Playback volume meter only works when slider at 1.00

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Playback volume meter only works when volume slider is at 1.00. If the volume slider is 0.99 or less then the volume meter is not active at all.

Win 8.1
Audacity 2.1.0 AND 2.1.1 Alpha (June 24th)
Attached is the zip file.

I have looked thru the forum and release notes but I can’t see anything. If there is then I’m looking for the wrong terminology.

Thanks in advance.

PS. I use Audacity very little, but am starting to do vinyl conversions where it might help.

Best
Audacity.zip (8.51 KB)

2

What playback device are you using? We can’t see because you were playing or paused when you generated the support data, so your audiodev.txt says “Stream is active … unable to gather information”. You can provide us that information more simply by pressing the yellow Stop button then choosing Help > Audio Device Info… .

When the Audacity playback slider is on 0.99, is the Windows slider for that playback device on 99?

You could play the track in Audacity then left-click the speaker icon by the system clock and click “Mixer”. In the Volume Mixer window, make sure the Audacity volume slider is turned up.

If that is not the problem then it could be that your drivers are incorrect for whatever playback device you are using. See Updating Sound Device Drivers.

I will just add here that the Audacity playback meter is only for mixing purposes - the meter is not affected by how high or low the Audacity volume slider is or whether you can hear the audio.


Gale

3

Thanks for reply. I think you’ve prodded me enough to sort this out.

Using NVIDIA playback thru DFX into a HDMI monitor (I know - not exactly studio). What I found was the Interface Host was set to MME and when I changed to WASAPI it behaved correctly. When I used Win DirectSound it seems to behave too. I was expecting the playback volume slider to be reflected in the VU meters, but your last sentence put me straight there.

Attached is my Audio Device Info (FWIW).

You certainly directed me to get this sorted and I need to get more acquainted with the interface (and my hardware).

Gale, thanks so much. I look forward to getting some vinyl converted as well as trying Audacity for some technical video (recording the audio for the video).
AudioDeviceInfo.txt (11.3 KB)

4

OK. MME is the oldest and original Windows audio API, most compatible with old devices or devices using generic drivers. It would not be surprising if MME did not fully behave with the DFX device (or with the NVIDIA output if you were using that directly).


Gale