My habit has been to monitor the source before I hit the record button. Occasionally I’ll get some static that sounds like a dusty, damaged record by the way it repeats. However, it does not repeat at the speed the record turns.
If I start the vinyl disc playing and then hit the record button without pre-monitoring the program I do not experience this.
Although it doesn’t do it every time it does it enough to be a bit annoying. If I let it go it will do it all the way through the entire side of the disc.
(fwiw, I’m recording a rather quiet disc as I type this, sounds very good)
I read the wiki article and wasn’t sure about the recording devices they were talking about.
I also read about a crash another user experienced. The same thing happened to me, once. It just disappeared. That’s with version 2.0.1.
Anyway, I was digitizing a vinyl record and I noticed about 3/4 of the way through the record the sound was terrible. My best description would be it sounded like loose connectors on my cartridge, although I’ve never really experienced that particular problem. Without stopping the record I stopped the recording process, went to “edit” and undid the recording, hit the record button and it started recording again, with perfect sound.
This is a persistent, intermittent problem that I’ve not experienced with version 2.0.0. I will probably go back to that version as it seemed to work quite well for me.
FWIW, I un-installed 2.0.1 and re-installed 2.0.0. This problem seems to occur when I click “start monitoring”. When I record without clicking “start monitoring” it has not happened so apparently it’s something else and not simply because it is the latest version…
I won’t go so far as to continue to try it both ways unless someone asks me to. I will report back here if things move smoothly doing it as referenced above.
And as I said before, any and all comments are welcomed, especially about the “recording devices” thing mentioned in the wiki article.
Sorry.
Windows 7 on a relatively new, very clean Dell Laptop. I’m using a NAD PP3i analog to Digital converter. Turntable is a Rega P3, about a year and a half old. The earlier posts describe the issue I’m experiencing.
As the thread indicates I’m getting noise problems. It seems to occur when I click “Start Monitoring”. I’ve just recorded both sides of two discs, perfect.
I’ll try it more, both pre-monitoring and not pre-monitoring and will report back here when I feel I can duplicate the problem at will. I should say if I can.
Click on the little black triangle next to the microphone icon in the Meter Toolbar and you will see that option in the dropdown menu.
Alternatively you can simply click once in the input meter and then monitoring will start, click in there again and it stops.
And yes - it’s not at all obvious in the GUI, some of us have nagged about this for years now. There is a proposal for meter toolbar improvements sitting on the Wiki: Missing features - Audacity Support
You didn’t answer Steve’s question directly, but with a bit of googling I see that the PP3i is indead a USB device.
The symptoms that you are experiencing are most likely to be down to a poor USB connection, bad cable, bad socket or a fault in the NAD’s USB services. Try a different cable, a different socket (you’re not using a USB hub by any chance are you - if so you shou;dn’t be).
The best description I can give is, it sounds like static interference. Not constant, but persistent. Almost like a loose wire somewhere. Not overwhelming but definitely noticeable.
It started doing again tonight, even though I did not click “start monitoring”. During the middle of the record I noticed the distortion. I stopped the recording and then quickly clicked the record button again. The distortion stopped.
Obviously my original recording was ruined (no big deal, I’m digitizing vinyl to listen to in the car or on a device), but after that I stopped the recording again, undid both recordings, started a new recording and grabbed the entire side without hitch.
My tendency is to undo all of the edits, labels etc. that I do to an LP side and then record a new LP. Maybe I’ll try just closing and then opening the program for each LP side I record. Also, I can’t think of any changes made to my equipment.
What’s interesting is that early on, I’ve probably recorded 30-40 complete vinyl LP’s without a problem. Now this minor annoyance cropped up. I guess I’ll keep experimenting.
This condition occurred again. It was really noticeable between tracks; it sounded like a really bad pressing.
I clicked the “stop” button and then quickly clicked the “record” button again. The noise went away. I then re-recorded the album side with no issues.
I don’t have another A to D converter so i can’t rule out the NAD PP3i as the culprit. I’m quite sure it isn’t the turntable. Until another version comes out and I can un-install and then re-install/upgrade to a newer version I guess I’ll just live with it. And I’ll quit harping on it, unless someone else experiences the same issues.
USB is not always completely reliable. Sometimes the data can “loose sync” and then the data becomes corrupted, which can cause noise. It is more common for such noise to be “full scale” noise, which is definitely “overwhelming”, though there can probably be less severe cases.
I have heard distortion when I started ripping, not severe distortion but certainly audible, just like sibilance. Not knowing what to do I just pressed Audacity Stop followed by Record and the sibilance disappeared. I do not know what this says.
and quite a lot more. In essence I think we are experiencing the same problem
I started a record and started Audacity. I noticed noise on the lead-in groove, similar to an old record that may have dust damage.
I hit “pause” and then unpaused it. No change.
I then hit “stop” and quickly then “record” again. The noise was gone.
I read the other posts in this thread. I am by no means, an expert here. So I’d like to ask people who know more than I do;
Is it possible that a cable might be at fault even though I am not touching any of the connections? I am not using a USB hub.
Is it possible that the NAD PP3i is glitching out? I would not think so as the equipment beyond the computer does not know what the software is doing (I think).
Again, the noise is not overpowering, just unacceptable, of course.
What baffles me is, I probably recorded 30-40 records before this condition occurred. And, I may be wrong but it seemed to start when I upgraded to 2.0.1. I uninstalled it and I’m using 2.0.0.
As always, comments ad suggestions are welcomed. (I’m recording a disc as I type this, working good).
That’s not impossible.
If any of your leads are old, check that the connections are clean, shiny, generally in good condition and securely connected.Just a very small amount of corrosion can cause intermittent faults that are hard to track down.
