I am brand new to audacity and have just exported my first recording to my PC as an MP3 file. I am retired and am trying to archive some of my old audio tapes of my children.
I was pretty proud of myself until I tried to open my files. My Windows Media player came up and it appeared to run, but there was no sound. I checked, and it was not muted.
I went to effects and amplified the sound, then exported again with the same result. I did notice that an audacity test file was created when I amplified it. That is audible.
Any suggestions?
I figured it out. My input device was overriding my speakers. I unplugged my input device, and everything plays. I was overworking it. Sorry if anyone wasted any time on this. Thanks anyway.
There are some diagnostics you can do to try and localize the problem. Audio recording isn’t the most straightforward thing you’ve never done.
Actually listening to the show during recording is nice, but not required once you get rolling. The sound meters and blue waves on the timeline are very important and will tell you lots of information on what you’re doing.
During recording, Audacity should look something like this.
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_record.jpg
It’s good to have big meters and you can get there by clicking on the right-edge of the meters and pulling sideways.
If you never got any bouncing red meters or accumulating blue waves, then you made a recording of nothing. Audacity has a Self-Monitoring mode which will let you inspect the sound before you press the record key. If you have a large reel-to-reel deck, this is the equivalent of the “Arm” mode where the machine does everything —meters, headphones, lights, etc — but it doesn’t move tape.
Right-click on the red Audacity recording meters > Start Monitoring. From that point on, any sound should cause the red meters to bounce. Do you get that? When you play a tape, do you get the bouncing red meters?
Koz
Dueling posts.
Koz