Hi – I am having problems with Audacity not recognising my USB record source input in that it isn’t showing on the tool bar as an option. I can’t tell if this is this is due to a setting/feature in Audacity or with my Operating system.
Details :
Toshiba Satellite L750- 1E5 ab top with Windows 7 operating system
The external source is a DJ mixer with USB connectivity ( Rane MP2015 Mixer)
I am using Audacity 2.1.2
There is a disc that came with the mixer that allows you to download the Rane control panel & associated ASIO drivers – this has been installed correctly.
The Rane mixer shows at the bottom of Control Panel – Hardware & Sound – Devices & Printers, so I know the USB connection is working and windows recognises it in some sense. However the USB Mic option does not show in Control Panel – Hardware & Sound – Manage Audio Devices – Recording (show disabled/sisconnected devices box is ticked) which I assume is why audacity is not picking it up ?
I know there was some recoding issues notes on the audacitywiki page but I don’t think this covers the above.
Any ideas ?
I can record via the mic/line in from a session out on the mixer but I finding issues with the quality so would like option of USB mic connection.
By default, Audacity does not support ASIO. ASIO support requires building Audacity from the source code using the ASIO SDK from Steinberg. The ASIO SDK is not open source, so we’re not allowed (under the license terms) to distribute it. “Most” audio hardware has at least basic functionality using Windows (WDM) drivers, and these are what Audacity uses.
Does the disk also contain WDM drivers? If it does, ensure that they are correctly installed.
If the device is disabled in Windows, then Audacity will not be able to use it.
If the correct WDM drivers are installed for the device, then it should be possible to enable it.
If anything is accessing the device via ASIO, then the device will probably be unavailable, because ASIO is intended to take exclusive control of the device.
Try rebooting your computer, don’t start any audio applications, but go directly to the Windows Sound Control Panel and see if you can enable the device. If you can enable the device, launch Audacity and Audacity should be able to see it, in which case you will be able to select it in the device toolbar. Note that the device should be enabled before you start Audacity.
It looks like it won’t work with the standard version of Audacity… You may need an ASIO application…
The USB ports are 100% class compliant, allowing hook-up to any Mac OS X device without the need for an additional driver.
The included high-performance ASIO driver runs most Windows DAW and DJ software. Get it from the Downloads tab on this page.
Audacity on a Mac should work.
I can record via the mic/line in from a session out on the mixer but I finding issues with the quality so would like option of USB mic connection.
Line-out from the mixer should work acceptably to line-in on a regular desktop/tower soundcard. If you have a laptop with only mic-in, you could use a USB audio interface (the Behringer UCA202 is small and inexpensive).
Note: There is a “universal” ASIO driver called ASIO4ALL. But, it will NOT help in this situation. It allows non-ASIO hardware to work with ASIO applications but it doesn’t work with non-ASIO applications.
The guys at Rane have stated they find no problems using audacity with this mixer but they are perhaps/probably using MAC’s. I’ve also asked them about the WDM drivers.
I have also checked out the Behringer option suggested and that looks suitable and gets good reviews. Only £22 as well so may go down this route as this will also allow me S/PDIF options.
I ‘think’ my lab top mic also operates as a line in also but not 100% sure. It doesn’t state in the manual. My lab top is almost certainly the weakest link in the audio chain anyway so coming round to the idea of another audio interface!