I am using Windows XP with Audacity 2.1.2, when I record, the waveform looks like attachment 1, just a thin line.
I realise I can increase the size of the waveform, post recording with the vertical scale, but I want the waveform to look like the second attachment when it records.
I have my microphone set at maximum, but I still get a thin waveform, can I set the vertical scale in preferences? I have looked but cannot see any settimgs to do this.
An ideal height when recording is like this:
This allows a bit of space in case there are any unexpectedly high peaks, which is important because “overshooting” causes permanent damage that can’t be fully repaired.
What sort of microphone and how is it connected to the computer?
What are you recording?
I am using a shure microphone connected to a Phonic A220 mixer ( gain and main are high), with jack cable coming from main out on the mixer to a laptop computer mic in socket
Which one?
I can’t find that model. Do you mean “AM220”?
Is your mic plugged into one of the big 3 pin “XLR” sockets?
What level are you getting on the mixer? Does it get up into the yellow?
Sorry, yes AM220
The level is just below yellow as shown in image
with jack cable coming from main out on the mixer to a laptop computer mic in socket
This is a problem, but not “the” problem. 
The microphone input is “wrong”.
The line-level output form the mixer is about 100 times stronger than a microphone signal and it should go into a line-input, not a mic input. Line inputs are standard on regular soundcards in desktop/tower computers but rare on laptops. I’d expect the signal to be “too hot”…
And, stage/studio microphones (with a balanced XLR connection) are not properly-compatible with the mic-input on a soundcard or laptop, so bypassing the mixer isn’t “correct” either. Plus, the mic preamp on a soundcard/laptop is usually poor quality.
You either need a USB audio interface with a line-input (such as the Berhinger UCA202) or you can get a higher end audio interface with “proper” XLR microphone inputs, or a mixer with a USB port will also work.
If your computer has a separate mic input, your mixer should “work” but you won’t get the best quality. If you have a combination mic/headphone connector you need a [u]TRRS adapter[/u] to make the microphone (input) connection and to split-out the mic & headphone connections. (A regular headphone will work with the combo jack, but a regular mic won’t.)
Thanks for your advice and your help, but a few weeks ago the recording waveform on audacity was perfect and even now the recording is good enough for what I want, so if I tap the 0 on the audacity vertical scale it opens up similar to the first image in my first post.
So what I was asking was, is there some setting in Audacity by which I can pre set the vertical scale so that it opens up to a full wave on recording, I cannot find this in the manual?
What level are you getting here? Are you getting up to the yellow LED?
So what I was asking was, is there some setting in Audacity by which I can pre set the vertical scale so that it opens up to a full wave on recording, I cannot find this in the manual?
If you see numbers on the scale, the default is 1.0 on the top and -1.0 on the bottom like you see in Steve’s image. (These numbers correspond to “100%” or 0dB.)
If that’s not what you are seeing, right-click on that scale and you can change the zoom.
I wasnt getting any light level there, but if I push the gain up of course I get -20 but distortion on the record
I have solved my problem, by working on the mixer controls, but when I quit audacity and reload, it loses my setup.
I made a backup of the .cfg file. but how do I set audacity so that it opens with my settings?
Do you mean these ones?
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/mixer_toolbar.html
They’re tied to control in the Windows mixer.
for some reason it lost the audio mic input and had defaukted to audio CD so I reset it and now it holds the settings.
Thanks all for your help, I seem to be all fixed now