My Mac is OS X 10.6 (I think, I’m at a different computer and location) and Audacity 2.1.0, I obtained the .dmg installer. I am not a techie, so anything I do I have to learn the hard way and I don’t understand much of the terminology.
I am using a Nakimichi CR 3-A with a stereo headphone adaptor and cable through the headphone jack to a line-in on my computer. Some of my audiobooks that I am digitizing have two channels on each side. On previous players with the appropriate control, you used the balance to listen to them. When I first started digitizing these via Audacity, I would get one channel on one stereo track and the other channel on the other stereo track – perfect. Then I would separate the tracks and create an mp3 for each.
The problem is that I started recording some music cassettes and had some problems with sound. I then made some adjustments and was able to solve the problem. Only now, I can’t get the two separate channels to record, I only get one channel. I’ve tried several things, including downloading an older version of Audacity that I used previously for this, but nothing is working. Through the headphones plugged into the computer jack, I can hear both channels, each reading a different part of the book, so I don’t think it is the adaptor, cable, or computer, but I can’t get Audacity to record both channels. I also tried to separate the channels via “left track” and “right track” but I get the same channel. This would be acceptable, only I can’t find a setting for the second channel.
Any suggestions? I think I probably changed a setting when I was making adjustments.
I clicked Audacity>Preference>Recording and checked Software Playthrough: Listen While recording or monitoring new track. It stopped after that. Because I have my headphones plugged in to the computer speaker I only listen to check that things are recording properly.
Yesterday I was adjusting some settings and unchecked this setting and the noise came back. When I checked the setting again it stopped.
Software Playthrough uses lower latency settings that you can’t change. This may be related to the issue alluded to in the linked topic that Audacity’s Audio to buffer is too high.
Please try what is mentioned in that topic. Open Audacity > Preferences… then the Recording section and reduce “Audio to buffer” to zero (0). Try recording. It probably won’t record. Increase buffer to 10 milliseconds, then in 10 millisecond increments until you can record. Then see if that fixes the clickiness when Software Playthrough is off.
Gale,
RE: “Strange flutter sounds happen toward end of recording”
I was trying to post to to another question and help that person. This is my first post and I didn’t know that it would put my comment on my thread instead of as a response to the other thread.
Re: “Digitizing 4 channel audiobook” yes, the device toolbar and the midi is set correctly.
When I playback the audacity recording I hear both channels in each stereo track and I hear both channels if set to mono. When I first started I was surprised that I could record the two separate channels, one on each stereo track as this usually requires a specific type of cassette player to play.
Never mind. We appreciate it when people try to post in the appropriate place as it helps us to work effectively with people that need help.
We much prefer to keep to one topic per forum thread. It saves a lot of confusion to do that.
We also much prefer that rather than one person jumping in on an existing topic and saying “I’ve got the same problem”, that they start a new topic. 9 times out of 10 they don’t have the same problem, they just have a problem with some similarity in the symptoms.
To reply to a topic, click the “POST REPLY” button near the top left corner of the topic that you are replying to.
To start a new topic, go to the appropriate forum from the forum home page (for Mac users, that will usually be the Audacity Help Forum > Mac OS X page), and click the “NEW TOPIC” button.
When you replied to the other topic, your post did go there, but I moved your post back here.
Thanks for thinking to help the other user, but as Steve says, this actually makes it harder to help you unless you only have exactly that one identical problem. It may also confuse the other user if we try and help you in their topic.
Besides, that user may not want to enable software playthrough.
Have you tried reducing “Audio to buffer”? Did that help your audio breakup problem?
When you plug headphones into the computer and hear different content in left and right, is that when you are recording? If so, how are you making the recording play through the headphones? Is that when you enable Transport > Software Playthrough, and when you uncheck that, you hear nothing?
Are you sure you are recording from the correct line-in recording device in Device Toolbar?
I When you plug headphones into the computer and hear different content in left and right, is that when you are recording? If so, how are you making the recording play through the headphones? Is that when you enable Transport > Software Playthrough, and when you uncheck that, you hear nothing?
Are you sure you are recording from the correct line-in recording device in Device Toolbar?
Yes, to both of your questions. In Device Tool bar there is only one option that records any sound. I can pull the headphone out of the jack and I still hear different content. Perhaps it isn’t left and right? Perhaps I am hearing both together. I have two adaptors for my Nakamichi and one must be mono because I only get one voice…wait a minute
I SOLVED IT!
This is operator failure. It was a second adaptor in my Nakamichi headphone jack. This is a little complicated, and may or may not be useful. I have a cheaper adaptor 1/4 male-1/8 female that doesn’t have a tight fit, so for some dumb reason I inserted a second older adaptor (1/8 male-1/8 female) I found in my electronic cables bin to: a) give it a little more length, and b) hold a tighter connection for my cable. I replaced the 1/4-1/8 with a much better adaptor, but I’d left the 1/8-1/8 second adaptor inserted for the couple inches length. When I used the better adaptor, I got a single voice, when I used the cheaper adaptor I got both channels (2 different voices), so I thought I’d purchased a mono instead of a stereo. All along the problem was the 1/8-1/8 additional adaptor I was using and it caused different results with each adaptor. I removed it, problem solved, both 1/4-1/8 adaptors work.
Thank you so much for your help. I have come to this forum many times for answers, but I was so stumped I finally registered to ask this question. I think audacity is such a blessing to us amateurs and it is very nice to know there is someplace to go with a group of professionals who will help you figure things out.