Electric piano won't record direct through Audacity

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi everyone - sorry for what is certainly a dumb questions, but nothing I’ve read has solved this problem!

I’m using Audacity 2.3.3 and cannot get the programme to record directly from electric piano.

My piano has two identical 3.5mm output jacks. One, I’d hooked up to headphones (so I can hear what I’m doing) and the other I’ve hooked direct to my laptop, Windows 10. My settings in Audicity are:

Audio Host: MME
Recording Device: Microsoft Sound Mapper (Input)

The stage thus set, Audacity will recognise my piano in the monitoring bar. But when I record, it will either come up with: 1) no sound or 2) space-echoes (chuh-chuh-chuh-chah-chah-chah), corresponding in no way to what I’m playing. Inconsistently, it will sometimes stop being able to monitor in the recording level bar, despite my not changing other settings.

Can anyone help? Do I need an intermediary piece of hardware between the piano and laptop, or change the settings to some combination that I haven’t struck yet? I don’t believe my piano works on MIDI (it’s a Casio Celviano, about 15 years old), and since Audacity recognises it through cable link in the monitoring bar (sometimes), I hope that it is possible for it to be recordable too.

Thanks for any insight, and for your time!

Liam

2

“Microsoft Sound Mapper” is not a real recording device. It just points to a recording device, but usually not the one that you actually need. You should select the actual device that you are wanting to record from.
Also, ensure that "software playthrough " is NOT selected in the Transport Options (near the bottom of the Transport menu).

A USB sound card may be better than the laptop’s built in sound card, but the built in sound card may be adequate if e can get it working.