is what I see when I use the (green) Play button to begin playing back the piano track, and then click the (red) Record button and start singing.

Problem: The third track shows that nothing is being recorded.

Question 1: Have I understood the business of plugging something into the laptop speaker socket to “mute” the playback of the piano track?
Question 2: Is this technique supposed to work with a $1.50 set of earbuds as distinct from a luxurious $1,000 set of ear-cushion-padded HiFi headphones with an extremely large jack that won’t fit into any socket on my laptop?
Question 3: Is there a setting in Audacity of which I am ignorant?

Thanks for any advice.
Chris Greaves

2

Does it work when the earbuds are not plugged-in?

Make sure that Windows isn’t changing the default [u]Recording Device[/u]. You may have to re-select the built-in microphone manually. That’s more-likely to happen if you have a single “combo jack” instead of separate microphone & headphone jacks.

3

Perhaps the contents of the Device Toolbar. View > Toolbars > Device Toolbar ?

Also see: Tutorial - Multi-track Overdubbing

4

Untitled.png
Hi Doug,

Here I have played back the piano using only the laptop speakers, and recorded my voice using only the laptop microphone.
I am inclined to believe (but have not yet asked) that the sound editor would reject this, if only because the music audio used in the final version may well be a pipe organ - the book is about JS Bach.

Make sure that Windows isn’t changing the default > [u]Recording Device[/u]> . You may have to re-select the built-in microphone manually. That’s more-likely to happen if you have a single “combo jack” instead of separate microphone & headphone jacks.

Untitled1.png
I have only two options in the device toolbar - “Microphone (Realtek high-definition”, which is/was the default when I started using Audacity, and “Microsoft Sound Mapper”, which I used for the second recording above. This recording, like the first one, plays back my dulcet toned voice (!) with the piano prominent in the background.

My objective is to produce a track that is my voice alone, with no piano background.
The piano background is meant to be heard only by my ears/brain, so that I can maintain a strict tempo and duration.

I believe that the laptop socket is a “combo”, because the three-segment earbuds jack is plugged in only at this point. I have not owned or used a separate microphone since I started using Audacity (I am the proverbial cheapskate).

For the purpose of this post, my new earbuds were not plugged in at all; I was operating in “laptop only” mode.

Thanks, Chris

5

Hi Jademan; I explored the two options available through the device toolbar in my reply to Doug.
For this post I have plugged the three-segment earbuds jack into the socket in the laptop.

Also see: > Tutorial - Multi-track Overdubbing

Another meaty read from Audacity. :smiley:
Untitled2.png
Here is my first essay. The piano is the steroe track at top, but my Shift-R recording is flat-lined below; the laptop microphone has not picked up my strong voice.
I note that the referenced article is about “over-dubbing”, which I take to mean the process of adding my voice to a music track. I don’t want to produce a recording of me singing and her playing; I want, I think, to produce an audio track which she will then craftily merge with a different track - perhaps pipe-organ.

Now in both this reply and in my reply to Doug it must be clear that I don’t really know what I want/need, so I am going to head back to the audio editpor lady and get a clearer idea of how to go about this, and what is to be produced.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to buy a $1.50 pair of ear buds and thought to give them a try; if I had stumbled on a quick-fix, well good!

Doug and Jademan: Please hold your fire for a few hours while I clarify the precise requirements of the job.

P.S. I have two other laptops here, a Toshiba and a DELL; I can try the procedure on those machines if you see fit.
Thanks, Chris

6

My objective is to produce a track that is my voice alone, with no piano background.
The piano background is meant to be heard only by my ears/brain, so that I can maintain a strict tempo and duration.

Last time I had to do a job like this, I played the music backing track in the computer’s built-in player to my headphones, and used Audacity for recording the microphone. Computers will naturally split in two like that. Your odd problems may be just trying to get Audacity to do different things at the same time. Audacity doesn’t like dealing with two different sound devices. That’s one of the main reasons it doesn’t like recording Zoom.

Koz

7

Koz, Doug, and Jademan:
yesterday I read three posts:-
How do I turn off the internal speaker in Windows 10?
How to Disable Laptop Speakers in Windows 10
3 Ways To Disable Laptop Speakers In Windows 10
Untitled.png
In Windows10 Control panel I went to “Output Devices”, chose “test” and heard the sound through the laptop speakers; plugged the earbuds jack into the laptop socket, chose “test” and still heard the laptop speakers.
I chose “disable”, withdrew/inserted the earbuds jack, still heard the laptop speakers.
I chose “enable”, withdrew/inserted the earbuds jack, then heard the laptop speakers only when the earbuds jack was plugged in.

Late at night I am not at my best, but the essence is that only after I had run through a disable/enable/disable cycle did the earbuds appear to make the laptop behave as I thought it should.

This morning I used two separate instances of Audacity to record my voice, one without earbuds plugged in, one with earbuds plugged in.
Without earbuds plugged in I record a track which combines the piano and my voice on the one track; I suspect that this may be good enough for the client. The client does not produce the piano to help people who can’t read music :blush: and then merge the voice with a full orchestral backing
With earbuds plugged in, the microphone does not pick up my voice :frowning:

I think that I know why.

A “headset” that is essentially a pair of earbuds with a curved microphone stem that sits in front of the mouth (I used to have one 20 years ago) does the trick because the jack basically switches off the laptop audio; that is, the jack cuts out both the laptop speakers AND the laptop microphone.

If I want to go the cheap-headset route, I need a headset (obtainable from St John’s)

If I understand this trick, I should use two different applications to make an audio recording of my voice alone.
For example, use Winamp to play back the piano part and use Audacity to record my voice.
But this won’t work for the reasons given above - as soon as I plug a $1.50 pair of earbuds into the laptop socket, the laptop audio channels are switched to the device sitting in the laptop socket.

As for “Computers will naturally split in two like that.” I have a feeling that this Acer Pressario laptop is not capable of doing that. Well, that’s 10%. 90% is probably because I do not understand how to manage audio devices at all!

I have about twenty pieces to record, so i will do the preparation work (locate the text, the pieces of score, d/l the piano parts etc.) while I resolve this issue. I always have the option to contact my pal in St John’s and ask him to bring me a headset on Friday.

Cheers, Chris

8

Now resolved, I think, without ANY new hardware (so, another $1.50 down the tubes …)
Ted Myers posted his solution.
I tried it and it works.

I can’t say that I understand what I/he did, but I can work through it afterwards.
My grateful response to Ted follows immediately after his post, linked above.
Thanks to all of you here who provided input.
Cheers, Chris