OK. I’m a complete newby to Audacity. I just downloaded the latest version ( 2.0.6 ) on my macbook and I’m trying to record live instruments through a mixer board into audacity with a microphone. If i set my input to internal mic everything works fine but when I set my input to the mixer board i get this error code: “Error while opening sound device. Please check device settings and the project sample rate” From reading through other threads I found that this is somewhat common but every thread I read, none of them helped me resolve this problem. Please help!
Is it a USB or firewire mixer? Make and model number?
A USB or firewire mixer is a separate audio device. Most likely you need to set Audacity project rate (bottom left) to your desired sample rate, set Audacity’s Device Toolbar to the desired number of recording channels, then set the mixer up as default input device in /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup, setting the exact same sample rate and number of channels that you set in Audacity.
See FAQ: Why do I get “Error while opening sound device”?.
Gale
It is a Behringer X1204USB I bought this mixer because some friends and i had the same one that we recorded podcasts with and had no problems. I already had the input set to the mixer and I have tried messing with various sample rates. I have a feeling its gotta be something really simple that I’m just overlooking
Are you using Yosemite? 2.0.6 does not officially support it. Behringer don’t seem to say what versions of OS X they support.
You can try rebooting the computer.
If you are on Yosemite you can try this 2.1.0 pre-release from the top of: http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.php?dir=mac/&sort=date&order=desc.
You can try resetting Audacity preferences. To do that, quit Audacity. Open Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder and type:
~/Library/Application Support/audacity/
Then open the audacity.cfg file in TextEdit. Select all the text and delete it. Then type the following at the top of the file:
NewPrefsInitialized=1
Save audacity.cfg and restart Audacity. Then you are back to 44100 Hz project rate, stereo recording. Reconfigure Audio MIDI Setup for the mixer to 44100 Hz. Ensure the USB cable is tightly connected or replace the USB cable with another one.
Gale
OK… This is gonna sound weird but I have had nothing but problems trying to run any kind of recording software on my MacBook (which was the whole reason for buying it). And it always seems to be that the current OSX that I am running doesn’t support what I’m trying to use. So here I am with a new PC that I bought just for recording and I am having the same exact problem that I was having with my MacBook. I know the computer I am running is more than efficient for running Audacity according to the latest version of Audacity’s system requirements. Is there something I’ve been missing? Thanks for your help Gale!
Sorry! I forgot to mention that with my new computer I am not getting that same error message. It will go into record mode but it won’t pick up any signal from my mixer.
Sorry but we can’t see your computer(s), so we can’t help you if you don’t answer our questions and don’t tell us which if any of our advice you have followed.
Is the Mac on Yosemite or some other version of OS X? You can ask Behringer what versions of OS X their mixers support. We don’t know, but if they answer you please let us know.
Is your new PC on Windows 8, or what system exactly?
Make sure for both machines you have Audacity 2.1.0 (just released) from http://audacityteam.org/download/.
After installing 2.1.0 on Mac, do not start Audacity. Quit Audacity if it is already running. Then open Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder and type:
~/Library/Application Support/audacity/
In that folder, delete the “audacity.cfg” file. Now reboot the computer and try to record again.
If your new PC has Windows, make sure when you installed 2.1.0 that you enabled the box “Reset Preferences” half way through the installer. If you are not sure if you did that, reinstall 2.1.0 and enable that box.
Gale
As above, please tell us what version of Windows or whatever system that machine is running.
If you want to record from a USB mixer, you have to set the recording device in Audacity Device Toolbar to the USB mixer. You also have to configure the mixer so that it sends what you are recording over the USB cable to the computer.
Gale