No sound when recording with Saffire Pro 40

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Windows 7 64 bit
Audacity 2.0.2 exe
Saffire Pro 40 firewire interface

Hi, I get no sound whatsoever when recording with my saffire pro 40. On the saffireMixControl (this is a GUI mixer made by the manufacturer specifically for the saffire pro 40), I see sound levels being active when I play the drums (I have 6 xlr mics hooked up to my drum set which goes into the saffire interface). The interface shows up in Audacity with no problems and I can select it with no problem, but when I record, it’s not picking up any sound. I recorded with with Ableton Live so I know it works. Anyone know if I have to change some settings? And also I only see option to record 2 channels in Audacity, when in fact the interface has 8 inputs.

2

Audacity doesn’t speak MIDI at all and apparently, Focusrite uses ASIO software to do all of its multi-channel tricks. Audacity doesn’t natively speak ASIO, either.

You can recompile Audacity with ASIO support, but it’s not easy or particularly fun. Even if you do, that still leaves you without MIDI.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=ASIO_Audio_Interface

Koz

3

thanks for the info. but what do I need MIDI for? i don’t think i’ve ever used it…?

4

MIDI is machine control. The computer tells the keyboard what keys to press. It has nothing to do with sound. A marriage between Audio and MIDI is nice when you compose in machine control, but want to record the music from the keyboard. They’re different.

If that’s fuzzy to you, then it’s not important. People who do use it rise up in indignation when they find that Audacity doesn’t support it.

Koz

5

nah im not worried about MIDI, im just trying to use Audacity to record acoustic drums :slight_smile:

6

OK, so. Audacity doesn’t speak ASIO without a lot of work, and it only “knows” what Windows knows which is generally stereo. Left and Right.

If you got a software package with your machine, that generally will know how to manage multiple live sound channels from the device. You can use that to capture and then export each channel to Audacity to get the handy filters and effects. Audacity will manage 16 simultaneous tracks and I think the latest versions many, many more.

You can export multi-channel too. I’ve created multi-channel WAV files, although they play funny on some players. Best to stick to known multi-channel formats.

Koz