Recording appears to use laptop microphone and not line-in

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Windows 10, Audicity 2.1.1, Audacity installed by the exe

I have not used Audacity for some time and now want to use it again. I have changed my laptop - the old one ran Windows Vista with Audacity 2.0.6. With that, when I connected my hifi via the headphones jack to the line-in, it all went smoothly. With my new laptop when I do the same, Audacity does record, but… it is using the external mic and not the line-in. All noise including the music from the hifi speakers is recorded. This suggests to me the problem is with the connection, but I am not sure why it was working but is not now…

I am sure that I read on the Audacity site about using a USB connector from the hifi (though I cannot now find reference to it on the site!) that had jacks at the other end of the cable. And this should be used rather than the headphones out port. But if i were able to get such a cable, what ports on the hifi would it connect to? the only OUT ports are labelled PRE & TAPE.

I dd try to find similar posts on the forum but failed. Apologiees if there is already a stream of answers on this…

2

It’s a pretty common problem. I wrote a thing about this. Since I wrote that, the two connections, Mic-In and Headphone-Out have shrunk to one Headset connection. Same problem.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/LaptopMicIn.pdf

It’s not strictly an adapter cable. Chances are good you have no stereo line-in to adapt to, so you have to make one. Once connected, start Audacity (in that order) and switch to the Behringer with the Device Toolbar.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/device_toolbar.html

It should appear as “USB Audio CODEC.” Start Audacity after you have everything connected.

Koz

3

You can continue to use the headphone connection on the music system. That’s how I record my keyboard.
Koz

4

Thanks Koz. I will give it a go, once I have tracked down a USB adapter :slight_smile: , & let you know how I get on.

Cheers

5

Be careful not to bottom feed too much. Super cheap USB adapters as illustrated in the post are typically duplicates of the laptop connections you already have and can have noise problems where USB data leaks into the sound.

Koz

6

Koz,
Have finally got round to trying the USB adapter (I did get the Behringer UCA-202) and all is good - I can now finish off transferring my vinyl.

Thanks for the advice.

Happy New Year!! :smiley:

Cheers

7

Koz,

It was actually the UFO202 model I have bought - it looks to be very good.

Cheers