BUZZ – Hello, I want to record from a simple cassette player {using Earphone jack, there’s no place for RCA CABLE.}. It’s a recording of speech, and about 1 hour and 25 minutes long. I’ve inserted the jack in the ‘Line In’ on the back of the PC tower. Using Audacity 2.0.5. When I click on Input Monitor, a very LOUD buzz comes out of my speakers & continues throughout my recording attempt. The voice is there in the background, and rather low, but the buzz is Incredibly LOUD & maddening. PC: HP running Windows 7.
In addition, although the directions advise setting input levels at -6dB, I can’t find any way to adjust the Input Monitoring level. It’s sitting at -24dB.
Thanks. NEWBIE
Try selecting the Line-in in Device Toolbar .
If necessary, right-click over the speaker icon by the system clock, then choose “Playback Devices”. Right-click over the speakers device or whatever device you are using for output, then choose “Properties”. Then click the “Levels” tab and if present, mute the sliders for all inputs except Line-in.
Try the right-hand slider in Mixer Toolbar .
Gale
Found & enabled ‘Stereo Mixer’ in Windows. Clicked on Input Monitor Level in Audacity, purely out of curiosity, & almost permanently lost my hearing due to immense WHINE, which filled the room until I disabled ‘Stereo Mix’. What am I doing wrong now? (Sorry - don’t mean to try your patience, which must be akin to a saint’s! All us novices 
)
Still can’t budge the Input Monitoring Level to -6dB. After much right-clicking, menu searching, etc., did find find a box which would let me enter a volume level in numbers. Already written there was a long number beginning with 4. Had no idea what to replace it with to get a -6dB on Input Monitoring. Lost my way after much hunting about. Thank you.
Probably you have Transport > Software Playthrough on. That must be off for using
Stereo Mix.
But for recording your tapes, you need to choose Line-in in the third box in Audacity’s Device Toolbar . Have you done that?
If you don’t see Line-in in Device Toolbar then you will have to go back into Windows and enable the Line-in. Try following Missing features - Audacity Support which has some pictures for what you need to do.
Do you mean you saw a box like this:
except that it said “Input Volume”?
You can get that “Input Volume” box by double-clicking in the Mixer Toolbar input slider (the one on the right here):
.
But you might just as well move the slider as open the box. 
The slider gives you an input volume of 0 to 1. It’s like “0 to 100%” of whatever volume level is being sent to the input (in your case, the volume of the cassette output from the earphone, assuming you have actually selected the Line-in as input in Device Toolbar).
If the volume of the earphone is low, “1” or “100%” is only 100% of a low signal, so it’s still low. You can’t choose any specific value on that slider to achieve -6 dB in the blue waves, because it depends on the volume of the signal coming in to start with.
So I suggest you make sure “Line-in” is enabled in Windows (see the link above), restart Audacity, then choose Line-in in the third box of Device Toolbar. Then adjust both the volume knob on the cassette player and the input slider in Audacity’s Mixer Toolbar to achieve -6 dB on the Audacity meters.
Gale
Re: volume of device itself when setting up devices to record from cassette to PC- Should I turn the volume on the cassette player itself all the way up?
Re: Constant Static accompanying low voice when recording is played back on PC: I read here on Audacity sites that static implies internal interference from PC machinery. The suggestion was to purchase an external sound card for recording into PC to eliminate interference. Could this be part or all of problem?
Thanks, Novice 
Re: volume of device itself when setting up devices to record from cassette to PC- Should I turn the volume on the cassette player itself all the way up?
First, adjust Audacity’s recording level to 100%. Then you can adjust the cassette player’s volume. If you go to loud, the cassette player may distort, or you may overdrive your soundcard and distort it. The analog-to-digital converter in your soundcard is limited to 0dB (100%) and if you go over that you’ll get clipping (distortion).
If the signal is too weak, the noise from the soundcard can become an issue and you’ll get a poor signal-to-noise ratio… i.e. If you turn-up the volume during playback, or in Audacity, the signal and the noise will be turned-up.
If you are getting AC hum/buzz and you are running the cassette player from an AC adapter, try running it from batteries. Or, you may need to try a better cassette player.
Re: Constant Static accompanying low voice when recording is played back on PC: I read here on Audacity sites that static implies internal interference from PC machinery. The suggestion was to purchase an external sound card for recording into PC to eliminate interference. Could this be part or all of problem?
The noise from a portable cassette player is usually much worse than the noise on a soundcard’s line input. If you are using line-in (blue) on a regular soundcard, a better soundcard/interface probably won’t help. (Don’t bother getting a regular “USB soundcard”. These are like laptops with only mic-in and headphone-out.)
P.S.
You might try recording something else, such as the line-outputs from a CD or DVD player. (Of course, you’ll need an RCA to 3.5mm cable.) That will help to determine of the problem is with the computer or the tape player.