Hi! I’m a keyboardist trying to use Audacity for my recordings, and I’ve noticed that since upgrading to Windows 8, there’s no option labeled “line-in” for my blue cable, and what I get instead produces much worse sound quality. I can get a decent recording, but the sound is sometimes corrupted by buzzing and appears overly sensitive to volume. It also doesn’t completely muffle the sound while I’m recording, but rather lets some sound “leak” out even when I’ve got my cable plugged in. Is there any way for me to restore the beautiful, clean line-in sound I had with my Windows XP driver? Thanks!
Windows 8 (and Win7) naturally assume you’re going to make a Skype call and so default to microphone service. This is usually a safe bet because most Windows laptop machines now have mono, super sensitive Mic-In and not Stereo Line-In. From your symptoms, it’s possible you are recording your built-in microphone and not the cable at all.
I’m not a Windows elf, so that’s where I peel off and go home, but I think we wrote about how to do this.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_your_first_recording.html
Try that. You’ll need to step down the categories until you get to the parts you need. In extreme, it’s possible you’ll need to find Win8 drivers for your older sound card.
Koz