I’m trying to use audacity to record my dj mixes but my computer is really bad. I have a Dell Inspiron 531s which does not have an actual sound card. all the jacks are integrated into the mother board.
it does not recognize this as a recording device. do I have to have a computer with a sound card in order to use this program???
I’ve been thinking about getting a new computer anyways since this one is so limited. please let me know.
Do you have pink, blue and green sockets? Then you have an integrated soundcard. Very few computers come without some kind of soundcard. People would return a computer that couldn’t run Skype.
I’m trying to use audacity to record my dj mixes
Perfectly rational. Where is the mix now? You have a mixer, turntables and sound system and the computer is folded up sleeping in your backpack, or the computer is producing the mix from a control surface? Where is the actual sound? How are you listening to it?
Koz
You need to have some sort of audio in/out device and it has to be working properly with your computer. Audacity won’t work (a least, not properly and probably not at all) on broken hardware.
it does not recognize this as a recording device.
It just sounds like a Windows configuration issue…
What version of Windows are you running? Typically, you can right-click on the speaker/volume icon to access, enable, and configure recording and/or playback devices.
You need to select line-in as your recording source in Audacity, then plug your mixer’s line (or main) output into the computer’s line-in (blue).
The sound quality of an integrated soundchip can sometimes be sub-standard, but an inexpensive separate sound card may be no better. If you are not hearing excessive recording-noise (coming from the soundchip itself) the other specs (distortion & frequency response) are usually fine.
The microphone input on any consumer soundcard is generally useless for quality recording… The preamps tend to be low-quality and it’s simply the wrong interface for any studio/performance mic with an XLR connector.