I am using Audacity 2.0.5 on both Windows 7 and 8.1 machines (both 64 bit), with a Scarlett 2i2 device.
When I try to start recording on my Win 7 machine, the “cursor line” (not sure what its called) just stays at 0, and blinks.
It seems the recording never starts. Sometimes after “stopping” i’ll get a message that “Latency Correction setting has caused the recorded audio to be hidden before zero”.
If I change the input device to something other then my Scarlett device, this does not happen.
Also, I can run everything fine on my Win 8.1 machine. I spent a while going through the setup on both machines, item by item, and they are identical.
Past machine resource problems, Overdubbing is a primary cause of audio that starts before zero. That’s how Audacity compensates for Recording Latency and it does it as long as that Recording selection is checked. If you de-selected it, you may need to restart Audacity for the setting to take effect.
I’m guessing at this from other postings. I’ve never had this happen and I’m not on Windows.
There’s 10 time zones between all the forum elves, so we may get to wait for it to be daytime in other locations for other answers.
USB audio devices are prone to stalled recordings, but reboot often cures that.
All external devices are touchy about settings for sample rate and buffering. Sample rate settings should be the same everywhere (in Audacity, in Windows sound settings and on the device or in its control panel).
If Audacity settings are the problem, you need to enable “Reset Preferences” half way through the Audacity installer in order to reset Audacity settings to factory defaults.
This seems to answer a question I wanted to ask. I have a Yeti microphone which is factory set to 48kh and the default Audacity setting is 44.1kh. I get all sorts of clicks and blips in the recording. I have only done one test with both set to the same sample rate which seemed to be OK.
Is the problem caused by the whole process trying to scale the bit rate and/or running out of resource in trying to do so. I was concerned to use the Yeti bit rate at 48kh in case any MP3 file or CD I make would not play on other machines.
If I set both to the same bit rate which seems logical then do players automatically understand the sample rate in any file and so produce the analogue output correctly.
48000 Hz is valid for an MP3 file so most players should play it.
Resampling between different rates can cause audio glitches whether Windows, Audacity or the sound device does resampling during recording.
You can set Audacity’s Quality Preferences to 48000 Hz Default Sample Rate if you have not already done so, then all new projects will start at that rate.
Unfortunately you did not say what version of Windows you are using (see the pink panel at the top of this page).
If you are using Vista or later, you could try choosing “Windows DirectSound” host in Audacity Device Toolbar then in Windows Sound, make sure both “Exclusive Mode” boxes are enabled for Yeti on the “Playback” and “Recording” tabs. To do that, right-click over the speaker icon by the system clock, then choose “Recording Devices”. Right-click over the Yeti, then choose “Properties”. Then click the “Advanced” tab.
With Audacity project rate at 48000 Hz the above setup should eliminate resampling to different rates when recording.
Bit rate is not the same as sample rate.
Try what I suggested. If your MP3 player does not accept 48000 Hz MP3 files then after recording at 48000 Hz, you can change project rate to 44100 Hz. Exporting as MP3 will then export a 44100 Hz MP3 file. The export will be resampled from 48000 Hz to 44100 Hz but that should not cause a problem because the resampling is not done in real-time as it is when recording.
Thank you for such a quick and informative response. I use windows 7 home on my laptop. I want to turn my recordings into CDs so do they have to be 44.1 or can they be 48.
The programming of the product must be very good to change a recording from 48 to 44.1. My hat goes off to the authors as the product is very user friendly and does the job very well.
To make it is easy as possible for your CD burner it is recommended you export as a stereo WAV at 44100 Hz (not 44.1 Hz) project rate.
If the CD is to be used in a boom box/music centre, or in a car player or other standalone player, tell your CD burning software to burn a “music CD” or “audio CD”, not a data CD.