I have just purchased Amos turntables AM27805 and have installed Audacity software, 1.3.9 Beta (unicode). I have Windows 10. I am trying to do my first recording, but so far it has been rather frustrating.
I don’t really know what you mean by .exe installer, but it came on a disk with my turntable.
The user guide (p7)tells me to plug in my turntable to the mains and then to connect to my pc via the USB port-but the turntable only has only one port, so I assume that this means that I connect the turntable to my pc and to the mains from my pc?
When I click on edit in Audacity as instructed the preferences that comes up looks nothing like that in my guide.
For Playback Device instead of SoundMax Digital Audio I have 2 options - NME and Windows Direct Sound
For Recording Device instead of USB Audio CODEC I have 3 options- Speakers (USB PnP Audio Device), Microsoft Sound Mapper-Output and Speakers (Realtek High Definition)
There is no Software Playthrough tickbox option on the dialogue box that comes up with my software (as in the guide)
Not surprisingly I haven’t been able to get very far…
Sorry, but as it says in the pink panel at the top of the page, 1.3.x versions of Audacity are obsolete. We no longer offer technical support for them.
To be sure Audacity is seeing the turntable, make sure it is connected via the USB cable to the computer, and plugged into the mains, then restart Audacity. You will always have to connect the turntable first and then start Audacity, so Audacity sees the turntable.
After restarting Audacity, look in the Recording Devices box of Device Toolbar and choose the USB Audio CODEC for the turntable (it will be called USB ).
Look in the Playback Devices box of Device Toolbar and choose the Speakers (Realtek High Definition) as the playback device. That is your computer speakers.
Use Audacity 2.1.1 then there is Transport > Software Playthrough you can click on.
Windows 10. Audacity 2.1.1- downloaded from the link you provided
Thank you for your prompt and helpful reply.
I uninstalled the Audacity software that came with my Amos turntable and I have updated my version of Audacity, but I am still unable to proceed.
When I connect my turntable to the pc via the USB port and play a record and then open Audacity I get an ’ Error Initialising Audio/ Internal Port Error message before Audacity opens.
The drop down menus within preferences are now completely blank. MNE etc are all gone.
I’m still confused about the connection. The turntable can draw power from the mains or from the pc via the USB, but both utilise the only USB port. The Amos guide says plug the turntable into the mains and then connect to the USB on the computer but this is impossible without a second port…
I appreciate your help, I’m really keen to start transferring my analogue collection onto digital.
OK. Audacity’s support for Windows 10 is subject to all connected audio devices having proper Windows 10 drivers intended for those exact devices. Due to some interaction with Windows 10, Audacity 2.1.1 usually cannot see any devices, even if only one of the connected devices is not properly compatible with Windows 10.
Older versions of Audacity are less fickle about recognising devices on Windows 10 in this situation, but you still need the most appropriate drivers if possible because without them audio may not play or record properly.
Did you upgrade to Windows 10 on the same machine over a previous Windows version? If so, it is probably the built-in (motherboard) audio that is causing Audacity to find no devices.
What I would suggest is disconnecting the USB turntable from the computer, hold the WIN key on your keyboard and press X, then choose “Restart”. If Audacity sees the computer audio device when it restarts, exit Audacity, connect the turntable and make sure Windows sees it on the Recording tab of Windows Sound.
If the turntable is not shown as Default Device in Windows Sound, right-click over it and make it default device.
Now don’t launch Audacity, but WIN + X and restart as before.
There is a small chance Audacity will now see the computer motherboard device and the turntable, if it saw the computer sound device when the turntable was not connected.
If Audacity still found no devices after the first restart (when the turntable was disconnected) then you can try following http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Windows_10_OS#drivers to look for Windows 10 audio drivers for your computer. As that page says, start by looking on the web site of your computer or motherboard manufacturer.
If all else fails, you can probably use Audacity 2.0.3 instead from http://www.oldfoss.com/Audacity.html. We can help you with that version. It will be much less buggy than 1.3.9.
I have never had a USB turntable myself where the platter would run on just USB power. If you are curious you can try it as an experiment. If it is intended to work, it only needs one USB cable. For example a typical USB portable sound card is powered from the computer USB cable only, but can still send and receive audio over that cable.
Even if driving the turntable from USB power works, that may be produce noisier recordings than using mains power.