My Audacity is recording room sounds and not from cassette

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have Audacity 2.0.4 - I just received my Super USB Cassette Capture AGPtek Player yesterday.

I’m trying to take the music recorded onto old cassettes and transfer it onto my computer. I have followed the instructions as best I can, and have the USB cord plugged in, but all that is recording is room sounds (i.e., the tv, my husband and I talking), so instead of recording the cassette tape, it’s recording from my computer’s external microphone I guess.

How can I fix this? Here are my current settings, and I’ve tried adjusting these and nothing worked:
Speakers and Headphones (IDT Hi…
Internal Mic (IDT High Definiti…
2 (Stereo) Input Channels

I haven’t changed anything else in Preferences or anything. Please let me know if I should. Thanks so much for your help with this!!!

2

This tutorial from the Audacity manual should help you: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/recording_with_usb_turntables.html

It’s part of this set of tutorials that should also be helpful: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_copying_tapes_lps_or_minidiscs_to_cd.html

Basically you need to set you USB device to be the in put - and the output should be set to your speakers.

WC

3

WC,

Thank you for the post. I just read through the instructions which like most of Audacity’s instructions, are VERY confusing and not complete. Plus, these instructions seem to be for persons using an LP or record player. If you know the specific drop-down boxes and what I should change them to, or the specific Preferences that need to be changed, I would be so so happy. You say to set the USB to input (what are the steps to do this), and to set the speakers to output (what are the steps to do that). Talk to me like I’m not a technician. Thanks so much!

4

In the initial link I posted for you http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/recording_with_usb_turntables.html see the section titled Set up Audacity to record from the turntable - yes I know it says “turntable” (But in the note at the top of the page it says most content here applies to USB cassette decks and external USB soundcards too. As far as Audacity is concerned is is just being served a digital bit-stream for a USB device, it doesn’t care what type of USB device).

I will look at making it clearer that the instructions apply to all such USB devices for the 2.0.5 (next Audacity version) manual, I have set an editornote to do that.

WC

5

People who complain about recording the dog barking in addition to their show are almost always recording the laptop microphone and not the turntable, cassette machine or other device.

Set this in:

Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Devices > Recording.

Some devices appear as “USB Audio Device,” and some call out the name of the maker. It’s up to you to find it. Make sure you connect everything and then start Audacity. Not the other way around.

Koz